In Moscow, the borders are tight, a relocation is expected

Moscow - The Moscow City Hall is feverishly working on creating a "concept for the development of the Moscow agglomeration," which aims to solve a unique problem - by decision from the highest authorities, Moscow is set to expand by 150,000 hectares. A total of 67 teams from 21 countries have entered the competition for the best development concept, from which the city hall has selected ten in the first round from France, the USA, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Russia, according to the newspaper Kommersant.
    The competition to build "Greater Moscow" was announced this January. This followed last year's statement by President Dmitry Medvedev that the largest European city, Moscow, currently home to 11.5 million people, could not continue to develop within its current borders. Mayor Sergey Sobyanin then decided to extend the city's boundaries to the southwest, between the routes leading to Warsaw and Kyiv.
    As a result, 22 smaller towns and municipalities, including Troitsk and Podolsk, will become part of Moscow, among which a new seat of government and president is expected to be established. Medvedev elevated the significance of the entire project by appointing the head of the presidential office as its chief.
    By July 1 of this year, Greater Moscow is expected to have a complete draft of its future budget and a basic vision of its form. Designers are to address the undesirable concentration of jobs in the current center and simultaneously remove the shortage of work opportunities in the suburbs. The population should, according to reports, be distributed completely differently within the boundaries of Greater Moscow.
    The maximalist option envisions that the number of residents living within the current borders of Moscow should be reduced to eight to nine million. There should be one million jobs in the center, which is a third less than currently.
    Experts, however, warn that the forced relocation of 2.5 million people is unimaginable. Authorities are supposedly required to create such living conditions in the new areas that people would want to move there on their own. One of the attractions is said to be the relocation of the government and president, around whose residences a practically new city will emerge. New scientific institutions, schools, and healthcare facilities are expected to follow.
    The entire concept is planned over thirty to fifty years, and experts from Paris, who participated in the expansion of the French capital's borders in recent years, assisted in its creation. Each participant in the competition will receive 250,000 euros (6.2 million crowns) to implement their own proposal. The results of the competition are expected to be announced in the fall when the competing teams will present the results of their work. Reportedly, there will not be bureaucrats from Moscow City Hall on the jury, but urban architects from Paris, Madrid, and London.
    However, the first problems are also surfacing. Owners of lucrative plots of land beyond the current borders of Moscow are protesting and organizing rallies. Notable figures such as director Nikita Mikhalkov and singer Alla Pugacheva have expressed categorical disagreement with the expropriation of suburban land. Proposals are emerging from some regions for the establishment of a national park that would automatically exclude new construction.
    In the end, however, everything could be different. The idea of Greater Moscow was conceived in the mind of President Dmitry Medvedev, while his presumed successor, Vladimir Putin, has carefully avoided this topic. Putin has not mentioned the concept of Greater Moscow even once, which could be an enticing slogan in the presidential campaign. Thus, the future of the metropolis still hangs in great uncertainty.