Lecture 13. URBAN SOCIOLOGY

While reviewing the urbanization process, it should be taken into account that in each country and a vast region it has its own particularities, abundance of forms and manifestation ways in each country, including Kazakhstan, the urbanization process has its own particularities and, subsequently, stages of its development that may not coincide with periodization and most specific features of the world process. In modern sociology there is developed an exclusively important connection to study urbanization, and namely “development stage – regional particularities”. A detailed staged-regional approach to urbanization provides for the necessity of different variants for urbanization management in regions of different types.

At the beginning, the formation of cities depended on a limited territory, but subsequently in the formation of an urbanity picture sizes of a country territory and interrelations (due to a free movement of the population) play a greater role. In each country, a specific territorial entity structure and, accordingly, the “hierarchic picture” of cities are formed. Indeed, a comprehensive urbanization process accumulating a social and culture energy of the society significantly changes a city look and therefore an intellectual development of its dwellers.

However, studies of urbanization social aspects show that the formation and development of this процесс in the Republic of Kazakhstan is a complex and multi-aspect task by a number of objective causes. A specific city formation process consists of a set of various social-economic, demographic, ecological and architectural-planning problems. It has its own particularities that distinguish it from similar processes in other regions of the country. Given that, the necessity of a special study of urbanization processes in the republic became urgent. City centres in Kazakhstanshould not be regarded apart from Central Asiaurbanization since they developed by common laws, the same ways and are especially close by the chronology, typology and nature of that region.

The territory where Kazakhstan is situated had favourable climatic conditions for people to live and from the ancient times had become a center of the human civilization. TodayKazakhstanislocatedontheGreatSilkroad. Thewayofall trade caravans and travelers lied on its
territory. The process ofinvolvementintothetradeorbinfluenceddevelopmentofvarioushandicrafts forms whereas Orient cities were gradually forming. Typical cities became Taraz, Otrar, Keder and other. But they bore the name “city” only symbolically. Usually, asettlementlocatedinthevicinityofwatersourcesandsurroundedbyhighwallswastransformedintoatown.

OneofspecificparticularitiesofAsiancitiesis unequal stepwise development periods – the prosperity and decline of life. Itisconnectedwithan agricultural life character. In the years of favourable climatic conditions and good harvests the trade and handicrafts were in rise and a city life revived. During lean years and feudal wars cities emptied and their development suspended.

Another particularity of Kazakhstan cities, especially in the south of the country, in our opinion, was favourable climatic conditions for farming and horticulture, one the one hand, and a close relation with the environment for a mutual service. However, a main factor to choose a place for a town was availability of running water – rivers and canals near settlements. Along with this people considered a military significance as well, i.e. the state of a natural protection and a difficult access. That is why it took long time to build cities. The next group of urbanization particularities comes from colonization of Kazakhstan by Russia. Russianmonopolistsstrivedfor raw materials sources in Turkestan and other cities. Here, without any obstacles for them live-stock, horticulture, sericulture and cotton-growing products were produced. In view of industrial needs of Russia, Kazakhstan virtually became its source of raw materials. Products only underwent here a primary processing in order to be able to transport them. Due to this, industrial development of cities was brought into halt and the cities remained feudal. All cities divided in two main groups. The first group comprised feudal cities, trade and handicrafts centres that had a lengthy history. The second group of cities included centres of the administrative and colony government created by the Russian tsarism. In terms of politics, that cities represented base points adjusted to the preservation and strengthening of a colonial rule. Each of them was home to large military and police forces for a ruthless suppression of the mass resistance, further colonial seizures and the tsarism bureaucratic administration. From the economic point of view neither cities nor administrative-colonial centres developed into a large industrial centre of the territory because it contravened with interests of colonialists. Besides, they had many economic advantages to exploit natural resources and people for a scanty payment and sometimes free at all. Exploitation of the territory increased after the 2625-km railway had been built, which facilitated development of the region and transportation of raw materials to Russia (many authors believe a railway is a town-formation element of urbanization, however, it is not felt in urbanizationи in that place). Tsarism was compelled, in its interests, to set-up the simplest enterprises for primary processing of agricultural raw materials as well as coal mines, different workshops, mills and some medical and cultural establishments. Even in big old cities sprung-up thousand years back as a result of developed handicrafts and trade that underwent a half-century colonial period the industry was so poor that did not play a decisive role in the town-building process. Little interest in the territory industrial development and the colonial nature of its town-building policy hampered and disfigured development of the cities. Near old cities there were built separate, so called “new” Russian cities. Once single cities were divided in contracting “Asian” and “European” parts. Old cities were left without any significant changes and feudal relations formed a base of their social and economic life where handicrafts were a core of the production.

