ransactions

of the Institute of British Geographers

The political economy of place at the

post-socialist urban periphery: governing
growth on the edge of Moscow
Oleg Golubchikov* and Nicholas A Phelps**
What economic and policy conditions and power relations govern the transformation of
the metropolitan periphery in post-socialist nations and to what extent do these converge on those observed in similar locations in the United States and Western Europe?
Drawing on original empirical research conducted on location, we consider the case
of the rapidly growing city of Khimki at the edge of Moscow in order to expose the
post-Soviet variety of the political economy of place on the metropolitan periphery. We
analyse both a broader institutional context of post-socialist urbanisation (ideology of
transition, Soviet legacy, urban planning, relationships between stakeholders) and more
specific aspects of local growth and placemaking in Khimki. Superficially, recent development in Khimki includes elements that resemble those apparent in edge cities in the
liberal market economies and even appear to be promoted by a post-socialist variety of
growth machine politics. On closer inspection, however, the post-socialist local growth
regime operates as specific political-bureaucratic processes that question the relevance
of the Western understanding of place-centred coalitions as the key elements of a political economy of place. Accumulation strategies in the post-socialist case are found to be
less cartelised and localised than in the West and seen to be largely decoupled from
any collective placemaking or growth agendas. We argue for the need to de-emphasise
the word place and to accentuate the word political in notions of a political economy
of place when speaking of the post-socialist metropolitan periphery.
key words
city-region

growth machine
Russia

placemaking

transition

edge city

Moscow

*School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15
2TT
email: oleg.golubchikov@chch.oxon.org
**Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, London WC1H 0QB

revised manuscript received 13 September 2010

Introduction
It has long been argued that the logic of socialist
urbanisation in Eastern Europe produced a somewhat different type of city from those in Western
regimes (Andrusz et al. 1996; Bater 1980). It is little
surprise, then, that the introduction of the market
economy resulted in a flood of new urban processes
that have been rapidly changing the function and
morphology of post-socialist cities. This has been
apparent in the likes of gentrification, redevelopment, the rise of central business districts (CBDs),

and a rapid pace of commodification of urban space

within the cores of major cities (Badyina and
Golubchikov 2005; Enyedi and Kovacs 2006), but is
perhaps most conspicuous at the post-socialist
metropolitan periphery because of the sheer scale of
land use change resulting from suburbanisation
(Boren and Gentile 2007, 103; Golubchikov 2004,
233). As a result, many scholars have pointed to a
growing degree of convergence in the form of urbanisation in post-socialist and liberal market economies
of the West, including at the metropolitan periphery
(Nuissl and Rink 2005; Rudolph and Brade 2005).

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011

ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

Oleg Golubchikov and Nicholas A Phelps

426

There is, however, less agreement whether the

underlying institutional processes and constellations
of actors driving urbanisation similarly converge.
Rudolph and Brade, speaking of the peripheral
metropolitan context of Moscow, argue that universal economic mechanisms and strategies with
global effects (2005, 148) may be at work. Some
other scholars, however, pointing to local cultural
contingencies and uncertainties surrounding transition, argue that urban forms similar to Western cities are in fact being produced through a different
urban political dynamics, even if they are marked
by a similar entrepreneurialisation of governance
(Tas an-Kok 2006). Yet others find the concept of
the growth machine as originally developed in
the United States (US) context to describe how local
coalitions of private and public interests come to
exploit the local city as a means of speculative
growth (Logan and Molotch 1987; Molotch 1976)
to offer some of the best explanations of the entrepreneurial character of post-socialist urban change
(Kulcsar and Domokos 2005). This latter argument,
then, raises questions such as whether processes of
post-socialist urban change have evolved to
become more similar to the US style than to that of
Western Europe. Indeed, the concepts of growth
machine and urban regimes are considered to be
less applicable to the European setting (Harding
1994; Ward 1996; Wood 2004), where the fuller
role of the state, the lesser role of business interests
and significant grass-roots politics have offered up
deeper and varied instances of productive placeshaping strategies, including at the metropolitan
periphery (Phelps et al. 2006).
In this paper, we want to further advance the
discussion of the post-socialist political economy of
place, building on a case of the metropolitan
periphery that demonstrates some elements of
urbanisation similar to those observed in comparable locations in the US and Western Europe. A
political economy of place is understood here as
the geometries of social and power relations that
underpin the processes of local social and economic change, especially as manifested in transformations of the built environment. Although we
cannot articulate all aspects of these social relations
here, we attempt to explore the ideology, strategy
and practice of development and placemaking of
urban areas at the metropolitan periphery. We consider the post-socialist case in a comparative context, as set against the dominant models of the
politics of place in the US and Western Europe. We

believe that the articulation of similarities and

differences in this respect not only contributes to a
better understanding of the processes of postsocialist urbanism (Boren and Gentile 2007), but
also to that of the spaces of global (post)suburbia
(Harris 2011; Phelps et al. 2010), while opening the
ground for more nuanced and inclusive conceptualisations in urban political economy more generally.
Such a quest is bound to rely on a combination
of both general and empirical insights. At a more
general level of analysis, we discuss the following
elements underlying the processes and patterns of
post-socialist urbanisation:

the politico-economic and ideological context of

transition
the relevance of the Soviet cultural and material legacies
the role of urban planning and
vested interests in urban development practices
and relationships between them.

In terms of our empirical grounding, we consider

the periphery of Moscow based on the case of
Khimki (Figure 1). Khimki is singled out because it
presents itself as the emblematic case of recent,
rapid and large-scale urban development, which
has seen the emergence of post-suburban forms
similar to those in the West. What was formerly an
off-limits satellite city near Moscow serving the
requirements of the Soviet militaryindustrial complex has become a rapidly developing area featuring many new retail and office developments, as
well as housing projects. As such, it serves as an
excellent case study to consider complex phenomena in context (Yin 1989) the context of postsocialist transition involving strong international
convergence in the economic complexion of places,
on the one hand, while exhibiting processes of
political and ideological change that remain unique
to a geographical sub-set of nations on the other
hand. Khimki might be regarded as an instance of
what Burawoy describes as the extended case
study method that looks for specific macro determination in the micro world and thereby seeks
generalization through reconstructing existing generalizations (1991, 279).
The paper draws on secondary empirical material, such as planning documents and economic
development reports, as well as original empirical
material collected during two intensive periods of
fieldwork in summer and autumn 2008, which

