- ‘Situating’ Western Planning Ideas Within the Post-Soviet Realities. The Case Study of Perm, Russia   1427 kb by    Starodubtseva, Ekaterina | ekaterina.starodubzeva@gmail.com    Short Outline The case study describes an unprecedented effort of transferring Western planning expertise to Russia through the work of foreign consultants and illustrates the clash between the latest European planning trends and the Soviet-style planning culture. Abstract Once widespread and influential, Soviet urban planning techniques and models, created for entirely different social and economic conditions, have long lost their relevance. While the Russian planning system is undergoing a slow recovery process, many cities continue to be in terrible state. If the Russian planning school is to ‘catch up’ with the leading European planning schools quickly and relatively easily, borrowing from the outside may become a natural solution, providing useful guidance without ‘re-inventing the wheel’. However, the important question is whether Western planning techniques and concepts are compatible with the current practice of planning in Russia, which still retains the features of the Soviet model of urban planning and development. The paper describes the recent attempt to apply Western planning ideas to Perm, a city in the North-East of Russia with one million inhabitants, through the work of Dutch planning consultants. The study draws on primary data from interviews with representatives of Perm local authorities and local planners and allows an opportunity to observe the clash between the latest European planning trends and the out-dated practices inherited from the Soviet Union. Various aspects of the latter include planning methods and regulations of Soviet origin, which are still in use among indigenous planners, and the inertia of thinking of post-Soviet professionals; a weak participatory tradition and overall apathetic attitude of the general public towards planning initiatives. The case study demonstrates that before any changes can be seen in the urban environment, changes should occur in thinking of politicians, planners and even ordinary community. Keywords post-Soviet, planning culture, transferability of planning experience Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2012: Fast Forward: Planning in a (hyper) dynamic urban context   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper