By population, Moscow is the second largest city in Europe (after Istanbul), and, somewhat famously, has a bit of a problem with quality of life. It's expensive, it's ridden with pollution, and its public transport system is often close to collapse. When a huge green cloud appeared over the Russian capital in April, residents naturally assumed it was just another chemical gas leak from a local factory, such is the expectation of environmental disaster (though, thankfully, it turned out to only be pollen). In Mercer's 2011

Quality of Living survey, it ranked 166th out of 221 for quality of life.

Such problems, along with the degradation of the historic centre of the old city, led to the Russian government annexing a huge swathe of land to the southwest of the capital from the Moscow Oblast into Moscow City proper in July. It more than doubled the city's size, from roughly 1,000km2 to almost 2,500km2. Now, after a bidding process, the Capital Cities Planning Group's (CCPG) plan has been chosen as the blueprint for one of the key parts of "New Moscow" -- a new Russian federal district.


The new territory makes Moscow one of the physically largest cities in the world (as long as you exclude cities in China, which have city limits more comparable to what would be considered the state- or province-level in other countries). Russian prime minister Dmitry Mevedyev declared the new territory was necessary to avoid overcrowding, and according to the latest census figures Moscow's population has grown to 11.5 million, despite Russia's overall population continuing to shrink.

In February 2012, Sergey Sobyanin, Moscow's mayor, announced a competition for proposals for redesigns of both the new area and the existing city, with the British-American-led CCPG coming out the winner. It's led by US firm Urban Design Associates, and includes British architectural firms John Thompson &

Partners and Gillespies. The new districts and buildings are arranged around a host of lakes, and the claim is that there will be enough new housing for 1.7 million people. There's even a swish video with watercolours of what the developments should look like.

Read next Gallery: Plans to double size of Moscow greenlit Gallery Gallery: Plans to double size of Moscow greenlit

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Providing more living space for Moscow residents is only half of the plan, though. By moving people -- and the federal government, the city's largest single employer -- out to New Moscow, space will be freed up in "Old Moscow" for redeveloping the historic old city centre (which is, after all, a Unesco World Heritage Site). Reduced traffic should allow narrower roads with wider pedestrian boulevards, and of course the lowered pollution will have less of an effect on both peoples' lungs and the exterior of historic buildings. The bid for the redevelopment of Old Moscow was awarded to Parisian firms Antoine Grumbach and Jean-Michel Wilmotte.


Currently, the landscape of the future-New Moscow consists of a mixture of woods, summer dachas (traditional Russian holiday homes), small villages and assorted bits of light and heavy industry. The CCPG plan takes advantage of these natural features to keep the New Moscow federal district a lot leafier than the Old Moscow -- many of the same firms were involved with the winning proposal for a new " ecotown" in Suzhou, near Shanghai, which demonstrates many of the same multipurpose waterways and sustainable infrastructure.

That means building to take advantage of natural wind patterns to aid cooling buildings in summer; encouraging eco-tourism; and encouraging people to walk and cycle rather than drive.

Somewhat fittingly, one of the sites slated for redevelopment is a former ZiL factory -- the car and truck manufacturer that produced many of the luxury sedans used by the Soviet leadership, driven along dedicated road lanes that everyday citizens couldn't use (hence "ZiL lanes"). While a place associated with exclusivity and authoritarianism may now be open for all, that will probably not prove much of a salve for those currently living in the newly-annexed area. Around 250,000 people live in the area that will become New Moscow, and they now face a legal battle to try and save their homes and villages from being razed to make way for this grand plan.

Other critics of the plan -- and there are many -- are worried that this marks the continuation of the centralisation of Russia's economic, cultural and political life within certain small regions while the country's largely rural interior decays. In May, Sergei Karaganov at the Moscow Higher School of Economics proposed moving the Russian economic capital to Vladivostok, to reflect the Asia's increased geopolitical importance. The natural resources available to Russia in Siberia are absolutely astounding (potentially), but Russia's population is heavily-concentrated in the west -- at the last census, there were only 6.6 million people in the entire Far East Federal Federal District, out of a population of over 140 million.


Building new districts outside existing city limits is an old idea -- Mussolini's EUR was perhaps the first modern example -- but their success is never assured. By way of comparison, New Moscow will in itself be roughly the physical area of Greater London, and the plan relies on persuading large businesses to move outside Moscow's outer ring road to new campuses, giving New Moscow its own life and economy.

There will be new airports and train stations, and the city's gorgeous-yet-overcrowded Metro will undoubtedly need expanding too.

There is irony, though, that the plan involves tearing down and redeveloping brownfield sites which were once themselves the grand housing and industry areas planned by the USSR. Nobody has yet been chosen to redesign the entirety of the new region, but considering the scale of what's already been announced it will be fascinating to see if Muscovites embrace their "new" city.