Novye Issledovaniâ Tuvy (Dec 2018)
Transformation of urban settlement in the national republics of southern Siberia in the mid-20th to early 21st century
Abstract
The article actualizes the problem of uneven distribution of the population between the capital cities, on the one hand, and territories remote from the regional centers, on the other. The author posits that the existing classifications of urban development levels in Russia’s regions do not account for the ethnic (“national”, “natsionalnye”) subjects of the federation and do not present a true picture of their urban development. In order to understand the existing trends of urbanization in the national republics of Southern Siberia (Altai, Tuva and Khakassia), it is necessary to follow the changes in urban settlement trends for at least the last half century of their history. The year 1945 was chosen as the lower chronological boundary and the beginning of a relatively stable period in the history of Russia after the end of the Great Patriotic War. The choice of the chronological framework was also informed by the accession of the Tuvan autonomous region into the USSR in 1944. The author identified several features of the urban population of these republics in the context of various settlement types: urban-type townships, small, medium and large cities. The main factors that significantly influenced the revolution of urban systems in the regions have been found to include industrial development, migration, natural population increase/decrease, administrative changes and the urban standard of living. Analyzing and systematizing historical and statistical materials allowed us to suggest a new periodization of the development of urbanization in South Siberia based on the dynamics of the territorial distribution of the urban population. The research showed that many urban settlements in the region, with rare exceptions, are in a state of crisis nowadays. The situation is further complicated by a number of unresolved social issues in these localities, such as the “single economic profile” of the town, the housing crisis, as well as environmental and infrastructural problems.
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