The historic-sociological studies of the Central Asia region by many researchers show that the colonial policy of the tsarism exploitation caused poor urbanization. By that time, rural localities played a dominant role in
Kazakhstan for the handicrafts and trade development determined a state of agriculture. The population migrated little and a city life and welfare of the population being at a low level. Morbidity and diseases with lethal outcomes were usual in life of the urban population. Absence of normal capitalist relations did not result in remarkable changes of
urbanization of the region. Traditional trades remained to be a main economic structure of the urban production life. It did not undergo a deep qualitative change, although new relations between cities and villages developed. The economic and cultural backwardness and a non-capitalist development way of cities posed huge tasks. The Republic of Kazakhstan as other ex-Soviet republics has got unique experience of urbanization. Cities emerged in the former Soviet Union in shortest time in economically backward districts and remote non-urbanized zones and immediately became centres of economic, cultural and political life of the regions. As previously building of new cities in the USSR had a planned character, the latter put the thought that cities with a planned orientation for allocation and priority development of heavy industry enterprises under absence of free competition and markets with the undeveloped services sector and the consumer goods production of a secondary significance was from the very outset avoid of an economic base. This allowed to regard it as a mere administrative-political and production-technical unit, a transfer link in a chain of commands of the hierachic-administrative government structure.

Many scientists attribute the urbanization process, as it was mentioned above, to industrialization of the society, appreciable results of which strikingly displayed during the World War II. Evacuated plants and factories, in essence, became a base of urbanization changes in Kazakhstan.

A level of urbanization acts as a quite precise and comprehensive indicator of the economic and to some extent social development of the society too. Urbanization, as mentioned above, is a multifaceted process covering various sides of the cities development. The most important, in our opinion, criterion of the urbanization level is a portion of city-dwellers in the whole population of a country or its certain regions. Dynamics of the population in cities is rather easily subject to a quantitative analysis, which is of no small importance in the study of this topic. In quantitative terms of view, according to calculations of M.B. Tatishev, the number since 1920 increased from 40 thousand to 3 million 280 thousand, i.e. by 82 times.

The biggest leap of the city-dwellers number happened during the collectivisation when the Kazakh aul underwent the destruction. There is a number of accounts for this. Firstly, that was a drastic development of the economy industries. From the very outset Kazakhstan experienced an urgent need in the manpower. Labour resources accumulated before in cities were rapidly exhausted whereas villages amassed huge working forces not involved in public production. Accordingtothecensusof 1926, nearly 86 % of the gainfully employed population in the USSR were concentrated in the rural locality. So, the city industry faced a deficit of cadres when villages had excessive working hands in big amounts. Secondly, atthattimetherewas an attempt to create a national working class by force. Masses of the Kazakhs moved to cities to escape the hunger and deprivation. That served as an objective base for the re-distribution of manpower between industrial and non-industrial national economy industries.

Re-distribution took place in form of an intensified migration movement of the population to towns and urban-type communities. When in 1997 the influx of the rural population made up nearly 95 thousand people, last year that number was 143 thousand. It goes without saying that figures characterizing scales of migration flows are relative. It is very difficult to know the exact statistics.

