[thriftwy]

USSR tried to do it to some extent, still Moscow grew from ~1.5mln to 8mln on their watch.

The key was that while theoretically the state wanted it to stop bulging, a huge number of influental state enterprises wanted more workers and wanted them now, and got their way more often than not.

And Russia still deals with millions of people who are spread around evenly across landscape in single-employer towns where there's no longer any jobs. And no economic reason for these towns to have any jobs in the future. Some of these in the far north or Siberia for no apparent reason.

[mantas]

Who said they tried to put a hard cap on Moscow at some lower number? Moscow grew to 8mln precisely because of government policies. Had they no limits, it could have been 2x that.

And yes, that policy is definitely baiting ex-USSR countries in the ass nowadays.

[thriftwy]

The fun thing with autocrats, they want everybody to be on short leash, on the distance of calling before eyes or local phone call.

So naturally, when they say they want to cap population of main cities - doesn't mean they're ready to delegate anything essential to 2nd tier cities! And they consider many many things essential being control freaks, so that's where you get additional growth.

E.g. in the USSR, the main filmmakers were in Moscow and SPb. Could you relocate them to e.g. Sochi as it happened with Hollywood in the USA? Sure, but would you be able to hold them as tightly? Hence they stay.

[mantas]

Yep. But Soviets loved to put industry in the middle of nowhere. The Siberia cities are prime examples. But there are many less extreme examples.