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011

ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

Political economy of place at the post-socialist urban periphery

427

Figure 1 The location of the Urban District of Khimki

Note: Territory belonging to the city of Moscow is marked in white
Source: Drawn by authors based on data from OpenStreetMap

involved 50 semi-structured interviews. The body

of interview material collected inevitably reflected
some of the serendipity that results from snowballing, with some actors well-represented (notably
the development community and local and regional
government) and others less so (civic and environmental groups and the general public). Nevertheless, our informants included local officers in
Khimki, planning and development supervision
bodies at the Moscow Oblast regional level, Federal
authorities responsible for urban development,
land use and housing, private developers, real
estate and other relevant businesses, chambers of
commerce, academic experts, as well as representatives of local environmental groups concerned with
the preservation of green areas and resident antidevelopment campaigners. We draw on observations and use some quotations from these interview
sources, the majority of which were conducted in
Russian (and translated by us into English) and
some in English.
The paper is structured as follows. In the next
section we start by discussing to what extent the

transition to the market economy reorients the

functioning of institutions versus the persistence of
pre-transition elements. We then introduce the processes of urbanisation and urban change on the
periphery of Moscow. We continue discussing the
case of Khimki in light of the edge city and growth
machine literature. First, we highlight some similarities between growth in Khimki and the patterns
typical to the suburban growth machine. Second,
we consider the role of the post-Soviet institution of
urban planning in the politics of place and local
placemaking. Third, we discuss in more detail the
politico-economic dynamic behind growth in
Khimki, its contradictions and limitations. We conclude with some further reassessments of the Russian case and the relevance of Western concepts in
the analysis of urban development at Moscows
burgeoning periphery. We argue in particular that
although the case of Khimki has some elements
characteristic of edge city and growth machine
style development, its growth is largely placeless,
because it is driven by initiatives and institutions
that are essentially disconnected from local-centred

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011

ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

428

politics and active placemaking. In this and some

other respects, the political dynamic of the postsocialist metropolitan periphery remains different
from that of many post-suburban locations in the
West, both in the US and European context,
although the persistency of this distinctiveness in
the longer term is less than clear.

Transition as convergence on the Western

model?
Transition can be viewed as one inescapable compulsion that, while having originated at the
national regulatory level, has transformed life and
circumstances in all cities of post-socialist societies
irrespective of the previous situations or aspirations in these cities. In Russia, as in other postsocialist countries, the appropriation of society by
capitalism has changed the very raison detre of
the city. Rather than being a socialist machine for
the propagation of communist ideology, of purposeful evolution to a fair and egalitarian society,
the post-socialist city has become a machine for the
celebration of profit-making, of private wealth, of
individualism, of the liberation of the self from
communal responsibilities and of the communal
responsibility from both caring for individual
selves and the necessity of building a better society
of tomorrow. The appearance and rhythm of cities
have changed accordingly.
However, the arrival of capitalism was neither
uniform, nor had uniform implications in space.
For a start, the intensity of the wind of change
has been asymmetric and asynchronic. Larger cities
and inner cities were first and foremost bearing the
signs of post-industrial transformation, tertiarisation and commercialisation (Bater et al. 1998). Moscow was a particular focus for such economic
restructuring, notably in its central areas (Badyina
and Golubchikov 2005; Kolossov and OLoughlin
2004). Eventually the processes of change have also
fallen on cities further down the urban hierarchy,
as well as peripheries of the larger cities (Rudolf
and Brade 2005). However, while urban corners are
being penetrated by propetisation and mercantile
urbanism, the capitalist logic of uneven development means that these changes hardly bring prosperity to all (Round and Williams 2010). As a
result, as in other parts of the post-socialist world
(Tsenkova and Nedovic-Budic 2006), Russian urban
experiences have been characterised by great diversification and fragmentation.

Oleg Golubchikov and Nicholas A Phelps

It is not only urban experiences that have seen a

fragmentation; the very teleological belief in a linear transition to the western model has been challenged following the diversity of transition
pathways instead of the triumph of a universal
capitalism (Klein and Pomer 2001; Pickles and
Smith 1998; Roland 2001). This is of course because
the wider forces of transition and globalisation
interplay not simply with a uniform societal mass,
but rather with thick and complex local institutional assemblages and material legacies. Each
post-socialist society is constituted of a complex
combination of phenomena, with each of these representing its very own format and speed of change.
This is not simply to mechanically distinguish
between fast-moving and slow-moving institutions as Roland (2004) does, nor between progress
and rigid path dependency as the neoliberal
orthodoxy now likes to explain many failures of its
policies. But if we unpack the local consensuses of
post-socialist societies for scrutiny, we will find
the contentious processes of institutional configurations and reconfigurations with old and new,
socialist, pre-socialist and post-socialist elements
coexisting, interplaying and conflicting with each
other where the old does not necessarily mean
regressive and where the new is not necessarily
progressive.
This complexity notwithstanding, all emerging
markets have very substantial ideological imprints
of neoliberalism (Harvey 2005; Peck and Tickell
2002). Transition has been part and parcel of neoliberalism. It is rooted in the neoliberal ideology
and is feeding this ideology. Thus, the idiosyncrasies of the post-socialist practices in no way imply
that these societies have opposed neoliberalism or
provided alternatives to it, but rather that they
have internalised neoliberalism to themselves
become one of its various mutations.
In Russia, in particular, the new post-Soviet
elites seemed happily subscribed to neoliberal
orthodoxy, requiring the market system to be created in a big bang rather than incrementally.
Here, as Nolan observed when comparing Russia
and China, there is a paradox that in the transition
from a planned economy, a central condition of
success is the ability of the state to plan effectively
(Nolan 1995, 4). The prevailing elitist visions in
Russia, however, were to break the planning of the
old system as fast as possible, no matter what
would follow. Such opinions are still widespread,
as reflected by one interviewee who complained

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011

ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

Political economy of place at the post-socialist urban periphery

about the market-perverse legacies of Soviet planning and development institutions:

Our mainstream strategy is to make a big step from a
regulated economy to a market economy. You cannot
do this in small steps but you must do it with a big
leap forward . . . otherwise you end up with the situation as in Moscow which is more or less like the Soviet
model of controlling and regulating development. (Deputy Director, Reforms in Real Estate, the Institute for
Urban Economics, Moscow, 25 August 2008)

And yet, while attempts were made to eradicate

Soviet-era institutions and not to merely adjust or
superstructure them based on their utility, Soviet
institutions have not been completely marginalised.
Rather, given the absence of alternative capacities
and experiences, the result has been their reincarnation in new forms, which, although now oriented
towards different ends and often bringing quite
opposite results than in the past, still do not quite
fulfil the neoliberal script either. Thus, the internalisation of the neoliberal doctrine has been
blended with the persistence of socialist elements,
which may now play a very different role than in
the past (Burawoy and Verdery 1999). In short,
post-socialist urban societies need to be viewed as
hybrid juxtapositions of social forms, relationships
and trajectories, emerging from the struggles
between their outside, their inside and their
histories. We need to keep this in mind when
discussing the political economy of place in the
post-Soviet context. In the next section we turn to
the consideration of urbanisation at the edge of
Moscow in more detail.

