Russia is developing a new General Scheme for Population Distribution. Despite the grand pronouncements, the document rather records the country's deep demographic and spatial problems than offers realistic solutions. This was reported by the Foreign Intelligence Service, writes UNN.
The key emphasis is placed on prioritizing individual housing construction and the "revival" of liquidated and abandoned rural settlements. It is assumed that the demand for individual housing construction will allegedly be able to revitalize territories with sparse populations and a lack of basic infrastructure. However, the idea seems dubious: life in villages with 10-15 residents without access to medicine, education, and services is unlikely to become an attractive alternative to cities.
For the North-Western Federal District and central Russia, "population dispersal" and the development of transport connectivity are declared. In fact, it is an attempt to reduce the consequences of the hyper-concentration of resources in Moscow and St. Petersburg – a problem that Russia itself created. At the same time, the issue of jobs remains unanswered: to compete with agglomerations, they must be massive and well-paid, which the Russian economy is unable to provide.
Separate regional "development axes" – from Novosibirsk to Irkutsk or "Greater Vladivostok" – are again accompanied by abstract mentions of "modern, including space, technologies," without explaining the practical meaning. At the same time, cities like Khabarovsk are practically ignored, which only emphasizes the selectivity and political opportunism of the planning.
In the end, the new settlement scheme looks not like a development strategy, but like an attempt to administratively mask depopulation, the decline of the periphery, and growing inequality between a few " опорними" centers and the rest of the country.