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Abstract

Did the socialist experiment disrupt continuity in Russian urban housing? Based on a unique collection of urban data covering several hundred Russian cities and spanning three regimes across more than a century, this paper gives a nuanced account of continuities and discontinuities of housing in post-Soviet cities. Three main housing characteristics are analysed: urban density (persons per building and living space per capita), ownership structure and the modernisation of stock (building material and provision with amenities). Although all Russian cities underwent a number of major shocks and regime changes during the course of the 20th century, their rankings with regard to these three key housing characteristics are still significantly correlated over time, whereas living space per capita is largely uncorrelated over time. This holds true despite significant convergence processes in almost all dimensions and also when including contemporary control variables. We hypothesise that local or regional building traditions, regional differentiation in Soviet urban planning as well as Soviet land use specificities could explain differential growth across cities. Going beyond existing late-Soviet-legacy timeframes, the long-term perspective reveals that even major regime shocks did not completely erase regionally shaped patterns in housing conditions.

社会主义实验破坏了俄罗斯城市住房的连续性吗？本文基于一个独特的城市数据集（涵盖数百个俄罗斯城市，跨越一个多世纪的三个政权），给出了后苏联时代城市住房的连续性和不连续性的细致描述。我们对三个主要住房特征进行了分析：城市密度(建筑人口密度和人均居住面积)、所有权结构和材料现代化(建筑材料和便利设施的提供)。尽管所有俄罗斯城市在20世纪都经历了一系列重大冲击和政权更迭，但在长期中，它们在这三个关键住房特征方面的排名仍然显著相关，而人均居住面积在长期中基本上不相关。尽管在几乎所有维度上都有显著的收敛过程，但这一点仍然成立，并且在包括当代控制变量时也是如此。我们假设，地方或区域建筑传统、苏联城市规划中的区域差异以及苏联土地使用的特殊性可以解释不同城市之间的差异增长。当我们超越现有的前苏联遗留的时间框架并且从长远的角度来看问题，我们发现，即使是重大的政权冲击也不能完全抹去住房条件中的区域性规律。