Urbanisation at the edge of Moscow

In Moscow, as in other large post-socialist cities, the
processes of urban transformation have been
unfolding in a compressed time, obliterating the relevance of common analytical separation of the process of urbanisation into stages, as a linear outward
growth of the city. In the US literature, for example,
both inner-city regeneration and transformations on
metropolitan edges such as the growth of edge cities (Garreau 1991), post-suburbs (Kling et al. 1995)
and technoburbs (Fishman 1987) are sometimes
opposed to the mass suburbanisation of the 1940s
to 1960s. In Russia, because of suburbanisation, the
built-up category of land use had doubled in the
1990s; and still in parallel central urban areas have
been renovated and increasingly colonised by the

429

new rich a recognisable pattern of gentrification

(Badyina and Golubchikov 2005). Thus in its
embodying several elements of urbanisation, which
in the West commonly have been seen to have
occurred sequentially over significant stretches of
time, the process of urbanisation in Moscow might
appear to have some superficial similarities with
the chaotic, fragmented and non-linear patterns of
urbanisation said to characterise contemporary,
post-modern, processes of urbanisation in the US
(Dear and Dahmann 2008; Soja 2000).
More specifically in terms of the dynamics of the
metropolitan periphery, suburbanisation in Moscow has taken the form of second-home developments rather than permanent residences. People
continue to reside in their urban multifamily
houses, but have second homes of various standards in less urbanised settings. This is better
described as seasonal suburbanisation a phenomenon of some (although variable) significance
across Europe (Arnstberg and Bergstrom 2007).
This has been overlain recently by more permanent residential or cottage patterns of suburbanisation taking place in the nearest areas around
Moscow (Makhrova et al. 2008) and that has some
similarities with what in the US would be termed
exurbanisation, due to its extreme low-density and
as yet purely residential orientation. Finally, at
important junctions in the expanding Moscow
metropolitan space are a number of burgeoning
high-rise settlements which, as well as being separate administrative jurisdictions, are home to a
diverse mix of activities and functions old manufacturing, new retail, office, distribution and other
employment. In the US (Kling et al. 1995; Teaford
1997) and further afield (Phelps et al. 2006) such
settlements have been labelled post-suburban and
are seen to embody an urbanisation of the suburbs
into cities in function but not in form.
Thus, along with quasi-suburbanisation, the
fringe of the Moscow metropolitan area is now
experiencing some patterns of intensified growth.
Initially, at least, this was clearly driven by the
development of shopping malls along the Moscow
Orbital Motorway (which for the most part corresponds with the administrative border between the
City of Moscow and Moscow Oblast a separate
administrative region surrounding Moscow), as
well as the development of warehouses along the
major motorways running from Moscow. But,
increasingly, other forms of development, such as

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011

ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

430

major modern office-based employment, including

back-offices, emerge in the nearest cities to Moscow
(Makhrova and Molodikova 2007; Rudolph and
Brade 2005). These forms of development are also
paralleled by much intensified residential construction in and around the Russian capital.
Khimki was one of the first satellite cities in
Moscow Oblast to experience the combination of
these processes during the period of economic
boom in Russia between 1999 and 2008. The city
now hosts some of the largest shopping malls in
Russia, including by IKEA and Auchan (Plate 1).
IKEA has also diversified significantly by developing a large office project (Khimki Business Park),
which is envisaged to consist of six towers, two of
which are completed. Many other office and retail
projects of smaller scale, as well as huge new-build
residential sites in previously greenfield areas, have
recently changed the Khimki skyline. As a result,
while in the 1990s Khimki evolved to have mostly
a residential suburban character with most people
commuting to work in Moscow because of the
decline of employment in the local industries, more
recently it has become a sub-centre for employment, which leads to more complex workhome
relationships between Khimki and Moscow.

Oleg Golubchikov and Nicholas A Phelps

The property boom in Khimki is seen as being

preconditioned by the citys favourable location
(Figure 1). First, it is adjacent to Moscow and is
well connected with it. Second, major transport
links cross Khimki, including the Moscow
St Petersburg motorway (known as Leningrad
Motorway) and railway. Third, Khimki is located
near and on the main route from Moscow to
Russias major international airport Sheremetyevo;
the airport also now administratively belongs to
the territory of Khimki. Fourth, the city is located
in an environmentally favourable zone to the west
of Moscow and near the Moscow Canal.
In January 2006, because of a municipal reform
in Russia, the whole area of what used to constitute
the Khimki District became amalgamated as the
unified Urban District of Khimki (Gorodskoy Okrug
Khimki) with a total population of about 180 000.
However, historically Khimki had been an administrative centre of a larger district with a few other
settlements and open countryside. In 1984, the
Council of Ministers of Soviet Russia handed over
a part of the territory of the Khimki District to
Moscow (even earlier, Moscow received Zelenograd District further afield). As Khimki was an offlimits city, Moscow grew around the city rather

Plate 1 The territory along the Leningrad Motorway in Khimki has attracted many new commercial and
residential property development projects
Source: Authors photograph
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011
ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

Political economy of place at the post-socialist urban periphery

than incorporating it. With the collapse of the

Soviet system, various administrative borders,
which were previously easily changed by central
decisions, assumed importance as demarcating
political jurisdictions. The often ambiguous borders
of Khimki became the points of tensions between
Moscow Oblast and Moscow. Most importantly, a
long dispute in the court preceded settling the borders for Sheremetyevo in favour of Khimki. As was
noted, It indeed turns out that its a very complicated city as it is all interpenetrated by Moscow
territory, Federal transport junctions and motorways this is the specificity of the city (Deputy
Head of the Project Studio for Suburban Zone of
Moscow and Moscow Oblast, Research and Development Institute for the General Plan of the City of
Moscow, Moscow, 26 August 2008).

A post-Socialist growth machine?

While travelling between Moscow and the Sheremetyevo airport within Khimki District, it is hard to
avoid superficial comparisons with the edge city
environment of the US. By now the heavy congestion on the stretch of road allows one ample time
to gaze out onto what is a rather chaotic mix of
office and apartment blocks and retail outlets that,
at least until the recent effects of the global financial crisis, were being built at very rapid rates
indeed. It is tempting to consider this suburban
nodal point of car-based accessibility being subject
to the sorts of private sector forces apparent in the
US. Certainly, the initiative, as in the US, does tend
to come from the private sector, as one interviewee
from a commercial property brokerage described:
As for the government, there is no one good well
thought-out strategy of developing this or that Moscow
Region suburb or district. It is stimulated by developers
. . . IKEA, for instance, was being built without any permission for construction. They just came out on the land
and started to build and got the [formal] permissions in
process. If you imagine this kind of situation now, it
would be absolutely impossible to proceed. You would
lose all the money invested in the project. But six or
seven years ago it was okay. (DTZ property consultants,
Moscow, 20 August 2008, in English)

This particular account may involve a good deal of

oversimplification, especially given that the construction of the IKEA complex at the end of the
1990s involved a number of conflicts both with the
local populace and the governmental agencies over
concerns that it might introduce damage to a