Thus, a sharp rise in the urban population of the Republic of Kazakhstan was conditioned, mainly, by an increased migration of rural dwellers. In turn, a rapid industrial development of Kazakhstan, the creation of new plants, factories, mines, pits, transportation ways and a wide energy construction contributed to the more quick growth in the number of the urban population.
The specific regionаl formation of urbanization and exaggeration of the rural-urban development policy in this field, in our opinion, have led to the following. Firstly, the republic experienced a lagged social-economic development. Growth in the population in the course of many years is not maintained by the increase in working places in the industry and other national economy fields and the creation of required conditions for life support of the population. It means, first of all, the provision with accommodation, foodstuff, and health care, education, communal services and culture facilities – that is all required today for the material and moral welfare of the people. Secondly, allocation of production forces and, in first line, that of industrial facilities took place spontaneously, on the basis of party resolutions without considering recommendations of scientific establishments. For example, industries were predominatly developed in Almaty, Каraganda and Pavlodar regions where, in this regard, cities in other regions were neglected.

It is no secret that the uneven allocation of industries resulted in that that sources of raw materials remained as that but at the expense of them some districts of the country became highly developed centres. Because of this, the social unfairness in distribution of incomes between oblasts exists. In cities of the republic a gap in industrial productionof net products reached its maximum level. Such inequality is explained by the differenct level of development of the industry and its fields, non-compliance with allocation of industrial facilities, natural and social-economic needs in the region.

Besides, the urbanization process in Kazakhstan progressed not in parallel to and did not follow industrialization but outpaced it. And that affected the nature of changes in the employment structure expressed, on the one hand, by preservation of a high portion of employment in agriculture and, on the other hand, by excessive “swelling” of the services sector. Compared to Russia and Ukraine, Kazakhstan had less developed forms of the urbanization, urban culture and policy. One of the particularities of urbanization in Kazakhstan is also a fact that it is evolving against background of the agriculture’s sluggish feature. Lack of agrarian reforms and poor logistics in villages result in that that the outflow of the population from rural localities is based not on separation of manufacturers from the main production asset (land) and transformation of them to industrial or agricultural workers, as in Western urbanization, but is a result of a strikingly expressed agrarian overpopulation.

Preservation of a feudal- patriarchal way of life for many years hindered the urbanization process in out country. This was aggravated by that that emphasis was only on processing industry related to agriculture and the only relation with the village facilitated a rural mode of living to come the city. Absence of production on the basis of highly developed automation and electronics until now negatively impacts the formation of a mature intellectual consciousness.

ThewayofurbanlifeinKazakhstan is determined by labour conditions and its payment. Incomes of many citizens are rather scanty to provide for a sufficient living. The mode of life of families, especially that of representatives of Asian ethnic group both in cities and villages has its own social-economic particularities. In particular, inpreviousdaystheyinheritedatraditionalnational “big family” requiring hefty expenses and costs, efforts to maintain traditions and habits. Not at least this factor largely stood up against the urbanizationprocess. All this evidence that urbanization did not undermine the family-relative ties, social control of the society, survivorship of national traditions in modern cities, particularly in southern regions where the indigenous population dominates. Suchone-sided regionаl urbanization slightly affects destruction of some psychological notions.
The social status of cities is a complex topic in the sociology as many cities formed on the basis of rural settlements firmly keep features of the rural way of life. Smalltownsarenotseparatedfromagricultureatall. Therefore, their conditionsoflifethereareveryclosetothatofthecountryside. Undoubtedly, theworldview of people reflects this.

Inourcountryonemustnotattributeacriterion, suchasanurbanmodeoflivingtotheessenceof urbanization, since, firstly, it is not a mature independent formation and, secondly, great differences in the way of life with the same social walks and in single-type towns in different economic regions are kept and, thirdly, “deep distinctions” in ways of life betweendifferent social groups, especially when it comes to the content of consumed culture values and the nature of culture activity, have not been overcome.

