Moscow on steroids

I have not been posting over the summer, as I was traveling in distant places, including Russia, Finland, and Kyrgyzstan. Meanwhile, President D. Medvedev proposed to shift some of the governmental offices from the horribly congested Moscow downtown to outside the city periphery. This in turn led to a rapid decision by the Mayor of Moscow Sobyanin and the Governor of Moscow Oblast Gromov to expand Moscow city limits outward. On August 19, 2011 (maybe to commemorate the Putsch of 1991 anniversary), the map of the exact new boundaries has been unveiled by the Moscow mayor's office. See the map with key cities in English here.

As you can see, Moscow City territory will be more than doubled now to around 260,000 ha (Moscow was at slightly under 110,000 ha since the expansions of the 1980s). Many Russian experts question the need for so much more new space, e.g., Professor Vladimir Kolosov. We have a right to be skeptical. First, the decision to so radically expand the capital have not been at all discussed with the public. Second, from the geographical standpoint, this is a very lopsided enlargement. It will create a large imbalance in the traffic loads along the segment of Moscow Beltway (MKAD) adjacent to the new area. It will provide less than optimal commute patterns for the members of the working class who are currently living in the area. It will require massive investment in new roads, new rail and subway lines, and rethinking of the entire city Genplan. Most importantly, of course, it will not solve the main problem, namely the problem of overcrowded superexpensive primate city that already concentrates about one third of wealth and about 10% of population of the giant, but poor, country. True, Buenos Aires in Argentina is proportionally even worse, but why should Russia be following Argentine example? A much better solution would be to follow Brazil's and indeed Kazakhstan's example and move the political capital as far away from Moscow as would be practical:.one could build a new capital somewhere in the Urals, to be closer to Siberia and the Far East. Keep Moscow for culture, education, and, well, finance, but not for politics. As it is now, Moscow on steroids will surely please the real estate tycoons and highway developers. Not the general population of places like Aprelevka and Troitsk, whose rents will definitely go up.