431

Soviet-era war memorial commemorating the place

where the Nazis advancement onto Moscow was
turned back in 1941. However, it rightly reflects the
practice of giving planning permissions ex-post,
following developers initiatives, which may even
be against formal rules. Here, government and its
planning and regulatory systems at all levels, and
especially the municipal level, respond to a newly
created market system that was ushered in, albeit
in a rather incomplete way, in the early 1990s. Legislation in the early 1990s provided for private
property rights and, although incomplete, released
a huge suppressed demand for housing from individuals and for commercial premises from businesses. This time, lasting until new legislation
completing the market system in more recent years,
was considered by many in the industry as a period of wild capitalism as one informed interviewee observed (Partner, Ernst and Young, Moscow,
28 October 2008, in English).
The pace and seemingly uncontrolled nature of
development take on the possibly peculiar features
of the Russian big bang route to transition, producing in appearance an exaggerated form of what
has been described in US literature as growth
machine development.1 Indeed, growth in the
peripheries of major post-socialist cities has
prompted Kulcsar and Domokos (2005) to invoke
the term post-socialist growth machine. The conjoining of the term growth machine is testimony to
the concepts ability to travel, but, if taken for
granted, it may conceal more than it reveals. In
fact, the understanding of the political economy of
place in this concept is a rather denuded one and
one recognised and critiqued as such by its progenitors (Logan and Molotch 2007; Molotch 1976). It
has been further exposed not only by other conceptualisations of urban politics in the US (Cox and
Mair 1988; Stone 1989), but also the practices of
urban politics in Western Europe, where more purposeful and progressive strategies of placemaking
have existed. The growth machine concept explains
the continued growth of historic cities as driven by
speculative motives of the coalitions of landed
business interest and politicians that seek to pursue
the development with greatest exchange value
when set against concerns for social inclusivity and
interest in the use and amenity value of land (Clark
et al. 2002). Furthermore, the mutual interests of
municipal politicians and officials and the private
sector in the growth machine are place-based
because of what Cox and Mair (1988) have further

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011

ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

432

elaborated as the local dependence of both

parties. The joint actions of the private and public
sectors coalesce over the profits and revenues that
attend the development patterns centred on uplifts
in the exchange value of land and property within
a particular jurisdiction. As such, municipal economic development strategies and planning policies become a focal point for coalitions of vested
interests.
And here important dissimilarities with the postsocialist metropolitan periphery begin to emerge.
For a start, private sector interest in the exchange
values of land takes on a peculiar, heightened and
political-bureaucratically mediated form in that parcels of land that were developable, or might become
so, were released by authorities at the moment of
marketisation without anything corresponding to a
market value; this represented a reversal of a situation under socialism in which the rights to own and
exchange property were subordinated to those of its
use (Marcuse 1996). Banks of such land represent a
huge reservoir of developable land whose exchange
value is at least decoupled from local market conditions scattered parcels were secured for nominal
sums, with little regard for the extant or future pattern of development or neighbouring uses. Such a
situation would be unfamiliar in the US growth
machine. Moreover, deficiencies with the new legislation and regulatory systems still promote very
rapid urban development in order to recoup outlays, by particular types of developer, using particular types of financing for development in the face
of uncertainties over enforceable property rights
(Partner, C M S Cameron McKenna, Moscow, 29
October 2008, in English).
While private development seeks to capture substantial differences in the exchange values of
undeveloped and developed land presented in
locations like Khimki, one might assume that
Khimki ought to have a healthy fiscal capacity. In
fact, due to the tax system in Russia all municipalities are in a weak position relative to the regions in
which they sit. As a result, some of the chief possibilities for placemaking that are evident at the
municipal level have come from the planning gain
extracted from developers rather than through
increased tax revenue (Consultant, RB-Centre Consultancy, Moscow, 28 October 2008, in English). To
this extent, the municipality has a vested interest in
promoting development. For residential developments, the planning gain extracted was quite significant at the peak of growth, with up to 25 per

Oleg Golubchikov and Nicholas A Phelps

cent of all units of flats constructed in Khimki

being handed over to the municipality as municipal housing (Deputy Mayor for Building, Architecture and Land Use, Khimki Administration,
Khimki, 30 October 2008). Beyond this, the planning gain extracted may be extended to the provision or refurbishment of public spaces and parks
and the building of kindergartens and schools
(Head of the Committee for the Economy, Khimki
Administration, 30 October 2008). However, it is
far from guaranteed and the present financial crisis
promises to affect the contributions from even the
largest developers, who according to one interviewee are now struggling to finance the amenities
and services promised for major residential developments (Deputy Mayor for Building, Architecture
and Land Use, Khimki Administration, 30 October
2008).
While the relationship between the fiscal capacities of municipalities and development opportunities is less straightforward in Khimki than that
which conditions the US-style growth machine, can
this situation signify better possibilities for the purposeful distortion of development opportunities
via more socially-focused or place-integrative planning and government interventions? To be sure, in
the context of many western European countries it
is planning policies that play (albeit to varied
degrees) an important role in local social and economic development. Intuitively, urban planning
may be expected to be a major instrument for constructing places like Khimki and therefore a key
focal point for a local politics of place. In the next
section we explore whether this is so.

From plan-led cities to development-led

planning
In fact, both the Soviet legacy and post-Soviet experiences limit the role of urban planning in todays
politics of place. For a start, the Soviet model of
urban planning was inscribed into a centralised
institutional setting of the complex hierarchy of
national economic planning and was part of social
and economic regulation. Since the national priority
was production, plans largely focused on servicing
industrial enterprises. Social infrastructure in cities,
including housing, services and green spaces, was
allocated according to norms based on the needs of
production (Andrusz 1984; Bater 1980; French 1995;
Pallot and Shaw 1981). The implication of this top
down economic planning process was that it

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011

ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

Political economy of place at the post-socialist urban periphery

tended to be largely sectoral, where urban plans

were left to attempt to integrate different sectors by
the virtue of their applying to individual localities.
The stress of urban master plans was not so much
on urban design, but on the territorial organisation
of productive forces. The task for urban planning
was thus not to create a local sense of place to individual cities, but rather to build functional communities that would provide efficient living and
working environments based on norms for the provision of social, engineering, transport and environmental infrastructure.
The new imperative of transition to a more fully
market-led system made many inherited principles
of Soviet planning for administrative-led development practically ineffective, while at the same time,
in a context of significant deficiencies with legislation promoting the market system, a lot of opportunities were created for rent-seeking behaviour, both
by developers and local officials (Golubchikov
2004). A series of reforms have not solved this
problem but instead considerably emasculated the
institution of planning. Importantly, the 2004
Urban Development Code of Russia stresses the
role of legal zoning, thus re-orientating the accent
of town planning to land-use zoning underpinned
by narrower development rights interests. The
planning instruments, such as general master city
plans still exist, but are assumed to be supplementary in the new system and in view of most interviewed planners are largely marginalised. While
new legislation obliges that from 2010 building permits may only be issued once up-to-date rules for
land use and building (effectively, land-use zoning)
exist, it is still questionable whether these will
make the development process more transparent.
Overall, planning in modern Russia has increasingly taken development-led and opportunistic
forms. Indeed, in contrast to planning, development control has become a more persuasive
machine. Today, before making an application for
a building permit, a developer has to obtain
numerous technical approvals from local and regional sectoral authorities and ad hoc agencies, which
require developers to conform with their sectoral
infrastructural, environmental and social services
norms and policies. Even if developers proposals
are in accordance with local plans, they cannot be
sure about the result until the end of administrative negotiations. On the contrary, if authorities are
interested in development and forming a kind of
partnership with developers, or are forced to

