The country’s population was 142,008,838 as of January 1, 2008, showed the data that Russia’s Statistics Committee promulgated yesterday. Of that number, 73.08 percent lived in the cities and towns, and the villages had to confine to remainder.
Photo: Sergey Mikheev
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Cities Ripening in South Russia
The country's population was 142,008,838 as of January 1, 2008, showed the data that Russia's Statistics Committee promulgated yesterday. Of that number, 73.08 percent lived in the cities and towns.
The North-West Federal District posted the greatest share of urban population in 2007 - 82.3 percent, or 9.3 percent above the country’s average, while the South had the lowest percent (57). Just 13.5 million live in the North-West District.
The southern Russia is the home to nearly 23 million, and the number of residents is continuously going up there contrary to the general trend in the better part of the country. The farming type of settling is more peculiar to the South than to the North. The South District unites the Northern Caucasus republics, where the birth rate is traditionally higher than in Russia on average.
But the South District will probably go through the booming urbanization in the nearest decade. One address is known – The Big Sochi. This area is doomed to turn into a megacity and the National Olympic Project gives a chance that its development will take a route of a modern city with normal infrastructure keeping pace with the population growth and the surge in business activities.
But it could be the other way round if the economic advance slows down and the money flow dries out. Then, in the relatively poor southern regions of the country, the growth in cities will follow the Latin America’s pattern with its slums, criminalization, disintegrating infrastructure, mass migration of the relatively educated and economically active population to other parts of the country. The inland migration from southern Russia to other regions and cities hasn’t gained momentum so far.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 27, 2008
|
|
|
