Intracity territorial differentiation and zoning in Soviet geography studies (1920s-1980s)

Abstract

There is an opinion in the scientific literature that intracity zoning has no tradition in Russian geography. This misconception is refuted in this article: a bibliography of the Soviet geographers` works on intracity territorial differentiation and zoning was collected and systematized, and the formation of the main directions of research was traced. As the author shows, at the first stage (mid-1920s – mid-1930s) the general theoretical ideas about the principles and methods of urban differentiation were developed, intraurban economic, social and cultural differences were considered in interrelation, research was interdisciplinary in nature with the leading role of local study (“geography of place”). At the second stage (mid1930s – early 1960s) in the conditions of tightening ideological restrictions zoning was reduced to the city`s anatomy: material space was zoned, complex studies were reduced to functional, social and humanitarian issues were discarded, the geographers views were turned to the past. There were four directions of city zoning: industrial, historical, physical and economicgeographical (planned), the first and last didn„t find continuation outside of the period. The socialization and humanization of research at the third stage (early 1960s – late 1980s) formed a request for study of the city`s physiology, the search for measurable differentiating features continued, but a generally accepted methodology wasn`t developed. The article emphasizes the relevance of the leading Soviet scientists` ideas (N.P. Antsiferov, V.V. Pokshishevsky, N.E. Dik, etc.). Those ideas were often significantly ahead of their time.