433

accept development by other pressures (see the

next section), existing plans may be easily violated
and updated ex-post (Golubchikov 2004). Apparently, such a system of opportunity-led planning
is familiar to many other post-socialist cities in Europe (Tasan-Kok 2006).
This new system results in the lack of a really
comprehensive approach to territorial planning and
the sorts of municipal place-shaping actions taken
for granted in Western Europe. When asked
whether there were any visions at local or regional
government of how individual cities in Moscow
Oblast should look 2030 years from now, Moscow
Oblasts chief planner replied that such visions
are not according to the market regime: people
who will live in those places in 20 or 30 years time
will have their own vision about how they want
those places to look like and we dont have the
right to impose our views on their wishes (Head
of the Main Department for Architecture and
Urban Planning of Moscow Oblast, Moscow, 29
October 2008). It might seem paradoxical to hear
such discourse from a bureaucrat responsible for
coordinating local and regional planning; however,
it reflects well the state of incorporating some of
the inherited practices into the prevailing neoliberal
ideology. As in the Soviet past, urban plans are
considered not as instruments for making places,
but rather as the technocratic tools to provide for
and protect the basic functionality of places, mostly
in terms of transport, water and energy infrastructure, as well as social amenities (such as schools or
hospitals). The sector-based planning of the Soviet
era continues to have an important legacy in that
there remains little appreciation of the value of territorial planning at the municipal scale among
political leaders and local officials. However, while
the Soviet territorial planning in its topdown totality did provide each place its sense as a part of the
overall system of the national economic organisation, in modern Russia planning has not embraced
the bottomup and socially inclusive placemaking
element to compensate for the destruction of the
system of vertical integration. As a result, fastgrowing places like Khimki have seen a fragmentation of the urban space into poorly coordinated
land uses and a chaotic mix of old and new, residential and non-residential developments.
Furthermore, the capacity for municipalities to
integrate aspects of planning for their jurisdictions
is also compromised by planning responsibilities
and financing that remain fragmented between

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011

ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

434

Federal, regional and municipal levels. Here, the

situation contrasts, for example, with China where
the State is seen as a coordinator and promoter of
development as part of place-building at national,
provincial and local level. While development at
the metropolitan periphery in China is every bit as
rapid as that described in the Moscow periphery at
locations like Khimki, it is also territorially more
integrated by virtue of the entrepreneurial actions
of local governments seeking growth through new
townships, and through special purpose vehicles
for territorial and economic planning associated
with industrial and technology parks (Wu and
Phelps 2008). Although similar examples can be
seen in larger and stronger cities in Russia such as
Moscow or St Petersburg (Golubchikov 2010), the
Russian local state in smaller jurisdictions has
rather become an unpredictable holder and releaser
of developable land.
In one other respect the legacy of Soviet planning and land use represents limits for comprehensive planning today. As Gentile and Sjoberg (2006)
describe it, Soviet planning created landscapes of
priority across the city. Military-related industry
in the Soviet era was perhaps the most prioritised
of sectors in the planned economy (Boren and Gentile 2007, 100). Contemporary development, land
uses and territorial planning in Khimki continue to
be conditioned as a former special case landscape
of priority. Khimki, along with many other company towns around Moscow, was a location for
key state enterprises notably in Khimkis case,
production related to missiles and aerospace. Being
the key functions in the city, these enterprises had
large sites in municipal terms and in many
instances were charged with catering for the housing and recreational and service needs of workers,
who were the majority of Khimki residents at that
time. The scale of the closed Soviet-era Khimkis
defence enterprises can be gained from Figure 1,
where the land is demarcated as industrial area.
Despite the rationalisation of these enterprises over
recent years, there is little prospect of any of the
huge site adjacent to the historic centre of
Khimki (old Khimki) being released for development. The enterprises now appear as constraints
on the alternative use of land and along with
major communications infrastructure (roads and
rail) present significant obstacles to planning. One
consequence of this is that the centre of gravity in
Khimki is shifting to new Khimki an essentially
previously undeveloped western area now subject

Oleg Golubchikov and Nicholas A Phelps

to massive housing and office developments, so

that the unity of the city is subject to significant
fragmentation.
Furthermore, as Khimki is inter-penetrated by
the territory of the City of Moscow, this also imposes
serious obstacles to urban planning and consolidating it as a single place. There is still a lack of interregional planning in Russia, while Moscow in
particular - at least under former Mayor Yuri Luzhkov
(dismissed from his post in September 2010) - was
not keen to cooperate with federal government or
its neighbouring Moscow Oblast on such issues
(Deputy Head, Unit for Monitoring Methodology
and Effectiveness Assessment, Ministry for Regional Development, Russian Federation, Moscow, 1
September 2008). The new general plan for Khimki,
which came into force in 2009, and related landuse zoning documentation leave considerable strips
of the territory in the middle ground uncovered.
Apart from further erosion of the place as a whole,
this negatively affects infrastructural integrity in
Khimki. For example, Inteko, a development company closely affiliated with the Moscow government, intends to build major residential
developments on the Moscow city land that interpenetrates Khimkis territory. The municipality is
powerless to prevent this development, despite its
impact on the planning of the municipal territory
and the implications of using and financing utility
networks provided from the municipality (Deputy
Mayor for Building, Architecture and Land Use,
Khimki Administration, Khimki, 30 October 2008).

