Planned Economic Development and Loglinearity in the Rank-Size Distribution of Urban Systems: The Soviet Experience

Abstract

In this paper, the city rank-size hypothesis is tested for the urban system of the USSR and the Republic of Ukraine using (1) census data for 1897, 1926, 1939, 1959, 1970 and 1979, (2) subgrouping each census year in 3 categories: largest cities (rank 1-5), middle-sized cities (rank 6-50) and smallest cities (rank higher than 50) in addition to the whole sample. Following the interpretation of the previous results, the relative changes in the ratios of the city distribution slope values from both systems are then observed and analysed for each of the specified group of cities.

The distribution of national urban hierarchies of connectivity within global city networks

“…Attempts to understand urban hierarchies ranged from a focus on population hierarchies embedded within regional commercial networks (Christaller, 1933; Lösch, 1954) to a focus on rank‐size hierarchies across entire national systems (Carroll, 1982). The many papers on the rank‐size rule (Gabaix, 1999) generally focus on fitting statistical distributions of cities by population in many national contexts (Beckmann, 1958; Guérin‐Pace, 1995; Mirucki, 1986). A fundamental focus of this research has been on how the distribution of cities in a national system can be explained, with a limited consensus that over time, more developed countries will tend toward having a better‐developed urban system.…”

Continuities and discontinuities of Russian urban housing: The Soviet housing experiment in historical long-term perspective

“…However, the overall preoccupation with economies of scale in the quest for the most efficient investment meant that centralisation and concentration tendencies prevailed over the decentralisation interventions intended to harmonise (and equalise) the urban system (Enyedi, 1996). Regarding the Soviet urban system in particular, Mirucki (1986) has observed a long-lasting dominance of large cities and the limited effect of state planning practices in diverting development to the cities lower down the urban hierarchy. Moreover, other in situ measures to control migration of labour force by means of internal passports and residence permits ( propiska ) were only partially successful (Buckley, 1995).…”

Peut-on estimer la singularité des villes (post-)soviétiques ?

“…L'accentuation de l'inégalité des tailles de villes apparaît comparable à la plupart des évolutions observées dans le monde. Cette observation, corroborée par [Parr, 1985], contredit les résultats de [Mirucki, 1986] autant que les discours officiels d'homogénéisation et d'égalisation de la trame urbaine, ainsi que les tentatives soviétiques de limitation de la taille des grandes villes [Gand, Stuart, 1999]. La présentation des estimations publiées dans la littérature (tableau 3) explique cette différence et plaide en faveur des résultats obtenus avec DARIUS.…”

“…La présentation des estimations publiées dans la littérature (tableau 3) explique cette différence et plaide en faveur des résultats obtenus avec DARIUS. En effet, lorsque les estimations sont renseignées en fonction des spécifications des régressions, il apparaît que les résultats de [Mirucki, 1986] révèlent l'accroissement des seuils de population retenus plutôt que l'évolution de la hiérarchie soviétique.…”