We believe that one of causes of slack rates of urbanization and our region’s development comes out of the above-mentioned objective conditions. That is the reason of complexity of an issue regarding the impact on a social portrait of a citizen of the ongoing and incessant rural population’s migration to the city. Main part of migrants is formed by young people adjustment of which often proceeds painfully and with difficulties. Migrants, to our way of thinking, popularise the rural way of living.

As we mentioned above, migration of the population accentuates problems of urban way of life and negatively influence the welfare of the population in cities. Ideally, under conditions of urbanization the welfare is supposed to increase. However, this is not observed in our country.

For a country as the Republic of Kazakhstan, it is often characteristic so called “false urbanizationя”. That means that migration of the rural population to cities does not entail drastic changes in their mode of life. The majority of dwellers in some cities differ from peasants neither by occupation nor by way of life. Such townsfolk are not directly connected with the modern economy sector. They, to a large extent keep the rural mode of living and a former nature of relations and notions. Here, according to Yu.L. Pivovarov, the “blocks” of rural life move to cities along with development in them of a modern sector. Urbanization of the rural sector goes with ruralization of town.

The system of cities in the Republic of Kazakhstan exhibits a combination of a handful large multi-functional centres having a relatively complicated functional structure where a number of small towns is sizeable. Cities in
Kazakhstan are remarkably distinguished by both a force of impact and a degree of orientation of their economy to development of the village. In Kazakhstan, an increased concentration of the population is common coupled with the territorial dispersion of settlements a low level of inhabitation of the territory, predominance of villages in district centres, remoteness of rural settlements from some large cities. Only an insignificant number of lots of rural administrative regions are situated in the zone of impact of cities.

So, urbanization in Kazakhstan has an incomplete, semi-natural and, hence, an unfinished character. The structure of the economic base of Kazakhstani cities is one-sided and here only industry prevails to the prejudice of services sphere. By this one can explain a lack of development of the urban culture, a low level of accomplishment, drabness and sometimes also a despondency of an architectural image of our cities and so on.

An unfinished character of urbanization in our country is also expressed, in particular, by that that not entire urban population, strictly spoken, is involved in the urban mode of life by the character of employment, a level of servicing, a variety of leisure, etc. in a total growth in the urban population of the country yesterday’s rural dwellers make up about 70 %. Together with the “village-city” migration, excessive in a number of regions, unsufficiently considered administrative transformations of the rural territory to cities manifested themselves. All this contributed to a rise of false urbanizationи. It is often furthered by additional (when compared to required) flows of migrants to cities (in particular, to metropolitans and big towns and, largely, by disproportions in the territorial-economic development of the country, its regions and centres. It should be noted that for a long time concentration of the population in the capital occurred at the expense of the isolated periphery. A role of a main city increased in the republican system of settling. In that way, a flow of the population to Almaty perceptively intensified.
The industrial potential against a background of an insufficient participation in the cultural, social, political and tourism life, for all that, mostly undermines the “image” of cities in Kazakhstan, except for Almaty, and now Astana, although people move to a new capital forcedly. Such phenomenon makes one to think over a popularity of cities, a role of the urban picture and how to make it attractive in the fate of the city.

Within the Republic of Kazakhstan, as mentioned above, some regions develop quickly and others – at a slow pace, i.e. this process proceeded not evenly on the whole territory of the country. In some places, an initial level of urbanization used to be higher and tempos of its development – appreciable, and, at the same time, other territories remained to be behind great transformations.

The smallest number of the urban population is in Mangistau (249 thousand people), West-Kazakhstan (252,4 thousand) and Atyrau (256,1 thousand) regions and the highest in the city of Almaty (1130,1 thousand), Karaganda region (1160,4 thousand) and East Kazakhstan (899,5 thousand.)