Dyadic relations in a placeless political

economy
Having considered the limitations of post-socialist
planning for placemaking, we also need to discuss
the balance of interests in the development processes in Khimki between different stakeholders,
including developers, politicians, planners and
local citizenry. On close inspection, these reveal
themselves less as political coalitions with a vested
interest in local economic growth (a feature of the
growth machine) and more as a series of highly
unequal dyadic relationships including: (a)
between the particular private sector interests and
the municipality, (b) between particular private sector interests and civil society and collective business groups, and (c) between the municipality and
the region each of which are mediated by political-bureaucratic processes nested at different

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011

ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

Political economy of place at the post-socialist urban periphery

administrative levels. Below we consider the patterns and dimensions of these dyadic relationships.
For some, at least, aspirations to improve territorial planning at municipal level in Khimki do exist.
One interviewee, a commercial property developer,
argued that all local administrations were indeed
interested in planning for places and improving
services and infrastructure, but that there were different possibilities for this:
Believe me, [municipalities] all have a detailed plan, but
what they dont have is the money to realise the plan.
Apart from that, all these plans are as a rule completely
out of touch with reality . . . There is a planning committee in every local administration. They all have their
plans plans of development, reconstruction . . . It
looks beautiful, but, as a rule, is absolutely unrealisable.
Because who is going to pay for that? (Marketing Director, REGION Group, Moscow, 21 August 2008)

There is some suggestion that Khimkis mayor has

been resistant to powerful real estate company
interests with designs for his municipality (Deputy

Plate 2

435

Mayor for Building, Architecture and Land Use,

Khimki Administration, 30 October 2008). Nevertheless it seems that these companies are able to realise
development opportunities on the vast land banks
they have acquired at the onset of liberalisation in
Russia. The clash between local plans and financial
interests, with dominance of the latter, is exemplified by the development of a previously vacant
prime location at the entrance of Khimki from Moscow by the Leningrad Motorway and next to the
municipalitys first class A office development
Country Park. The site was originally earmarked
in the general plan for a new commercial and community centre, and there was a desire by the Khimki
chief architect to build a new mixed-use civic centre
of offices, shopping, entertainment complex and
new premises for the local administration. However, the property company PIK was eventually
granted planning permission for residential development of the plot (Plate 2). Interviews with both
local administration and neighbouring businesses

New-built housing in Khimki by development company PIK

Source: Authors photograph

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011

ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

436

reveal the discontent about the outcome, which disrupts what could have been a compatible cluster of
office and retail land use. But the pressure for development does not seem to be purely concerned with
the availability of money, but also with vested interests involving large development groups with
strong backing from the higher levels of administrative bureaucracy. As the deputy mayor put it:
The problem is related to the investment attractiveness
of the city. There are people coming here who we cannot actually turn down. It happens that we are forced
to take decisions that contradict with the policy we
have. It happens very often. (Deputy Mayor for Building, Architecture and Land Use, Khimki Administration, Khimki, 30 October 2008)

The enormous pent-up demand for housing that

exists in Moscow coupled with a celebration of
unbridled economic growth and the personal
wealth that it offers mean that there is little or no
popular discourse, and hardly any major grass-roots
or civic group action, relating to, for instance, issues
of rising social and spatial inequalities, or of the
costs of growth. Yet, in some respects this coupled
with Khimkis accessibility to Moscow may make
politics rather more active in Khimki than many
other localities. As one interviewee suggested, Taking into account that Khimki is very near Moscow,
its a very politicised city (Chief Architect of the
Urban District of Khimki, Khimki Administration,
Khimki, 30 October 2008). The implication from this
interview source was that apparent conflict between
particular developers and preservationist interests
may often be fabricated by competitors. These conflicts between particularistic interests aside, there is
nevertheless a general rise in concern over the social
and environmental impacts of development in
Khimki, as described by one interviewee:
On the one hand, there are those people who want to
live in suburbs and they need a normal environment,
normal green areas, as well as transport ecological,
clean and without much infrastructure. On the other
hand, there are the interests that want to pump up the
economy of these zones and make them a means for
money-mining. This means maximum destruction to
these green zones and maybe at the cost of residents
but with some development of the infrastructure that
will bring money. So, these are the two tendencies that
appear in Khimki . . . (Khimki Forest Defence Movement, Moscow, 21 August, 2008)

There is some evidence to suggest that the comparatively highly educated population of Khimki has

Oleg Golubchikov and Nicholas A Phelps

exerted some influence on the municipality. One

interviewee commented that the population did
have rising expectations of the municipality in
terms of improvements to, and refurbishments of,
the exiting housing stock (Deputy Mayor for Building, Architecture and Land Use, Khimki Administration, Khimki, 30 October 2008) and another that
the public have been vocal at planning meetings
(Chief Architect of the Urban District of Khimki,
Khimki Administration, Khimki, 30 October 2008).
Yet, there is rather limited evidence that business
and civic groups are becoming engaged in any political economy of place with any substantial degree of
impact. For example, the very rapidity and haphazard nature of growth in Khimki has created acute
transportation problems. Khimki lies at the intersection of major roadways the northsouth Leningrad
highway and the MKAD (Moscow Orbital Motorway) but these roads fall under different and multiple jurisdictions and financing arrangements
(Federal, Moscow Oblast and Moscow). The widening of these roads in Khimki is now precluded by
the development that has occurred alongside them.
However, there is little sign of business interests
having become organised to any significant degree
and no real evidence of any such organised business
interests lobbying government regarding the need
for transport improvements, as would surely be the
case in the US and Europe.
Indeed, the only organised action regarding
transport issues actually relates to environmental
and civic group opposition to a by-pass proposed
by the Federal government as part of a new toll
road between Moscow and St Petersburg in order
to relieve this bottleneck. A small but tenacious
group of people have been trying to raise awareness of the potential destruction of a major forest
area and part of Moscows greenbelt that lies in the
eastern part of Khimki, which they suspect is driven by the new development opportunities that it
would present. The group has been instrumental in
elevating their local concerns about the destruction
of the Khimki Forest to the national public interest,
so that the motorway project has been delayed following an order from Russias President Medvedev
to temporarily suspend it in 2010. This represents
quite a successful story of political expressions
from below, but the scope of such organised grassroot movements is generally much more limited in
Khimki (and indeed in other cities in Russia) than
in similar locations in the West.

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011

ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

Political economy of place at the post-socialist urban periphery

Finally what of the role played by political leadership in local territorial politics? Again, as yet
there is little indication that municipal-level politicians are evolving distinctive agendas across the
greater Moscow area. The problem is that the system and climate of politics that prevails at present
is one in which local political leaders are constrained by patronage relationships with the regional governor. This is true of the manner in which
political patronage is dispensed within the region
in a context of the inverted pyramid of fiscal revenues noted above. Thus opportunities for the
building of a sense of place are often allocated by
political leadership at a higher tier of government.
While Khimki has one of the largest municipal
budgets in the Oblast, of more importance in this
respect is that Khimki is considered, according to
one interviewee, to be the locomotive for Moscow
Oblast (Head of the Committee for the Economy,
Khimki Administration, Khimki, 30 October 2008).
The close relationship of the Khimki administration
and its leadership with the Oblast government and
its political leadership has ensured the allocation
of some significant flagship capital investments,
such as a new basketball and football stadium.
However, to one observer from a major company
operating in Khimki, this relationship between
municipal and regional government had provided
little in the way of any place-shaping strategy:
Khimki administration work quite closely with the Moscow Oblast and Moscow Oblast need to take a longterm grip but so far they have done little cosmetics for
the citizens to see that the parks are greener and nicer
and that the football stadium is a bit better and so on. I
think they try with the funds they have. But what really
will make a difference is the long term strategy. (VicePresident, IKEA Real Estate Russia and Ukraine,
Khimki, 6 November 2008; in English)

