Translate this page:
Please select your language to translate the article


You can just close the window to don't translate
Library
Your profile

Back to contents

Genesis: Historical research
Reference:

Leningrad's Transport Infrastructure and Socio-economic Changes in the Life of the City in the 1950s – 1960s.

Yarmolich Fedor Kuz'mich

PhD in History

Researcher, St. Petersburg AI RAS

183456, Russia, Saint Petersburg, ul. Zhukova, 1

f.k.1985@mail.ru

DOI:

10.25136/2409-868X.2023.10.38975

EDN:

PTFMTP

Received:

18-10-2022


Published:

31-10-2023


Abstract: The article considers urban road infrastructure as one of the factors of socio-economic everyday life of a person. Based on the materials of Leningrad in the 1950s – 1960s, it is studied how the city's transport system was influenced by the settlement of the city center, the reform of working hours and population growth, the problems faced by the city's transport network and the mechanisms for their solution are demonstrated. The degree of effectiveness of overcoming the existing problems in the road and logistics infrastructure of the city is being clarified. Historical-genetic, historical-comparative and retrospective methods are used to solve the tasks set in the article. The analysis carried out in the article demonstrated that despite the considerable efforts of the city authorities, they failed to create an efficient road transport network. The desire of the federal and municipal authorities of Russia to resolve this issue, quite often in cities with a million population does not lead to the desired result. Conducted on the materials of Leningrad 1950 – 1960s, historical analysis shows that, in solving this problem, it is necessary to take into account many factors, both demographic and social. But even under these conditions, as the historical experience of Leningrad showed, when the city authorities made significant efforts to create an extensive road and transport network, logistical problems were not overcome. Therefore, historical experience and modern realities indicate the need to develop new, more effective theoretical models for organizing the movement of the city's population.


Keywords:

Leningrad, road infrastructure, settlement policy, free time, transport problem, city, urban space, citizen, leningradets, road

This article is automatically translated.

 

Effective development of the territory surrounding a person becomes the key not just to a comfortable life, but to a certain extent to his survival. Not by chance F. Braudel pointed out that "any activity comes into conflict with space, overcomes the restrictions imposed on it and adapts to them" [1, p. 43]. One of the mechanisms for adapting space to the needs of human life is the road. Transport infrastructure connects both different regions of the world or individual socio-economic regions of the country, as well as the territory within the city: "transport links play an important role in the formation of agglomerations. Their spatial development, time spent on movement and mobility of the population depend on the organization of transport communications" [2, p. 96]. Based on the materials of Leningrad, it is proposed to study to what extent the road infrastructure of the city corresponded to the socio-economic changes of the 1950s – 1960s (the settlement of the central districts of Leningrad, the reform of the working week and the growth of the urban population).

As part of the solution of the housing problem, which was started in the USSR in the second half of the 1950s, the settlement of the central part of the city was carried out in Leningrad, where Leningraders lived mainly in communal apartments, in new urban areas, where citizens were provided with separate living space. Under these conditions, the city's road transport system had to ensure the transit of the urban population from their places of residence in the new districts to their places of work, which were located in the central part of Leningrad. The second task that faced the city's road infrastructure, in the context of the reform of working hours and an increase in free time, was to ensure the transportation of Leningraders from their places of residence to the cultural and leisure institutions of the city, which were also mainly located in the center of Leningrad.

New factors of urban everyday life, of course, affected the work of the road transport infrastructure, but even before these changes (in the first half of the 1950s), it experienced certain difficulties in organizing the movement of Leningraders. One of them was the excessive density of city streets: "until the end of 1957, housing construction in Leningrad was located mainly in small blocks with an area of 4-6 hectares. ... formed an excessively dense network of streets, which ... worsened the conditions of urban traffic" [3, p. 38, 40.]. To a certain extent, not very high mobility of the population could level the existing difficulties in the road economy of the city in the first half of the 1950s. In 1950, there were 540 trips per Leningrad resident per year, in 1951 – 547, and in 1954 – 520 [4, l. 27]. In the second half of the fifties, the situation begins to change. In 1956, one resident of Leningrad made 565 trips a year, in 1957 – 594, and in 1958 – 614 [5, l. 28].

