Сomparative Urban Studies on Russia and in Russia

• In Event: Geography and Geographical Thought on Postimperial Spaces

Abstract

Urban studies in Russia, by virtue of its constant falling between the cracks of existing disciplinary organization, cannot boast impressive comparative research. Yet once one recalls that the penchant for comparing “before” and “after”, and “us” and “them” in this country’s history has been quite strong, then the possibility that links exist between the global urban comparative agenda and urban studies in Russia becomes more apparent, and examination of the shape of any such affinity between the two becomes salient. What other cities are Russian cities compared to in the literature? What are the reference cases for comparison and what are the frames of reference? On what issues are they compared? How are they described? What theories, if any, are used? In an attempt to answer these questions, I will consider both Anglophone and Russophone literature to trace a set of interrelated trends that characterize historic and current scholarly approaches to urban development in Russia. These include reflections on the influence of both Soviet planning and the transition period on urban trajectories, and the different modes of comparisons undertaken by geographers and sociologists.

Author

• Elena Trubina, UNC at Chapel Hill