Construction of new large cities in Siberia. Why have these plans been announced?

Recently, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu voiced interesting thoughts (maybe even plans) that 3-5 large cities need to be built in Siberia (from 300 thousand to up to 1 million residents). And not just cities, but scientific and industrial centers. Not on ready-made sites of already existing settlements, but from scratch.

The fact that this is being voiced by the Minister of Defense, and not the Minister of Economic Development or the Minister of Finance, is already unusual. And the fact that they propose to build new cities from scratch is doubly strange. And for an ordinary person with a negative attitude towards the government of the country, all this looks like just mastering budgets. Let's figure it out.

During the Soviet era, in the middle of the 20th century. already had an experience of building cities in the Siberian taiga. I will name just a few large cities built in the region where I live. This is Zelenogorsk of the Krasnoyarsk Territory with the former city-forming enterprise ECP (uranium enrichment and isotopes production). About 70 thousand people lived there. inhabitants (now, probably, less). Divnogorsk near the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station. Bratsk, Irkutsk Region - aluminum smelter and hydroelectric power station (up to 200 thous. residents). The list can be continued: Norilsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Togliatti, etc.

News source: https://news.mail.ru/politics/47803598

What is all this for? Are there really no problems in other cities? You can also develop existing cities. This is probably due to the fact that if you do not deal with the development of the eastern part of the country, then in 20-30 years from here a significant part of the population will leave. The population density in Siberia and in the western regions of the country is enormous.

Many of my friends went to Krasnodar, to Moscow. Where salaries are higher and the climate is more comfortable. It is more difficult to find a job with a decent salary here. Winter 6 months a year. And there will be deserted territories - neighbors from China can covet on them.

The Far Eastern hectare program did not give the desired effect. People do not go to an empty place as in the time of the Stolypin resettlement. Times are not the same, everyone is used to comfort. I think for this reason they are considering taking a different path, especially since there is experience in building cities under the USSR from scratch. But then there was a planned economy and goal-setting, development of territories and employment of the population.

There are many natural resources in Siberia. The pace of their development is minimal. The country could replenish the budget by selling them. This is also an argument.

Where will the country get funds from for such grandiose projects? There is money in the NWF. But who would allow them to be taken from the Ministry of Finance from there? And the Central Bank will not allow turning on its printing press. Liberal ministers are against. Supposedly all this will provoke inflation. S. Shoigu proposes to build together with private capital. Moreover, some cities will be for builders and workers of processing enterprises of the metallurgical industry.

Personally, I have the following conceptual questions for the topic of these cities.

1. In order for people to go to these construction sites and to new cities, and even more so to stay here, you need to either distribute housing or lure people with high salaries. We need to make the level of Moscow salaries - people will go to build from all over the country, and not only guest workers from neighboring countries.

2. Cities concept. If they build cities like dormitory areas at factories, this is a passed stage, which was in the days of the USSR. But then there was an ideology. There are no ideological people now. Would you like to live in a ghetto, albeit a new one? The joy of new housing will pass in a couple of years and the depressing view of the neighborhoods will drive you into depression. We need a beautiful architecture of houses, wide green streets, parks, infrastructure with leisure facilities.

You can initially use city transport only on batteries. Park cars outside the neighborhoods. CHP plants must be gas-fired. There are no Gazprom pipes in Siberia, where cities are planned. And whether Mr. Melnichenko will let SUEK hold it is a question. This is a shadow oligarch, about whom few people know. Coal mines, thermal power plants and management companies in Siberia are his business.

Whose factories and enterprises will be owned? State-owned, private businesses, oligarchs? Will businesses be located nearby or within cities? Are enterprises built first, and then a city, or vice versa? There are many questions.

But it seems to me that they will not bother with ecology in cities. CHPPs will be coal-fired and the industry will add its negative share to the environment. I live in Krasnoyarsk and I know firsthand what the ecology of an industrial city is. And the visitors say about our city - beautiful, but it stinks, already, horror (especially with an east wind, when all the emissions to the city are carried from KrAZ).

I believe that at the top there is a constant struggle between the country's patriots (there are fewer of them) and the liberal, pro-Western elites. The patriots voiced some of their plans. But what's the use of them, if they remain so ...

In general, if this is not a pre-election PR and in this form of a promise, then a concept of such cities is needed. Such that any person in the country, having come here to live and work, is not disappointed in the choice and does not leave back after some time. Let me remind you that the winter climate in Siberia is frost from November to March, and summer often begins only in July and ends in August.