Authorities propose limiting to 20 large agglomerations.
In Russia, hundreds of small cities may disappear in the near future due to a mass exodus of the population. This conclusion is contained in a report by VTsIOM. Researchers note that young people are leaving small cities in search of better career and educational opportunities, while the older generation is gradually declining. At the same time, new residents are hardly moving to small cities. This leads to a reduction in the number of households and an overall decrease in population.
The report states that the reasons for the outflow are not only earnings but also limited infrastructure and a lack of attractive prospects for living and development. According to a survey, only 33% of people aged 18–24 in small cities view the future optimistically, while in million-plus cities, this figure reaches 53%. At the same time, researchers noted that from 1950 to 2030, the population outside cities in Russia will decrease by 36%, while the population in cities with a population of over half a million will grow by 25%.
There are a total of 1,120 cities in Russia. Of these, more than 70% are small, meaning cities with a population of less than 50,000 residents. Currently, 3.4 million people live in such settlements. Over the past ten years, their number has decreased by 314,500, according to analysts from RANEPA. According to researchers' estimates, 129 small cities may disappear in Russia in the foreseeable future. At risk are northern coal, metallurgical, and timber industry settlements, such as Porkhov in the Pskov region, Zavolzhye in Nizhny Novgorod, Nolikinsk in Kirov, as well as many cities in the Bryansk, Novgorod regions, and Krasnodar Krai.
Earlier, Ilya Kozlov, Deputy General Director of Gazprom Invest, suggested that Russian authorities "stop saving" dying settlements and focus on the development of large cities. According to him, Russia "simply does not have the human resources" to develop small settlements. The need to create 20 agglomerations around the largest cities in Russia and concentrate the population there was mentioned back in 2017 by former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who then headed the Center for Strategic Developments.
Later, the Ministry of Economic Development selected 20 cities that were to become points of economic growth. The government included them in the Spatial Development Strategy until 2025. According to the government's plan, the agglomerations were supposed to support, not kill, the development of small cities.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cJ-JulbaEjc?si=z6i65QG1AK3ggeAT" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
