Rethinking urban form in a shrinking Arctic city

• Published in: Espace populations sociétés
• Main Authors: Maria Gunko, Elena Batunova, Andrey Medvedev
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; French
• Published: Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille 2021
• Subjects: shrinking cities; urban shrinkage; urban planning; Arctic cities; Russia; Vorkuta; Geography. Anthropology. Recreation; G; Social sciences (General); H1-99; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.4000/eps.10630; https://doaj.org/article/7dfcb3b7a1574c52b8c0e80e81798624

Shrinking cities – places which need to ‘narrow down’ the too spacious settings – pose challenges to the mainstream urban planning which naturalizes growth and direct approaches advocating it. While shrinking cities are located worldwide, responses to the phenomenon are place-specific depending on the knowledge and resources of decision-makers, as well as the discourses of the desired spatial development. In this sense, it is still not precisely clear why and how urban planning changes under conditions of shrinkage. Since the beginning of the 1990s, many Russian cities began to lose population. Excluding the oil and gas provinces, the Russian Arctic has become a ‘showcase’ of the country’s population exodus. Our contribution is based on empirical evidence from Vorkuta (Komi Republic, Russia) an Arctic city with around 54 thousand people which is among the fastest shrinking cities of the country. Due to the simultaneous need for improving housing conditions, dealing with negative physical effects of shrinkage, and high maintenance costs of housing and infrastructure the local stakeholders had to come up with a new approach toward planning – the so-called ‘controlled shrinkage’ that helped reduce sprawl and fragmentation.