SOCIAL-GEOGRAPHIC PROBLEMS IN THE REGULATION OF SETTLEMENT SYSTEMS IN A DEVELOPED SOCIALIST SOCIETY

An analysis of the impact of social development on forms of settlement and of the reverse impact of settlement forms on social processes. The author challenges the view that spatial forms have no bearing on social processes. The point is made by tabulating types of social contacts at various spatial levels and for different forms of settlement, from household to large urban agglomeration. The significance of information flows at different spatial levels is discussed. Large cities are found to have potential for the development of material and spiritual benefits that are lacking in smaller places. But since an integrated economy also requires smaller forms of settlement, ways must be found to provide a minimum set of material and cultural services at the lower level as well. Recommendations for raising the level of living in smaller Soviet populated places are offered.     

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION PROBLEMS AND THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF TERRITORIAL PRODUCTION COMPLEXES IN DEVELOPED REGIONS: THE KMA

Present and anticipated future environmental problems associated with past and projected development of the iron ore resources of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly (KMA) (the most rapidly expanding production basin in the USSR) are outlined. The area's environmental problems recently have become a major concern, as a result of a heavy emphasis on accelerating production from surface mines in the basin, with few resources being allocated for land reclamation and pollution control activities (see Soviet Geography, November 1986, pp. 679-682 and May 1988, p. 537). Major attention is given to identifying development strategies mitigating further environmental disruption and experimentation with promising land reclamation and pollution control measures (translated by Andrew R. Bond).     

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SETTLEMENT SYSTEM IN THE LITHUANIAN SSR: RESULTS,PROBLEMS, AND PROSPECTS

The authors analyze the factors, results, problems, and prospects of the development of a system of settlement in the Lithuanian SSR, a laboratory of sorts for settlement policy in the Soviet Union. Particular attention is devoted to the formation of an inter-rayon settlement system integrating urban and rural settlements. Several methodological and conceptual approaches to the study of settlement systems are examined in this context. (Translated by Andrew R. Bond.)     

A MICROGEOGRAPHY OF SETTLEMENT IN THE PAMIR HIGHLANDS

Settlement patterns in the Pamir highlands, the “roof of the world,” adjoining Afghanistan, offer a striking contrast between the western deep valleys inhabited by sedentary Pamir ethnic groups related to the Tadzhiks, and the eastern plateau-like highland with a sparse population of nomadic Kirghiz herders. The evolution of Pamir settlement during the Soviet period is analyzed, and recommendations are offered for the removal of remote small places from high elevations and for the merger of settlements into more viable population centers. (Data for the mid-1960s have been partly updated by the Editor to the mid-1980s.)     

A STRATEGY FOR THE DISTRIBUTION OF SETTLEMENT BSf THE USSR; AIMS,PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

A General Program of Settlement in the USSR, worked out by the Central Urban Planning Institute, envisages a long-term evolution of settlement that would help ameliorate the quality of life, insure industrial development of small and middle-size towns and help protect the environment. Two alternative strategies are envisaged: (1) an extrapolative strategy that projects long-term trends on the basis of past experiences and would enhance agglomerative processes in Soviet settlement; (2) a normative, goal-directed strategy that would seek to foster the evolution of planned and regulated systems of interconnected urban and rural places, and would gradually transform the present agglomerations along the lines of such normative systems. The prospective distribution of settlement under both strategies is mapped. Under the extrapolative strategy, the urban population share in areas with agglomerated forms of settlement would reach nearly 70 percent over the forecast period compared with 44 percent in 1970. The normative, goal-directed strategy would yield 60 large interconnected urban-rural systems, centered on the country's largest cities and accounting for 53 percent of the total population; 170 middle-size systems, centered on moderately large cities and including 26 percent of the population; and 325 small systems, centered on small and middle-size towns and including 14 percent of the population. About 7 percent of the population would remain outside the systemic structure.     

PROBLEMS IN THE SPATIAL REDISTRIBUTION OF STREAMFLOW

A report on a 1974 conference on interbasin transfers from Siberia to Central Asia compares the alternative stream-diversion projects west and east of the Urals and finds that north-south interbasin transfers in the European part of the country have a better chance for early implementation than the diversion from Siberia to Central Asia. The author urges consideration of a unified water-management system within the European part of the Soviet Union that would make it possible to dispatch streamflow from one basin to another much as electric power is transmitted through interconnections between power grids. Such an interconnected water-management system would be based on the premise that runoff volumes tend to be nonconcurrent in the various drainage basins of the Russian plain so that surplus runoff from “donor rivers” (Pechora, Northern Dvina, Onega and the lakes Onega and Ladoga) might be channeled southward to “consumer rivers” (Volga, Don, Dnieper and Ural).     

BASIC PROBLEMS IN THE STAGE-BY-STAGE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TRANSPORT NET IN THE ZONE OF THE BAIKAL-AMUR MAINLINE

The evolution of the transport net within the BAM zone is examined in terms of three development stages. The first stage will involve the construction of the initial framework of the future transport net; aside from the BAM itself, it is recommended that consideration be given to the construction of a permanent motor road instead of the temporary construction road now envisaged. The second stage, in the author's view, should include the start of an extension of the Little BAM northward toward Yakutsk, as well as an oil pipeline (the author does not agree with the view that the BAM would replace earlier plans for a Trans-Siberian pipeline). The third stage would include a gas pipeline from the Yakutian fields to the coast; it is recommended that the gas line follow the alignment of the new railroads. No specific time frame is attached to the proposed three development stages.     

METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN THE GEOGRAPHY OF LABOR RESOURCES

Soviet population geographers have tended to study labor-resource problems at the level of major civil divisions, such as republics, krays and oblasts. There is a real need for investigating such problems at a more detailed regional level, down to particular rayons and urban places in which people live and are employed. Various types of economic-geographic investigations of labor-resource problems are suggested and a research strategy is proposed. The author notes that if population cannot be redistributed regionally in keeping with a given economic objective, economic plans may have to be revised on the basis of the actual labor resource situation.     

THE SHEPHELAH IN THE IRON AGE: A NEW LOOK ON THE SETTLEMENT OF JUDAH

Abstract

The Shephelah was densely settled in the Late Bronze Age, but most of the settlements were gradually abandoned during the transition to the Iron I period. Only a few Iron I settlements existed in the eastern part of the region (excluding the Philistine sites at the northwestern edge of the Shephelah), forming a small Canaanite enclave. During the Iron II period the region was gradually resettled, and it became part of Judah. This process lasted until the 8th century BCE, when the region reached an unparalleled demographic peak. Sennacherib's campaign brought wide-scale destruction, and the region recovered only partially before being devastated by Nebuchadnezzar. After reconstructing the region's settlement history, the article reassesses its political and demographic history in comparison to the neighbouring regions of the Judean highlands and the southern coastal plain, it is concluded that the Shephelah had a lesser role in the history of Judah than some recent studies suggest.     

THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEOLITHIC AND COPPER AGE SETTLEMENT IN THE GREAT HUNGARIAN PLAIN PART II: SITE SURVEY AND SETTLEMENT DYNAMICS

Summary. Within the region of the Great Hungarian Plain (discussed in the first part of this article) the processes of settlement change can be followed in greater detail from site survey in the Szeghalom area. This central part of the Plain, drained by the Körös and Berettyó rivers, was a major focus of settlement in Neolithic times (6000-4000 BC), and its rising importance can be followed in the emergence of a series of wealthy 'supersites'. During the succeeding Copper Age, the character of sites altered as the role of the area in relation to the rest of the region began to change. Around 3500 BC a dramatic shift in settlement patterns coincided with the appearance of large tumuli of steppe type, which mark a new phase of land use in this region.     

CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS IN THE CONSTRUCTIVE GEOGRAPHY OF LARGE CITIES

The increasing impact of urbanization on the natural environment and physical constraints on city planning in the various natural zones of the USSR call for a program of research that would bring to bear the tools of the various geographical disciplines on the problem and might give rise to a distinctive geography of city planning. Geomorphology might be concerned with a variety of caving and slumping processes typical of large cities; climatology with the impact of cities on the microclimate of an area; hydrology with watertable changes and water-management problems, and biogeography with the distinctive plant and animal life of large cities and urban agglomerations. More complex, integrated research in both physical and economic geography would deal with the choice of suitable sites for new cities, particularly in extreme types of environment; with predictive aspects of the impact of urbanization, and the functional structure of cities. A number of cities and parts of cities with different layouts and different environmental settings should be designated as experimental study areas for geographical research of a more systematic character.     

CURRENT NATURE PROTECTION PROBLEMS IN THE DESERTS OF UZBEKISTAN

A brief survey article outlines basic environmental problems currently confronting local authorities in desert regions of the Uzbek SSR accompanying urban development, irrigation, and oil and gas production in that republic. It then describes mitigating measures which have been introduced to address these problems. The focus of attention should be on increasing the efficiency of irrigation, acceleration of efforts at revegetating areas of drifting sand, and expansion of the network of protected natural areas (translated by Jay K. Mitchell, PlanEcon, Inc., Washington, DC 20005).     

PROBLEMS OF THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT IN THEIR GLOBAL ASPECT

The dean of Moscow University's Geography Faculty, a physical geographer, takes issue with alarmist predictions of an environmental deterioration and contends that modern technology will find ways of protecting the environment against pollution. Modern cities, which are among the principal sources of pollution, are taking steps to preserve the urban environment by the increased planting of greenery and the systematic installation of waste treatment facilities for noxious industries. Natural processes are found to have a surprising ability to adapt themselves to new conditions and thus play a more important role than generally assumed in restoring the chemical equilibrium of the natural environment. The cost of environmental protection is undoubtedly rising, and an effort at arms limitation is urged to make the necessary money available. The threat of an exhaustion of energy sources is discounted on the ground that new nonpolluting sources of energy are likely to be developed as fossil fuels approach depletion.     

URBANIZATION IN THE USSR: PROBLEMS OF SPATIAL DIFFERENTIATION

The process of formation of settlement systems “in the USSR is conceptualized as proceeding at eight levels of a hierarchy corresponding to the system of economic regions, from a national system down to rayon-level systems. An important element in the present process of urbanization is the formation of urban agglomerations. The fact that these urban entities still lack juridical or even statistical status deprives urban and economic planners of a valuable data base for planning purposes so that the agglomerations often evolve in undesirable, uncoordinated ways. Greater attention needs to be given to the study of the internal structure of urban entities, a field neglected by Soviet population geographers. An undesirable tendency in Soviet agglomerations is to aim at continuously built-up territory, thus converting agglomerations into traditional compact cities, instead of making provision for open spaces for use in agriculture and forestry, recreation and communications.     

WAYS OF IMPROVING SETTLEMENT IN WEST SIBERIA

A paper devoted to the settlement system and the problem of rural population loss in that portion of West Siberia having a significant agricultural base takes issue with some implicit assumptions incorporated within the General Scheme of Settlement within the USSR. More specifically, policies calling for the deliberate, i.e., forced, resettlement of rural population in selected villages in order to provide economies of scale in rural services provision are criticized on two major counts: (1) that such “enlarged” settlements will still be too small to be allocated the necessary range of functions according to standard city-planning formulae, and (2) that they accelerate rural depopulation by serving as spring-boards for migration to still larger centers. (Translated by Andrew R. Bond.)