I finally indulged my city-planning interests today. I met with the main architect of the city of Vladimir, which is basically the equivalent of the director of planning in an American city. I expressed my interest to meet with someone involved in planning and development to the director of the American Home a few weeks ago, and she arranged a meeting. The main architect is a busy man, so we only met for about 40 minutes, and there was a big line of people waiting outside his office when we left, but it was great to be back in a planning office. There were big zoning maps on the wall, pictures of completed projects all around, and lots of planning literature. Of course, everything was in Russian, and we talked in Russian, but I have read enough about Russian city planning to be familiar with a lot of the terminology. 

I introduced myself and explained my background and interest in planning, and then we just had a conversation about current projects in Vladimir and problems and opportunities that the city faces. Vladimir is a historic city, and one of the biggest challenges is maintaining the integrity of the historic center while not stymieing development. Another major challenge is transportation; Vladimir is a fairly densely built city that was mainly constructed in a time when few people had cars. With the fall of the Soviet Union, more and more people can afford cars, but the transportation and parking infrastructure cannot handle all the new cars. Vladimir is no Moscow, where a five-mile commute could take an hour, but there are still some traffic snarls. For example, there is just one bridge connecting central Vladimir to all the cities that lie to the south, and this bridge is always clogged with cars and trucks. Also, city planners here in Russia face many of the same problems with controlling advertising and signage that American cities do--aesthetic control is a major goal for the Vladimir administration.

One new project that really excited me was a plan to convert a few streets in the center of Vladimir into pedestrian-only or limited-traffic boulevards. Russians love to walk outside even in the nastiest of weather, and these new boulevards would greatly enhance the pedestrian experience and hopefully encourage some new business activity.

The main architect gave me a link to the general plan for the development of Vladimir, and so I will read that and set up another meeting sometime to talk about the plan. It feels good to exercise my planning knowledge again!