“We’ll Find a Way to Settle this Among Ourselves”: Conditions for the Centralization of Municipal Powers in Urban Development

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of conditions for the transfer of powers in the field of urban planning from the local level to the regional level. At the end of 2014, a federal law allowed the regions to centralize powers that were previously considered to be the exclusive competence of the municipalities (development and adoption of master plans, surveying standards, land use, and development rules). The study considers several conditions that contribute to the centralization of urban planning authorities: the representation of developers’ interests in the local and regional assemblies, the representation of the “United Russia” party in the city assembly, as well as the budgetary autonomy of the city. Based on qualitative comparative analysis (multi-values QCA), the study finds that, contrary to expectations, the dominance of deputies-developers in the city assembly has not become a necessary condition for the protection of municipal powers in urban planning. On the contrary, the dominance of developers among the deputy councilors in the city and regional legislatures facilitated the transfer of powers. The results also show that the dominance of “United Russia”’ in the city assembly served as an institutional disciplinary tool to consolidate deputies to centralize powers in favor of the regional level. The relatively high level of budgetary autonomy of a city is also a necessary condition for the centralization of urban planning powers.