I'd read something about this years ago. It's a $50 book from the Brookings Institution now, but there's links. Basic idea is that Siberian winters are *really* cold, like metal fractures cold, and the USSR planted a bunch of cities there which make no sense.
summary by an author
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/31/opinion/31iht-edhill_ed3_.htmlLRB review, grants the basic premises, critical of the more ambitious math. "What's sadder than a subsidized gold mine?"
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n13/james-meek/reasons-to-be-miserable
longer summary, hideous photos of Siberian city housing, like tower public housing projects in the US. I'd call it a terrible place to live even without the snow and cold.
http://languagesoftheworld.info/russia-ukraine-and-the-caucasus/siberian-curse-whence-siberia-part-1.htmlhttp://languagesoftheworld.info/russia-ukraine-and-the-caucasus/siberian-curse-whence-siberia-part-2.html v "All in all, these issues show that Siberia is not a dead-weight on
Russia’s economy but rather its anchor. " out of the blue ending, like a bad high school essay
http://languagesoftheworld.info/russia-ukraine-and-the-caucasus/siberian-curse-whence-siberia-part-3.htmltangentially:
Russian sex ratio, tilted toward women for a long time?
http://languagesoftheworld.info/russia-ukraine-and-the-caucasus/sex-ratios-siberia-chinese-threat.html transportation in Yakutia/Yakutsk
http://www.geocurrents.info/place/russia-ukraine-and-caucasus/siberia/introduction-to-yakutia-sakha-and-russias-grandiose-plans-for-the-regionI don't seem to have saved any links, but I've read about Canada's Nunavut; seems to cost a lot of subsidies to keep a crappy modern lifestyle going up there. Flying in food, desperately trying to convince nurses to stay and work there, etc.
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