Directed suburbanization in a changing context: “New Moscow” today

The territories of “New Moscow,” were annexed 1 July 2012, a move that more than doubled the size of the Russian capital. The federal and city governments were supposed to move to New Moscow, which was meant to be in the avant-garde of twenty-first century urban design. However, soon New Moscow’s role was reduced to helping to make Greater Moscow more “livable” and channeling growth to the southwest. The present study sketches the historical background and current context of New Moscow, identifies the main factors shaping the pattern of growth, and provides an empirically-based investigation of current trajectories of change “on the ground;” i.e. with respect to population distribution, housing, commuting, land use, and the environment. The goals of this paper are to assess the extent to which directed suburbanization in New Moscow represents a radical departure from the past and to gauge its contribution to the effort to make the Moscow agglomeration more livable.