“Transforming the City”: Perm Strategic Masterplan and the Implementation Engine of the Transition from Industrial Administratively Planned City to the Liberal Creative Community

Background Information

The initiative to develop a strategic vision of city development is a response to the socioeconomic transformation and industrial modernization impacting all Russian cities, by envisaging a physical environment capable of reflecting the city’s changing spatial needs. To allow this new urban form to emerge, urban policy and regulations need to be updated. This will provide the common ground necessary for all stakeholders to be part of the city’s transformation. Perm is currently seeking to reinvent itself as a regional cultural and knowledge capital, and to leave behind its heavy industrial image. The process of urban transformation is particularly important in realizing these ambitions, sending a clear signal that Perm is a progressive, modern city, open to new ideas in culture, business, education, industry and governance. This way, Perm can genuinely become a great place to live, start a business, go to university and raise a family. Its society is willing to take up the following challenges: to stop the outflow of people from the city; to keep young people in the city; to increase the competitiveness of Perm; to improve the overall quality of life in Perm; to resolve transportation problems caused by increasing mobility; and to balance the provision of social and infrastructural needs of the population within the rationally used space.

Goals of the Initiative

The Strategic Masterplan for Perm (hereinafter referred to as “the Masterplan”) is one of the main instruments for the transformation of the city’s physical environment. This document will steer the transformation of Perm toward a higher quality urban condition over a projected period of 50 years. It aims to transform Perm into a more attractive, economically competitive, modern city with a high standard of living and a distinct social, urban culture built around its unique character. With such a broad time frame, it is evident that the Masterplan cannot anticipate precisely what the future will hold. It is based on today’s knowledge, but its measures and themes of urban development are supported by a set of implementation instruments. The first one of those is the general plan that defines actions and projects which are harmonized with the city budget for the following 12 years and divided into three-year segments. Then, new municipal urban planning guidelines and amendments to legal zoning were established to regulate and ensure the improvement of the physical environment at the human scale. This combination of the strategic vision and the advancement mechanism is aimed at creating the best possible basis to adapt to future challenges, while allowing future generations to create their own Perm.

Parties and Partners to the Initiative and Resources Used for Implementation

KCAP Architects & Planners, (Rotterdam) – urban planning, overall design lead of the international team, international project management, editing, producing the end report—private

HOSPER, (Haarlem) - landscape & public space––private

Systematica, (Milan) - transport—private

Pöyry, Vantaa (Helsenki) - first stage of transportation analysis, analysis of engineering infrastructure—private

Professor Robert Tavernor Consultancy, London – heritage—private

Fakton, Rotterdam – urban economics—private

Allies and Morrison - urban planning and architecture, the first stage—private

Municipal budget-funded institution “City projects bureau” (Perm) - overall design lead, project management, editing, producing the end report—public

Urban Economics Institute (Moscow) –methodological and legal support—non-governmental

Federal Scientific Center for Medical and Preventive Health Risk Management Technologies (Perm) – environment—governmental

UralGeo (Perm) – civil engineering (infrastructure) and GIS—private

VKTISIZ (Perm) – geotechnical surveying—private

Vodoproect (St. Petersburg) – water & sewage—private

The resources used for implementing the initiative include:

Municipal budget of the city of Perm

Perm Krai (Region) administrative support (via Perm Economic Forum and other promotional measures of the Masterplan)

Innovation for the Initiative

Since 2003, Russian cities have been experiencing serious systemic changes to local self-governance. In this sense, Perm could be an example of creating a new urban planning policy. The essence of the new policy is very simple: it is necessary to stop the city sprawl, to focus on the already developed space, densifying the city, creating integrated, highly utilized and a diversified urban fabric. It was decided to opt for mixed use of land and buildings, and pursue human-scale development. Government policy sees new construction at a reasonable level, which forms streets and blocks, as the most convenient and viable environment instead of multi-storey residential blocks cut up by roads. However, the vast majority of Russian cities continue to produce multiple monotone dormitory areas at an incredible speed. Those territories are surrounded by hectares of emptiness and are inhumane inside. The city on the whole is doomed to unsolvable transportation problems due to the colossal, ever-growing volume of commuters. The city of Perm made a revolutionary step beyond the old conservative urban planning practices by means of creating a strategic vision and a set of implementation tools that was developed in the process of international collaboration and in accordance with local laws.

The Masterplan is a comprehensive ideological base for the city policy of urban development regulation and planning. The new policy impacts all municipal activities: the budgeting process, city projects prioritization and administration, and the application of new technologies in building and maintaining municipal infrastructure.

The innovative urban development policy is based on the best international and local practices and has absorbed elements of the “open city” ideology, Jane Jacobs’s urban ideas, and Curitiba in  Brazil, as an example of establishing a link between land use and the public transport system. A lot of Russian cities (Ufa, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen and others) have learned of Perm’s policies as an example of urban policy development for post-industrial cities in the liberal economy. All documents are freely available on the web and can be used as a guideline for other cities’ policymaking. This project has stimulated public involvement in urban development processes and discussions, and the citizens of Perm are becoming active participants and real stakeholders in the process of improving city life. The active role that the public takes on helps the local authorities to counter-balance the pressure of the developers.