The difference in the indicators of the first half from the second half of the decade is explained by the fact that in the first half of the decade, the bulk of Leningrad residents lived, worked and rested in the central districts of the city, in the second – the policy of settlement of the central districts began, which led to the fact that part of the urban population begins to move to new urban areas that were on the outskirts of the city, and places works and cultural and leisure facilities were located in the city center: "residential areas in the areas of Shchemilovka, Bolshaya and Malaya Okhta, etc. Engels, Avtova, Moskovsky Ave., etc. are populated in large part by persons working in the city center. This caused an increase in both labor and cultural trips at the expense of the population of new residential quarters. So, for example, in the Nevsky district, where there is a large housing construction on Shchemilovka, in 1947, along the ave. Obukhov Defense passed 53.5 tons of people to the Nevsky District Council area in both directions per day (by tram and bus). In 1958, 86.8 thousand people traveled on the same section (including a new parallel highway), i.e. 63% more" [5, l. 28].        

The new urban reality and the transport problems it has led to are reflected both in the literature [6, p. 218] and in the "Technical and Economic foundations of the draft General Plan for the Development of Leningrad. 1959", which described the whole complex of problems that were characteristic of Leningrad in the late 1950s. Attention was drawn to the fact that the city's street network was shredded and oversaturated with unregulated intersections, the carriageway of many streets and even the main city highways was narrow, and a number of districts where a significant part of the population of Leningrad lived did not have the necessary normal communication with the city center (where museums and theaters were located) by road infrastructure. For example, this was typical for Moskovsky Prospekt [7, l. 55, 56].

Difficulties in organizing the movement of Leningrad's population at the turn of the 1950s – 1960s became so obvious and affected the quality of life of citizens that they were reflected in the pages of the city's periodical press. Answering readers' questions sent to the editorial office of the newspaper Leningradskaya Pravda, the head of the Department of Urban Transport and Roads A.P. Zhukovsky stated that "the situation in the center is still tolerable – the transport network is quite well developed here, but in new areas transport is clearly lagging behind the rapid pace of housing construction. And we must honestly admit that this gap is increasing more and more from year to year" [8, p. 2].

Paying attention to this, A.P. Zhukovsky in no way exaggerated the colors around the problem. In the 1960s, the proportional population ratio between the central and new districts of the city continued to change: "the rapid development of new districts of Leningrad causes an increased influx of population from the center to the periphery. By the end of 1971, the population of the five central districts (Dzerzhinsky, Kuibyshevsky, Smolninsky, Oktyabrsky and Petrogradsky) had decreased by almost 30 percent compared to 1959. At the same time, the population of the Leningrad center is aging due to the outflow of mostly young families to new areas" [9, p. 57]. Such a proportional ratio in the distribution of the population in the urban space led to the fact that a resident of Leningrad spent more and more time in transport, making trips from home to work and from home to theaters, cinemas, museums, etc. 

Of course, throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Leningrad authorities sought to solve the transport problem: new roads, interchanges, bridges, cargo duplicates of the main city highways were built, the subway developed, new public transport routes were laid, the fleet of buses, trams, trolleybuses and much more were replenished. The road logistics problem has been seriously studied at the theoretical level. The scientific search was reflected, in particular, in the "Technical and economic foundations of the draft General Plan for the Development of Leningrad", where a new terminological apparatus was used for more productive planning of the mobility of the population, for example, the "distance module". Using this module, the territory of Leningrad was divided into 5 zones located in relation to the city center in the form of concentric rings, 3 km wide. This made it possible to identify the main areas of residence of the population and their remoteness from places of work and recreation. The use of this technique demonstrated that in the late 1950s the bulk of the population (83%) lived at a distance of up to 6 km from the city center. The city authorities did not want to put up with this and assumed that in the 1960s this situation had to be changed, ensuring that 46.9% of the total urban population remained in the zone up to 6 km from the city center, and in the zone from 6 to 12 km from the center, the population had to increase to 48.9% [10, l. 2-12]. Of course, such a plan, which was generally implemented in the 1960s, greatly increased the load on the city's road system.   

