Spatial Patterns of Housing Construction in Moscow Metropolitan Area since the Early 2010s

The Moscow agglomeration, being the largest labor market in Russia and possessing exceptional political significance due to the cash flows from raw material revenues passing through it, determines migration processes in Russia and affects the sustainability of the national settlement system. Housing construction of low-cost housing in the suburbs serves as the main way to attract additional migrants to the capital. Thus, housing construction and improvement of intra-city transport accessibility are the key factors determining the vectors of spatial transformation of agglomeration. The paper continues the series of studies on the localization of housing construction in the metropolitan agglomeration based on data as of the mid-2010s and aims to answer the question of whether and to what extent these shifts are related to the development of the railway transport system. We define the possible trajectories of agglomeration development through the concepts of extensive and intensive growth at two levels: at the level of agglomeration belts and at the level of local sprawl of the built-up area due to individual housing construction projects. At the macro level, there is a shift from extensive growth of agglomeration with concentration of construction on its periphery to intensive growth, which is supported by both market factors related to the growing transport permeability within the city and the launch of the renovation program. It was concluded that the use of two scale levels to analyze the spatial development of Moscow allowed us to record multidirectional processes: an increase in the number of storeys within point and complex development within the MKAD and a gradual decrease in the number of storeys in the suburban zone due to the construction of residential complexes on previously undeveloped land.