An Outline of the New Government Policy for Russian Cities and Urban Agglomerations

ABSTRACT The article argues that the policy of the Russian government toward its cities should be shifted toward decentralization and differentiation. Together with mathematical models and expert assessments, mechanisms are proposed for increasing the independence of large cities and urban agglomerations. The article also considers problems relating to the government’s incomplete definition of “urban agglomerations” and its imperfect statistical accounting of cities.