Rudolph and Brades argument that the districts of

Moscow Oblast have relatively little influence on
local economic development, because major economic actors operate at the level of the governor
(2005, 139) continues to resonate with the general
tenor of observations on the ground in Khimki. As
the locomotive for Moscow Oblast, Khimki has
undoubtedly been subject to a scale and variety of
new development mass residential and speculative retail and office developments, flagship civic
and sports projects and the incorporation of
Sheremetyevo airport so that its gravity within
the Moscow metropolitan space grows consider-

437

ably. In contrast to the West, where great capital

would undoubtedly be made by local politicians
and officials of a slogan like greater Khimki used
recently by planning consultants Cushman Wakefield (2007), there appears to have been little interest in the Khimki administration for the use of this
or any other marketing slogan in an attempt to
express a vision for the future of Khimki as a
place.
To sum up, the relationships between stakeholders in the economic development of places like
Khimki tend to be nested at, and scattered
between, different administrative levels (where
they are mediated by, or indeed utilise, the power
of corresponding bureaucratic apparatus) rather
than being embedded in the local place and its politics. The combination of a sectoral approach to
urban planning, a limited appreciation of placemaking on the part of local government and politicians, and a centralisation of fiscal resources in
Russia mean that such nested relationships imply
important weaknesses in the role of the local state
as the (admittedly imperfect) mediator of contradictions between private and collective interests
in the accumulation process (Scott and Roweis
1977).

Conclusion
On the whole, the organisation of the political economy of place in the post-Soviet metropolitan
periphery of Moscow represents an interesting case
of the mutation of global urban entrepreneurial
strategies under neoliberalism. Rudolph and Brade,
while making it clear that contemporary urbanisation at the periphery of Moscow can be described
as a new phase, suggest that development at the
periphery displays hybrid elements (2005, 148).
Notable in this regard is a strengthening of processes of social polarisation that have become visible at the periphery. Perhaps as a corollary to this,
as they argue, the economics of transition have
become less powerful as a defining force in peripheral urbanisation. What we have described above
tends to question the diminishing importance of
transition. Moreover, we demonstrate that the universality of processes of urban development should
not be overplayed.
Although the case of Khimki may share some
facets and controversies, as depicted by the concepts of edge city and the (surburban) growth

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011

ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

Oleg Golubchikov and Nicholas A Phelps

438

machine, it is still distinct from these. When using

the term political economy of place to apply to the
post-Soviet metropolitan periphery, it is the word
political that needs accentuating and conversely the
word place de-emphasised. Even the word political
might more accurately be taken to refer to a more
fully bureaucratised politics of inter-authority
patronage apparent in the process of urban development in a place like Khimki, in comparison to the
importance of an overt politics of influence in the
US and the importance of party and grass-roots politics in Western Europe. To date, it is the placelessness of rapid urban growth that has been striking
in the context of post-Soviet Khimki. The placelessness, or the lack of purposeful placemaking strategies by any coalitions of growth (or anti-growth)
interests, arises from a number of reinforcing reasons, including highly speculative development
practices, little organised interest of local businesses
to influence the shape of wider urban development
beyond their immediate control, and local governments retreat to standardised planning requirements and to a capricious allocation of developable
land as opposed to visionary urban planning and
development strategies. Thus, growth in Khimki is
fuelled by a spontaneous variety of opportunistic
profitmaking initiatives that are characterised by
short-termism and yet are essentially disconnected
from the local city.
This model of growth in fact destroys Khimkis
thick Soviet-era industrial identity as a selfcontained city and makes the city an increasingly
fragmented place that may well be hardly distinguished as one city, but rather as several peripheral
dormitory districts of the City of Moscow proper.
As Khimki is directly adjacent to the territory of
the City of Moscow, most non-government interviewees consider Khimki as de-facto a district of
Moscow. Indeed, Khimkis peculiar borders and
location make it much interconnected with Moscow
and its development is often considered to be the
continuing expansion of Moscow. In this sense,
Khimki may be considered to have reverted from
being a self-centred city to a settlement that resembles and functions more like a suburb, reflecting a
more general trend of increased commuting ties
between former satellite-type urban communities
of the Soviet era and core cities (Boren and Gentile
2007, 103).
However, Khimki does have a separate local government, which complicates the political structuration of development interests. There is a much

stronger and independent role to be played by

Khimki government than by any local governments
within the territory of the City of Moscow proper
while Moscow has the prefects of local districts
appointed directly by Moscows Mayor, the Mayor
of Khimki is a political, popularly-elected post.
Thus, if by some historical accident Khimki was
part of the City of Moscow, then probably the city
would have had a very different configuration of
political interests and might have followed a different path of development. The separation of Khimki
as an individual political unit outside the City of
Moscow has indeed created a more distinctive
political interest for Khimkis government when it
comes to local development. Rather than being considered a peripheral and most likely less well-off
district of Moscow, Khimki finds itself in the position of being one of Moscow Oblasts wealthiest
and investment-attractive districts. This also results
in a lot of interest in Khimki from the regional government and makes it one of the spatial junctions in
the frictions between the regional governments of
Moscow and Moscow Oblast. This territorial configuration both circumscribes to some degree autonomous processes of placeshaping and creates
prerequisites for Khimki remaining a separate
place. It remains to be seen, however, whether a
growing demand for new urban infrastructure and
emerging residents movements will further restructure the modes of governing developments in
Khimki more in line with the sorts of political economy of place found in the US or Western Europe.

Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Economic and
Social Research Council (ESRC grants PTA-026-271997 and RES-062-23-0924). The authors are grateful to three anonymous referees and the editor
Alison Blunt for their insightful feedback on the
manuscript.

Note
1 Although the concept of the growth machine has
been elaborated with respect to cities, it can be
argued that it applies better to new suburbs in which
the greatest exchange values are to be had from the
conversion of raw land into developed land and
where land-assembly is least encumbered by complex
patterns of landownership and lease (Phelps and
Wood forthcoming).

