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Soviet Union [USSR] Urbanization
In a span of over seventy years, the Soviet Union has undergone
a transition from a largely rural agricultural society to an urban
industrial society. In 1917 only about 17 percent of the population
lived in cities or urban settlements; in 1961 the urban and rural
population was in balance; and by 1987 two of every three Soviet
citizens were urban dwellers (see
table 10, Appendix A).
The levels of urbanization in 1989 highlighted the uneven
development of the regions and nationalities. The populations of
the Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Russian republics were 70
percent urbanized, approximating levels found in Western Europe and
the United States. Four of the five Central Asian republics (the
Kirgiz, Tadzhik, Uzbek, and Turkmen republics), however, continued
to have a majority of the population living in rural areas, and the
Tadzhik Republic's 33 percent rate of urbanization was only
slightly higher than that of Albania. In the European part, the
Moldavian Republic with a rural majority was an exception to the
rule of higher rates of urbanization.
Until the early 1980s, the growth of large cities and the
concentration of industry there went mostly unchecked. However,
because of such problems as a chronic housing shortage, pollution,
and a declining birth rate, authorities attempted to exercise
greater control over migration to the major cities; among other
things, the government encouraged greater development and growth in
small and medium-sized cities. Nevertheless, the scope and tempo of
big-city growth has continued. In 1970 ten cities had a population
of 1 million or more, but in 1989 the number had risen to twentythree (see
table 11, Appendix A). Most of these cities, including
the three largest--Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev--were located west
of the Urals. Only five of the largest cities were east of the
Urals, and the largest city in the entire eastern half of the
Soviet Union (beyond the Yenisey River) was Vladivostok (615,000
inhabitants in 1987).
Despite its size and the length of its coastline, the Soviet
Union's global position and climate have restricted the number of
seaports to fewer than a dozen key cities (Leningrad, Odessa,
Murmansk, and Vladivostok, among them). Many of the largest cities,
however, are located on water, primarily on rivers, that have long
been powerful settlement-forming influences and key transportation
arteries. The Volga and its tributaries remain the key geographic
features toward which people and commerce continue to gravitate.
Two of the youngest and fastest growing cities, Tol'yatti and
Naberezhnyye Chelny, were boom towns that sprang up in the 1970s
around giant automobile and truck plants on the Volga and Kama
rivers, respectively.
Data as of May 1989
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