Despite the steps taken, in the 1960s the city authorities could not completely solve the logistical problem of Leningrad. This is evidenced by the analysis of the Leningrad resident's time budget. During the seven months of 1966, temporary losses in the Leningrad industry amounted to more than 6 million man-days, which was caused precisely by shortcomings in the organization of transport work: "an increase in the distance of passengers' trips to the place of work associated with the development of the city, the lag in the development of the urban transport network from the needs of passenger transportation, as well as serious shortcomings in the organization of transport work they cause large expenditures of time among the population in the morning and evening parts" [11, l. 22].

The unresolved problems in the transport system of the city can only be partially explained by the insufficient attention of the Leningrad authorities to this issue, as evidenced by the already cited publication by A.P. Zhukovsky, in which it was noted that in comparison with other major cities of the USSR, the situation with the road infrastructure in Leningrad is not the best [8, p. 2]. But it would not be right to fully assign responsibility for this to the city authorities. There were, of course, objective reasons. Among them is a significant increase in the population of Leningrad from 2.6 million in 1950 to 3.5 million in 1970 . Another reason can be attributed to the fact that even in the conditions of Leningrad's transition to the micro-district planning principle, which assumed the placement of cultural institutions near the places of human residence, it was not possible to achieve this in full. Even in the 1960s, the main recreation centers were located in the city center, as evidenced by the technical documentation for the 1963 Master Plan: "almost all the largest and a significant part of the small cultural and educational institutions are concentrated in the areas of old buildings, mainly in the central part of the city," the mentioned document gave a specific figure: 70% of all leisure facilities were located in the central part of the city [12, L. 18, 19]. Such a disparity led to the fact that in the second half of the 1960s, in the structure of the movement of Leningraders around the city, up to 80% accounted for cultural and household purposes, and only 20% were related to work [13, pp. 145, 147].

In the mid-1970s, it was recognized in the specialized literature that the logistical problem has no solution within the framework of the accepted theoretical model of urban planning: "urban transport to a certain extent came into conflict with the modern system of urban settlement and the planning structure of urban settlements, which limits the possibility of rational development of a particular urban organism and to some extentthat leads to excessive population density" [14, p. 60].

In an effort to overcome the expanding space of Leningrad, to ensure the rapid movement of the growing urban population, the city authorities built new roads, bridges, etc. But all this did not allow the road infrastructure to overcome the spatial factor that F. was thinking about. Braudel, and properly connect the city. The new socio-economic reality of the 1950s – 1960s, which was formed under the influence of the settlement of the city center, the reform of the labor week and the population of Leningrad, set such tasks for the road infrastructure of the city that it could not completely solve.  

References
1. Braudel, F. (2003). The Mediterranean Sea and the Mediterranean world in the era of Philip II: At 3 hours, Part 2: Collective destinies and universal shifts. Per. from fr. M.A. Yusima. Moscow.
2. Barkova, E.A. (1976). The problem of spending the time of the population on transport communications in the group development of populated areas. Town-planning. Collection of scientific papers. To the XXIII international geographical congress. Ed. F.M. Listengurt. Moscow.
3. Verizhnikov, S.M. (1960). Industrial housing construction in Leningrad. House building factories. L.
4. Central State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation of St. Petersburg (hereinafter TsGANTD St. Petersburg). F. 386. Op. 3-3. D. 26.
5. TsGANTD St. Petersburg. F. 386. Op. 3-3. D. 26.
6. Essays on the history of Leningrad. (1970). Volume six. Leningrad during the completion of the construction of socialism and the gradual transition to communism. 1946-1965 L.
7. TsGANTD St. Petersburg. F. 386. Op. 3-2. D. 5.
8. City and transport. Leningradskaya Pravda. December 21, 1960.
9. Lisovsky, V.G. (1974). City without borders. Areas of new buildings in Leningrad. L.
10. Technical and economic bases of the draft master plan for the development of Leningrad. Section: Transport conditions of resettlement. 1959. TsGANTD SPb. F. 386. Op. 3-3. D. 25.
11. Protocol No. 3 of the meeting of the plenum of the Leningrad City Committee of the CPSU dated October 5, 1966. Central State Archive of Historical and Political Documents of St. Petersburg. F. 25. Op. 100. D. 16.
12. Organization of public services in 1963. TsGANTD SPb. F. 386. Op. 3-3. D. 43.
13. Zengbush, M.V. (1966). Influence of the city center on settlement and transport in large cities. Architecture and urban planning (Issues of the theory and history of architecture, architectural design, architectural structures, urban planning, architectural graphics and urban transport). Reports to the XXIV scientific conference. L.
14. Litovka, O.P. (1976). Problems of spatial development of urbanization. L.

Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

Review of the article "The transport infrastructure of Leningrad and socio-economic changes in the life of the city of the 1950s – 1960s." The subject of the study is the transport infrastructure of the city of Leningrad in the 1950s - 1960s, as well as the activities of city authorities to improve it. Research methodology. The article uses general scientific methods: analysis, synthesis, statistical and descriptive. Specific historical methods are also used: problem-chronological, comparative-historical and system-structural. This makes it possible to compare the Leningrad transport system in different chronological periods: the beginning of the 1950s, the end of the 1950s and the 1960s. The relevance of the reviewed article raised by the author is beyond doubt. The transport infrastructure of large and medium-sized cities is currently one of the most difficult tasks in urban construction. The growth in the number of vehicles and the population, an increase in the number of trips to different parts of the city, and from different parts of the city to the center, the rapidly aging system of the road network, in conditions of increasing traffic intensity of cars and pedestrians, active urban development and many other factors create a collapse on the roads and many hours of traffic jams require monitoring of the urban road system and special attention to the transport infrastructure of cities, especially large ones (million–plus cities), but as life shows, this problem is being built in medium and small towns and other settlements by the authorities, both executive and legislative authorities. In recent years, the public demand for the study of past experience in solving issues of urban transport infrastructure, improving the road system and its regulation has increased, and therefore the peer-reviewed scientific article, the scientific novelty of the article lies in the fact that this article for the first time examines the transport infrastructure of the city of Leningrad in the 1950s and 1960s, when important social-economic changes (this is population growth, active urban housing construction, relocation of residents from communal apartments to separate housing on the periphery of the city, increasing cultural demands of residents, which led to an increase in the number of their trips to the center, etc.). Style, structure, content. The writing style of the article is generally scientific, there are descriptive elements, which makes the article more accessible to a wide readership. The article as a whole is well structured both chronologically and problematically. The content of the article corresponds to its title. The bibliography of the article shows that the author uses literature both on the topic under study and on related issues and generally reflects the issues raised in the article and indicates that the author has a fairly deep knowledge of the material and is well versed in the topic under study. The bibliography of the article includes 14 sources (archival documents, monographs and articles on the studied and related topics). The appeal to the opponents is presented at the level of the collected information received by the author during the work on the topic of the article and the bibliography. Conclusions, the interest of the readership. The conclusions of the article are justified and follow from the author's analysis of the entire range of issues raised. It is difficult to disagree with the author's conclusion that "in an effort to overcome the expanding space of Leningrad, to ensure the rapid movement of the growing urban population, the city authorities built new roads, bridges, etc.", but the resettlement of the urban center, population growth, socio-economic reforms (labor week reforms-reducing the number of working hours, which led to the release of time and, accordingly, the growth of cultural demands, which was also formed by the authorities), the expansion of urban space and other factors "set tasks for the city's road infrastructure that it could not fully solve." The article will be of interest to historians, sociologists, economists, cultural scientists, as well as to a wide range of readers who are interested in the history, way of life and culture of the Soviet period of our country. The article is recommended for publication.