ИСТИНА

Geographies of spatial development have been emerging through a contradictory interplay between rapid growth and various forms of stagnation and shrinkage (Brenner & Schmid, 2015). The challenge of urban shrinkage provoked by the combination of long-term depopulation and economic decline is relevant for many cities in Russia (Cottineau, 2016), but its negative effects become real threats especially for small and medium-sized cities or SMSC (Fol & Cunningham-Sabot, 2010) which are usually less integrated into the global city network and are more dependent both on big business and state subsidies. However, in Russia as in many countries of the world (Jayne, 2004) precisely SMSC, defined as having a population size less than 100 000, are most typical urban settlements. The investigation of urban shrinkage negative effects has been conducted in the Western countries since the last quarter of 20th century (Haase, Rink, Grossmann, Bernt & Mykhnenko 2014). At the turn of the century, scholars’ attention shifted to the search of planning approaches, methods, and tools for shrinking cities due to the inefficiency of the existing ones (Pallagst, Schwarz, Popper & Hollander, 2009). Our research aims to investigate if and in what context do the local spatial plans recognize current and projected population trends in SMSC shrinking cities of Russia. The empirical evidence is drawn from SMSC located in 3 Federal Districts: Central, Southern, and North-Caucasian, where 83% of cities are SMSC hosting about 20% of the area’s population. First, we analyze the post-Soviet demographic development in these SMSC and classify them according to their population change. Second, we provide a critical overview of the relation between the mode of population change in SMSC and their local spatial development plans. The results demonstrate that the Russian planning system functions in the growth paradigm. Even though, urban shrinkage in Russia has been evident since the first post-Soviet years, it seems it is still not in the focus of planners’ and policy makers’ attention, and long-term plans are created with hope for a future growth. Despite clear evidence of population decline in most of the cities under study, local spatial plans ignore or underestimate current and projected population trends. As argued by Martinez-Fernandez, Audirac, Fol & Cunningham-Sabot (2012) the continuing of planning in the growth paradigm may lead to the deteriorations of existing conditions and create new problems in shrinking cities.