IN-PERSON: Livable Cities – New York

Abstract

Exactly one century separates the advent of the Soviet concept of disurbanization from the current, pandemic-driven urban flight. The 1920s saw the emergence of urban theories that advocated an equitable diffusion of resources across the entire territory of the USSR. Proposing a progressive erasure of cities through the scattering of small-scale constructions, the radical visions of the disurbanists were intimately tied to the rapid electrification of the country. They also stemmed from a desire to increase workers’ well-being through a renewed contact with nature, as exemplified in the linear city projects of Mikhail Okhitovich and Ivan Leonidov. Such theoretical works remained, however, on paper, as the proponents of Stalinism swiftly eradicated such concepts. Yet current urban phenomena are not without reminding the ideas of the disurbanists. What followed the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic is indeed a drastic process of decentralization. Propelled by new technologies and the possibility to work remotely, city dwellers are leaving urban areas en masse across the globe. Hitherto underpopulated countryside settings are, wittingly or not, welcoming an exiled urban workforce, triggering an inversion of trends in real estate prices. In light of this recent urban exodus, what can we learn from the experiments of the disurbanists? Can the projects they envisioned be of use in the production of more equitable and sustainable human settlements? This paper seeks to highlight the similarities and differences between Soviet anti-urban strategies and the results of the pandemic-induced, contemporary push to leave the city.