Anna Herzog, Rüdiger Hamm (p)

Olga Tarasova

See extended abstract

Martin Rosenfeld (p), Bastian Heider

Rüdiger Hamm

This paper looks at different categories of heritage from socialism and their impact on path dependencies for urban development: Had decisions in times of socialist central planning an impact and long-term consequences for cities, even after their return to a market economy? Combining approaches from the literature on regional path dependence and urban growth theory and analyzing case studies from cities in East Germany we identify a bundle of interdependent factors that led to lock-ins of the local economic systems and very limited opportunities for local policies to break with these established trajectories. However, our findings also suggest that socialist planning policies did not necessarily result in negative developments after the end of socialism. How and to what extent a city can even benefit from its socialist heritage is strongly dependent on the specific local, industrial as well as global institutional context.

Olga Tarasova (p), Vera Rudneva

Martin Rosenfeld

The paper considers the problems and prospects of structural changes in the old industrial towns of Siberia. It describes the results of expeditionary research, carried out in the south parts of the Kemerovo region and Altai krai and the Irkutsk region. The definition of revitalization is given. On the basis of materials collected the revitalization models of old industrial settlements (Novokuznetsk, Bratsk, Biysk, Usolye-Sibirskoe, Sheregesh) are specified. The models reflect the interaction of government, business and scientific complex characteristic of the area. Within the framework of the existing models the recommendations for accelerating the revitalization process were formulated and justified.