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011

ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

Political economy of place at the post-socialist urban periphery

References
Andrusz G 1984 Housing and urban development in the
USSR Macmillan, London
Andrusz G, Harloe M and Szelenyi I eds 1996 Cities after
socialism: urban and regional change and conflict in postsocialist societies Blackwell, Oxford.
Arnstberg K-O and Bergstrom I 2007 No place like second home: weekends, holidays, retirement and urban
sprawl in Couch C, Leontidou L and Petschel-Held G
eds Urban sprawl in Europe: landscapes, land-use change
and policy Blackwell, Oxford 16380
Badyina A and Golubchikov O 2005 Gentrification in
Central Moscow: a market process or a deliberate policy? Money, power and people in housing regeneration
in Ostozhenka Geografiska Annaler B 87 11329
Bater J H 1980 The Soviet city: ideal and reality Edward
Arnold, London
Bater J H, Amelin V and Degtyarev V 1998 Market
reform and the central city: Moscow revisited PostSoviet Geography 39 118
Boren T and Gentile M 2007 Metropolitan processes in
post-communist states: an introduction Geografiska Annaler B 89 95110
Burawoy M 1991 The extended case study method in
Burawoy M ed Ethnography unbound: power and resistance in the modern metropolis University of California
Press, Berkley 27180
Burawoy M and Verdery K 1999 Introduction In
Burawoy M and Verdery K eds Uncertain transition:
ethnographies of change in the postsocial world Rowman
and Littlefield, Oxford 118
Clark T N, Lloyd K, Wong K K and Jain P 2002 Amenities drive urban growth Journal of Urban Affairs 24
493515
Cox K and Mair A 1988 Locality and community in the
politics of local economic development Annals of the
Association of American Geographers 78 30725
Cushman Wakefield 2007 Greater Khimki: good quality at a
reasonable price Cushman Wakefield, Moscow
Dear M and Dahmann N 2008 Urban politics and the Los
Angeles School of Urbanism Urban Affairs Review 44 266
79
Enyedi G and Kovacs Z eds 2006 Social changes and social
sustainability in historical urban centres: the case of Central
Europe Centre for Regional Studies of Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Pecs
Fishman R 1987 Bourgeois utopias: the rise and fall of suburbia Basic Books, New York
French R A 1995 Plans, pragmatism and people: the legacy of
Soviet planning for todays city UCL Press, London
Garreau J 1991 Edge city: life on the new frontier Doubleday,
New York
Gentile M and Sjoberg O 2006 Intra-urban landscape of
priority: the Soviet legacy Europe-Asia Studies 58 70129
Golubchikov O 2004 Urban planning in Russia: towards
the market European Planning Studies 12 22947

439
Golubchikov O 2010 World-city-entrepreneurialism: globalist imaginaries, neoliberal geographies, and the production of new St Petersburg Environment and Planning
A 42 62643
Harding A 1994 Urban regimes and growth machines:
toward a cross-national research agenda Urban Affairs
Quarterly 29 35682
Harris R 2010 Meaningful types in a world of suburbs in
Clapson M and Hutchison R eds Suburbanisation in global society: research in urban sociology no 10 Emerald
Books, Bingley 1547
Harvey D 2005 A brief history of neoliberalism Oxford University Press, Oxford
Klein L R and Pomer M eds 2001 The new Russia: transition gone awry Stanford University Press, Stanford CA
Kling R, Olin S and Poster M 1995 The emergence of
postsuburbia: an introduction in Kling R, Olin S and
Poster M eds Postsuburban California: the transformation
of Orange County since World War Two University of California Press, Berkeley CA 130
Kolossov V and OLoughlin J 2004 How Moscow is
becoming a capitalist mega-city International Social Sciences Journal 56 41327
Kulcsar L J and Domokos T 2005 The post-socialist
growth machine: the case of Hungary International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29 55063
Logan J and Molotch H 1987 Urban fortunes: the political economy of place University of California Press, Berkeley CA
Makhrova A and Molodikova I 2007 Land market, commercial real estate, and the remolding of Moscows
urban fabric in Stanilov K ed The post-socialist city:
urban form and space transformations in Central and Eastern
Europe after socialism Springer, Dordrecht
Makhrova A G, Nefedova T G and Treivish A I 2008
Moskovskaya oblast segodnya i zavtra: tendentsii i perspektivy prostranstvennogo razvitiya [Moscow Oblast today
and tomorrow: tendencies and perspectives of spatial
development] Novyy Khronograf, Moscow
Marcuse P 1996 Privatization and its discontents: property
rights in land and housing in the transition in Eastern
Europe in Andrusz G, Harloe M and Szelenyi I eds
Cities after socialism: urban and regional change and conflict
in post-socialist societies Blackwell, Oxford 11991
Molotch H L 1976 The city as a growth machine American
Journal of Sociology 82 30930
Nolan P 1995 Chinas rise, Russias fall: politics, economics
and planning in the transition from socialism PalgraveMacmillan, Basingstoke
Nuissl H and Rink D 2005 The production of urban
sprawl in eastern Germany as a phenomenon of postsocialist transition Cities 22 12334
Pallot J and Shaw D J B 1981 Planning in the Soviet Union
Croom Helm, London
Peck J and Tickell A 2002 Neoliberalizing space Antipode
34 380404
Phelps N A and Wood A forthcoming The new post-suburban politics? Urban Studies

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011

ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

440
Phelps N A, Parsons N, Ballas D and Dowling A 2006
Post-suburban Europe: planning and politics at the margins
of Europes capital cities Palgrave-Macmillan, Basingstoke
Phelps N A, Wood A M and Valler D C 2010 A post-suburban world? An outline of a research agenda Environment & Planning A 42 36683
Pickles J and Smith A eds 1998 Theorising transition: the
political economy of post-communist transformation Routledge, London
Roland G 2001 Ten years after . . . transition and economics IMF Staff Papers 48 2952
Roland G 2004 Understanding institutional change: fastmoving and slow-moving institutions Studies in Comparative International Development 38 10931
Round J and Williams C 2010 Coping with the social costs
of transition: everyday life in post-Soviet Russia and
Ukraine European Urban and Regional Studies 17 18396
Rudolph R and Brade I 2005 Moscow: processes of
restructuring in the Post-Soviet metropolitan periphery
Cities 22 13550
Scott A J and Roweis S T 1977 Urban planning in theory
and in practice: a reappraisal Environment & Planning A
9 1097119

Oleg Golubchikov and Nicholas A Phelps

Soja E 2000 Postmetropolis Blackwell, Oxford
Stone C 1989 Regime politics: governing Atlanta, 19461988
University Press of Kansas, Lawrence KS
Tasan-Kok T 2006 Institutional and spatial change in
Tsenkova S and Nedovic-Budic Z eds The urban mosaic
of post-socialist Europe: space, institutions and policy Physica-Verlag, Heidelberg 5170
Teaford J 1997 Post-suburbia: government and politics in the
edge cities Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Tsenkova S and Nedovic-Budic Z eds 2006 The urban
mosaic of post-socialist Europe: space institutions and policy
Physica-Verlag (Springer), Heidelberg
Ward K 1996 Rereading urban regime theory: a sympathetic critique Geoforum 27 42738
Wood A M 2004 Domesticating urban theory? US concepts, British cities and the limits of cross national
applications Urban Studies 41 210318
Wu F and Phelps N A 2008 From suburbia to post-suburbia in China? Aspects of the transformation of the Beijing and Shanghai global city regions Built Environment
34 46481
Yin R 1989 Case study research Sage, London

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 36 425440 2011

ISSN 0020-2754  2011 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2011 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)