A low level of urbanization is linked to that that, in essence, here in Kazakhstan there is only one large city - Almaty. As it is known, big cities “set the mood” in leading spheres of the social-economic life, a pioneers of progressive phenomena and play a great role in urbanization of the rural area. Nevertheless, on the other hand, the state policy “all and everything for a big city” resulted in a social unsettled state of the rural population.

The city of Almaty is a former capital of the country and represent a bastion of the social-economic and scientific-technical progress, a huge accumulation of industrial production and a powerful lever for rebuilding of settlements in the vicinity and development of inhabited districts, the most important centre of development of culture and training of highly qualified specialists.
It might be well to point out that the social-economic effect of large cities has an impact to certain extent, beyond of which it is absorbed, since the urban life style gets “overcomplicated” and there are arisen unfavourable conditions for people to live. That is why many countries all over the world adopted a trend not only to curb a growth in big cities. They also achieved notable results. For example, West-European countries exhibit a slowed increase in the population in capitals and a relatively speedy growth in regionаl centres that are located, more or less, evenly. For Almaty a long-standing problem is stabilization of its growth’s rates, solving social-ecological tasks, issues related to safe living of the population in the city situated in the most seismically active zone. Transfer of the capital from Almaty to Astana conditioned by social-economic, political, ecological and demographic factors is supposed to be playing a positive role in settling problems and, in particular, will be one of way to stabilize growth rates of the city of Almaty and to ease a social tension in South Kazakhstan. Therefore, issues of development of ex and new capitals are included in priority tasks of a stable development of settlements. At present, Astanа does not possess signs of the capital.

Moreover, it is worth noting that one of regionаl particularities of urbanization in Asian countries is prevalence of small towns. This is explained by particularities of historical development of the territory and the formation of economic entities. A developed network of small towns is integrated with large villages (auls). Formation of the rural-urban settling are also highly typical for the Republic of Kazakhstan.

In Kazakhstan, 58 settlements fall into the category of “small towns”. The unfolded
process of urbanization stems from the necessity of accelerated development of the industrial base. Therefore, in due time some cities in Karaganda and Pavlodar regions began sprawling and attracted the rural population to new industrial facilities. In some regions a regional centre is a small town, although this function for them is, undoubtedly, beyond their strength. It means that in this case small towns took upon themselves big functions. And if we talk about them, one has to admit that they are, at heart, large and rather neglected villages. Some of them are obliged by their social status to the glorious historical past and others – to availability of a railway. From the very first days of their origination these cities performed a district-organizing function. The analysis of social-economic development shows that part of small towns located in large agglomerations and fulfilling the function of the “second” and “third” cities are losing, by a considerable margin, its features of small towns. In first line, it is attributed to small towns in the Almaty and Каraganda agglomerations: many of them fulfil the function of organisational-economic centres for rural territories adjacent to them. As to the second part of small towns, and they are overwhelming majority, an insignificant portion of the population lives there. This is tied with a gradual decrease in mining and processing of mineral resources, complex natural and climatic conditions, and a low level ofdevelopment of the social sphere. Citing the preceding we will try to single out most characteristic particularities of the urbanization process in the Republic of Kazakhstan and to make the following conclusions:

1.Urbanization in Kazakhstan proceeded its own way and is closely tied with the rural economy.

2.Increase in the urban population took place, mainly, at the expense of rural migrants. Due to disparages in demand and supply on the labour market, manpower is compelled to go down to lower “layers” of a multi-sided economy system, and the use of considerable masses of manpower in the sphere of the lowest “layers” conveys specific features of the economic and social development.

3.Growth in cities of Kazakhstanе reflected expansion of the two, different by the nature, production forces of sectors – modern and traditional. The known disintegration of these szectors conditions disintegration of the urban structures as well. Without absolutization differences and recognizing the existence of actual varios intermediate states it makes sense to differenti

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