Pilipenko, Igor V. (2023). Structural Specificities of Housing Construction Dynamics in the 15 Republics of the USSR from 1918 to 1990. Ekonomika i Upravlenie: Problemy, Resheniya (Economy and Governance: Problems, Solutions) (ISSN 2308-927X), June, Vol. 4, No. 6, pp. 36–64. (in Russian).

Abstract

This article considers the structure and dynamics of housing construction in the 15 Republics of the USSR, subdivided into five macroregions, from 1918 to 1990 based on a dataset compiled by the author from more than 120 statistical yearbooks of the USSR and the Union Republics. We employ housing completions by total floor space as a main indicator for our analysis by Republic of the USSR in general and in urban and rural areas. This indicator is further subdivided into four sources of financing: (1) housing completions by state and cooperative enterpises and organisations; (2) by housing construction cooperatives; (3) by inhabitants at their own expense and with state loans; (4) by collective farms (kolkhozes). The article reveals that, contrary to a quite widespread opinion in the contemporary public discourse about the predominance of the state in housing provision in the USSR since the 1920s, individual housing construction continued to play a leading role in the structure of housing completions by source of financing until the beginning of the 1960s, and the majority of the Union Republics were characterised by considerable volumes of housing construction financed by the population until the end of the 1980s. It is also shown that the degree of urbanisation influenced substantially the proportion between state housing construction and housing construction financed by inhabitants at the level of the Union Republics.