Since the demise of central planning, post-Soviet cities have found themselves operating in a radically different economic climate. Contrary to the situation during the Soviet époque, market relations and the urban economy's adjustment thereto constitute the reality which urbanites face in their daily lives. For the vast majority, this reality has been harsh. Even so, market agency in post-Soviet cities is circumscribed by a physical infrastructure composed to foster its rejection, leading to an inevitable tension between Soviet legacy and the reality of the market economy. An overarching task of this dissertation is to contribute to a greater understanding of the new urban form which is emerging out of this tension. For this purpose, eight papers, using case studies from urban Kazakhstan, are brought together in order to shed light on recent urban developments in the former Soviet Union.Two broad themes are subject to particular attention: urbanisation and regional migration processes, and urban socio-spatial differentiation. Urbanisation is studied through the comparative analysis of census data from 1989 and 1999, from which a "closed city effect" pattern emerges. Sovietand post-Soviet era urban-bounf migrant characteristics are compared using survey data (N=3,136) collected by the author, demonstrating the existence of a significant ethnic transition within the migrant flow. Socio-spatial differentiation patterns are mapped and analysed for three Kazakh military-industrial case study cities (Ust'-Kamenogorsk, Leninogorsk and Zyryanovsk), revealing significant spatial disparities which are principally explainable in light of the workings of the Soviet economy, and its built-in priority system. Market forces tend to accentuate them.
A field study conducted by the author based on a 2001 survey (N = 3,136) compares data on population change at the individual settlement level from the 1999 census of Kazakhstan with unpublished data from the 1989 census. The author documents the unique phenomenon of "delayed underurbanization" in the formerly closed East Kazakh city of Ust'-Kamenogorsk (ca. 300,000 inhabitants in 2002), arguing that the limited financial resources of rural migrants to that city (recently accessible to residents of its rural hinterland) have created spatial patterns of residence and commuting similar to those under the Soviet underurbanization model for open cities. The study, covering an area dominated by military-industrial and/or mining-metallurgical economies, is relevant to research focused on other formerly closed cities throughout the Soviet Union.
This paper focuses on the occurrence of ethnic and socio-economic residential segregation in Ust'-Kamenogorsk, a medium-sized city in Kazakhstan, using data collected by the author in collaboration with the Eastern Kazakhstan oblast' statistical authority in an extensive questionnaire survey carried out during January 2001. Together with the marketisation of the city's housing resources, a number of Soviet legacies, including the major industrial enterprises' housing strategies for their workers and the city's previous status as 'closed', are identified. Finally, the paper maps and analyses existing segregation patterns.
This paper describes and analyses the geography and structure of the neighborhood residential preferences and residential satisfaction of the inhabitants of the medium-sized, post-Soviet city of Ust'-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan (population ca. 300,000). It is based on a questionnaire survey (N = 1516 + 320) conducted by the author in cooperation with the statistical authority of the Eastern Kazakhstan oblast'. At the aggregate level, the evidence that is presented suggests distinct preference patterns, and that the main focus of preference is on the city center. The geography of residential satisfaction is different. Differences in satisfaction have been found between residents of housing built by former high-priority enterprises and those occupying most of the remainder of the housing stock. These differences underscore the pervasive and continuing importance of the legacy of Soviet economic and territorial planning, and the still rather limited changes that the marketization of the economy has been able to produce.