precarity of small towns

Abstract

The uncertainty of geopolitical processes plunge small towns deep into precarity with ambiguous prospects. Will the financial injection into the project “Urban environment in small towns and historic settlements” made by the Federal Ministry of Construction be helpful? At least it won’t hurt. Already the collaboration between citizens and municipalities during the work on the concepts gave impulse to development. We bring to your attention three projects by “Rozhdestvenka” architectural bureau, participants of the competition. The problems of Ostashkov are comprehensible. Suzdal, however, can be hardly categorized as precarious at first sight; the prospects of this diamond of the Golden Ring are clear. It appears that the population of the city is decreasing, the city’s expenses exceed its revenues, and a big flow of tourists deteriorates the city infrastructure.

We hope that the competition will become annual, and the regional and city authorities will admit that this work can be a success only with the participation of professional architects.
And what about foreign experience? We are publishing an article describing the work on three cities of the Paris metropolitan area performed by French urbanists. The cities surrounding Paris risk to concentrate economically and socially disadvantaged people. A metropolitan and even national task is to reach a proper balance between the center and
the surrounding cities. The revitalization program for urban centers started last year with research and experimental work.