“Polarized Landscape”: Half a Century Later

Abstract

The article is devoted to the concept of “polarized landscape” (also known as “polarized biosphere”), developed by the author in 1970. The socioeconomic conditions for the implementation of the conceptual project, as well as changes in these factors and corresponding fundamental concepts over the past half-century are considered. It is shown how the ideal model of the cultural landscape territorial structure is related to the lifestyle of its author; how his ideas about work and leisure formed a picture of a regular network of cities surrounded by buffer functional zones with decreasing population density from the center to the periphery occupied by natural parks and reserves. A big city and wilderness are considered equivalent “poles” of the bio sphere. B.B. Rodoman traces how the transport infrastructure in Russia has changed and how modern transport policy, at least in Moscow and Moscow Oblast, contradicts the ideas of the “polarized biosphere.” At the same time, the growth of territorial contrasts of socioeconomic development leads to the growth of the so-called inner periphery, where the processes of natural landscapes restoration proceed spontaneously as the anthropogenic load decreases. Some polarization of the landscape, favorable for the biosphere, occurs by itself, and this process should not be hindered. The author traces the connection of his concept with classical works on theoretical geography, in particular, with the “Isolated State” by J. von Thünen; talks about the history of the penetration of the “polarized biosphere” into the national geographical science, outlines the ways for the further development of this project.