Sofia Romanova, editor-in-chief
Urban magazine / Courtesy of Urban magazine
Surprisingly, but true: the topic of agglomeration, which we have conceived to discuss on the pages of the next issue of the magazine (No. 2–2015), not all aroused enthusiasm and a desire to speak out. We can even say that our authors and experts were divided into two camps, however, very friendly. Some said that there was nothing to discuss until the concept of agglomeration was spelled out in law, that the freedom of formulation would bring confusion into a rather complex and ambiguous process. And our readers will not see the names of these authors in the new issue. Another part of architects, urban planners, urbanists, researchers and practitioners once again demonstrated their keen interest to participate in the discussion on the pages of URBAN, as a result of which we proposed to start the topic of agglomeration with an answer to the question "How to manage a global city?"
This formulation of the question arose during a conversation with Elena Chuguevskaya, Director of the Department for Strategic and Territorial Development of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia, who has been dealing with strategic planning for many years. At the moment, management approaches to the development of agglomerations are being tested on sixteen pilot projects in different constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
As always, the conversation with Alexander Kuzmin, President of the RAASN, General Director of the Research Center "Construction", brought true delight to the journalists and, we hope, our readers. The accuracy of the wording and the imagery of the syllable only enhanced the effect of the President's Monologue. A few years ago, Alexander Viktorovich, speaking about the spatial development of the country, replaced the term "agglomeration" with the phrase "real city" in his speech. And everything fell into place.
Georgy Semenovich Yusin, Corresponding Member of the RAASN, Director of the Center for Development of the Normative Base of Urban Planning of the State Unitary Enterprise NI and PI of the General Plan of Moscow, shares his recipe for solving spatial development issues. He suggests recalling the so-called law of necessary diversity: to control a complex system, the control system being built must have the same complexity as the controlled one. “Otherwise, nothing will work out,” Yusin sums up.
Continuing the theme of megacities management, Irina Ilyina, Ph. D., professor at the Higher School of Economics, member of the editorial board of URBAN, expresses her opinion in the article “Parameters of“managed urbanization”.
Our local authors provide specific examples of the development of territories. Tatiana Bochkareva, Candidate of Science, Chairman of the Board of ANO Urbeks-Razvitie, talks about the Samara-Togliatti agglomeration. The situation in the South of Primorye, called the territory of advanced development, was described in detail in his interview with URBAN by the first vice-governor of the Primorsky Territory Vasily Usoltsev. Foreign agglomeration experience is presented by the "New Big Paris" project (by Svetlana Amurskaya) and Pavel Chernyshov's review of the countries of South America.
The guest of the issue, the famous architect Paola Vigano, discusses with the URBAN correspondent the topic of modern megacities, recalling that in urbanism it is very important to know the history of the formation of spaces in order to understand the difference in their nature.
In the "Portrait" section, we are pleased to present to our readers one of the most successful Russian architects who have received international recognition - Sergei Tchoban.
You will read about everything else yourself, picking up the latest issue of URBAN magazine.
