Rolling Back Russia's Spatial Disparities: Re-assembling the Soviet Jigsaw Under a Market Economy

doi:10.1596/29866

Publication:
Rolling Back Russia's Spatial Disparities: Re-assembling the Soviet Jigsaw Under a Market Economy

dc.contributor.author	World Bank
dc.date.accessioned	2018-06-06T16:07:52Z
dc.date.available	2018-06-06T16:07:52Z
dc.date.issued	2018-05
dc.description.abstract	Russia’s spatial disparities stem largely from its economic geography, which is unique and has no parallels even when compared to seemingly similar countries such as Australia and Canada. While Australia and Canada also have large land masses and even lower population densities than Russia, a large share of their populations live near the border or the sea. In contrast, Russia’s people are more dispersed inland. Moreover, the populations of Australia and Canada are concentrated in major cities: more than two-thirds of their populations live in the three largest urban centers. On the other hand, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod are home to only one-eighth of Russia’s population. Combined with its population decline, an aging workforce, and having to constantly adapt to a sequence of economic shocks, Russia’s unique economic geography has therefore led to a spatial pattern of development counter to what is observed in other large countries. What explains Russia’s unique economic geography and its spatial disparities? A cocktail of three factors is useful for answering this question: (i) a persistent Soviet legacy; (ii) a diverse physical geography laced with harsh climactic conditions; and (iii) a dominance of natural resources (mostly oil/gas) in peripheral regions. The Soviet legacy of a planned economy remains a burden for regions. One indicator of this persistent legacy can be seen in the ongoing socio-economic challenges facing Soviet-era industrial monotowns. Today, 319 settlements in Russia are legally identified as monotowns, with 94 classified as monotowns with a high level of socio-economic deprivation. This is despite them remaining a target of many support programs implemented by the federal government. Geography and climactic conditions do not help the situation. Russia accounts for 42 percent of the world’s land mass but its population is less than 1.9 percent of the world’s population. In addition, its extreme winter weather greatly impairs transportation services (built on continuous permafrost, Yakutsk is the coldest major city in the world, recording temperatures as low as minus 64.4°C). A sequence of shocks that hit the country over the last 25 years and the boom in the oil industry created rapid growth in peripheral, oil-rich regions. But other regions have been stymied by the persistence of structural constraints: an industrial legacy, population decline, and an aging population.	en
dc.identifier	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/283561528098640490/Rolling-back-Russias-spatial-disparities-re-assembling-the-Soviet-Jigsaw-under-a-market-economy
dc.identifier.doi	10.1596/29866
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10986/29866
dc.language	English
dc.publisher	Washington, DC: World Bank
dc.rights	CC BY 3.0 IGO
dc.rights.holder	World Bank
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo
dc.subject	SPATIAL DISPARITY
dc.subject	POVERTY
dc.subject	INEQUALITY
dc.subject	REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
dc.subject	LABOR MARKETS
dc.subject	TRANSPORT
dc.title	Rolling Back Russia's Spatial Disparities	en
dc.title.subtitle	Re-assembling the Soviet Jigsaw Under a Market Economy	en
dspace.entity.type	Publication
okr.crossref.title	Rolling Back Russia's Spatial Disparities
okr.date.disclosure	2018-06-04
okr.doctype	Publications & Research::Working Paper
okr.doctype	Publications & Research
okr.docurl	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/283561528098640490/Rolling-back-Russias-spatial-disparities-re-assembling-the-Soviet-Jigsaw-under-a-market-economy
okr.guid	708911528099174034
okr.guid	283561528098640490
okr.identifier.doi	10.1596/29866
okr.identifier.externaldocumentum	090224b0865ac632_2_0
okr.identifier.internaldocumentum	29953895
okr.identifier.report	126805
okr.imported	true	en
okr.language.supported	en
okr.pdfurl	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/283561528098640490/pdf/126805-WP-WBrollingback-PUBLIC.pdf	en
okr.region.administrative	Europe and Central Asia
okr.region.country	Russian Federation
okr.topic	Poverty Reduction::Inequality
okr.topic	Transport::Transport Economics Policy and Planning
okr.topic	Macroeconomics and Economic Growth::Regional Economic Development
okr.topic	Energy::Energy Policies & Economics
okr.topic	Macroeconomics and Economic Growth::Spatial and Local Economic Development
okr.topic	Urban Development::National Urban Development Policies & Strategies
okr.unit	Europe and Central Asia 2 (GMTE2)