Yanitsky O.N. Urbanization in the XXI Century: Some Theoretical Issues. Official Portal Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2020, pp. 1-13. URL: http: ...

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Abstract

The article presents the author’s analysis of the processes and structural transformations which have been characteristic to the 50 years period after the publication the article ‘Urbanization, society and scientific-technological revolution’ in the ‘Voprosy philosophy’ journal (1969, no 2) written by A. Akhiezer, L. Kogan and O. Yanitsky. Drawing on relevant scientific literature and my professional experience as a sociologists and city planner, I came to the following conclusions. First, any urbanization process is a part and parcel of a particular mode of production and social reproduction. Second, at the same time a particular urbanization process has its own specific. Third, nowadays, the current urbanization process in Russia is a result of complex transformations generated by such fundamental processes as a transition to market economy, globalization and to the transition to the Fourth scientific and technological revolution (STR-4). Fourth, the Chicago School principles of human ecology and its transformations in Russian conditions as well as their changes in the digital era are analyzed. Fifth, a current urbanization process in Russia is inseparable from its social, natural and built environment. Sixth, the Fourth scientific and technological revolution coupled with globalization processes sharply changed the time-space relations and a dynamics of urban processes. Seventh, the various metabolic processes are the basement of current urbanization. Eighth, a distance between the mega-cities and their built periphery expands. Ninth, under modern conditions an urban dweller lives not in cities and towns but in global information-communication network that urge her/him to be mobile and therefore less dependent on family and local community life.