| Abstract: | The author advances an interesting and somewhat controversial argument for the dismal state of affairs in central Russia's countryside. Programs addressing problems in the countryside should focus not on reversing the tide of outmigration and agricultural employment loss, but on reducing labor intensity in agriculture and recognizing social and other realities working to the disadvantage of remote rural areas. What is needed is not expensive and unfeasible “revitalization” of the countryside, but the regulated decline of its agricultural workforce and the selective introduction of new labor-saving technologies and alternative land uses. Translated by H. L. Haslett, Leamington Spa, UK from: Evolyutsiya rasseleniya v SSSR, Chast' I (Evolution of Settlement in the USSR, Part I), G. M. Lappo, Zh. A. Zayonchkovskaya, and P. M. Polyan, eds. Moscow: Akademiya Nauk SSSR and Pol'skaya Akademiya Nauk, 1989, pp. 43-59. |
