Russian Government has ‘Buried’ Plan to Rely on Megalopolis Strategy, Delyagin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 26 – For more than a decade, a debate has been taking place in the Russian Federation between those who believe that country’s future should be based on developing a political system based on a network of large cities and those who favor the existing system of federal subjects.

            Within each group, there has been an enormous range of opinions, with advocates of the megalopolis approach sometimes viewing it as a kind of regional amalgamation lite that will allow Moscow to destroy the non-Russian republics and those supporting the existing system as the only way to protect both democracy and ethnic rights.

            But now, Moscow commentator Mikhail Delyagin argues, the Russian government has finally “buried” what he calls “a liberal strategy of driving Russia into megalopolises” by announcing that it will focus instead on developing smaller cities, many of which are increasingly hard pressed to survive (izborsk-club.ru/27258).

            The Izborsky Club member is certainly correct that the Russian government has announced a large-scale project to save Russia’s mid-sized cities; but it remains unclear whether that project will be carried out or even if it will be sufficient to reverse the predicted demise of these urban centers. (On their problems, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/08/nearly-130-mid-sized-russian-cities.html.)

            Thus, while the Russian government plan to save small and mid-sized cities will be popular with local elites and especially with non-Russians who feared the agglomeration program would result in the elimination of their republics, there are real doubts that this program will slow the growth of larger cities and thus end calls for relying on them instead.