Moscow General Plan 2025 Update
Core idea
New Moscow expansion; radial-ring refinement
Why it matters
Absorbs growth by annexation
Description
The 2010 update of Moscow's general plan to the horizon year 2025, prepared by the Moscow Genplan Institute, refining the capital's historic radial-ring structure through transport investment, renovation zones and peripheral development. Its context was soon transformed by the 'New Moscow' annexation of 2011–12, which extended the city's boundaries far to the south-west, and subsequent planning work directed government functions, housing and infrastructure into the annexed territory.
Significance
The plan and the annexation together represent the most dramatic recent attempt to solve a capital's growth pressures by administrative enlargement, effectively absorbing metropolitan expansion into the city itself. The episode is central to discussion of post-Soviet Moscow's planning, including critiques that the radial-ring, centre-dominated model persisted despite the polycentric ambitions attached to New Moscow.
What shaped it
- The master plan (early 20th c.)
- The metro / underground railway (1863)
- The green belt (1898 concept / 1938 law)
Sources
- https://www.rferl.org/a/Moscow_City_Duma_Approves_Controversial_Development_Plan/2033198.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genplan_Institute_of_Moscow