The characteristics of the more than 300 declining or stagnant Soviet towns with 15,000 or more people since 1959 are investigated based on the censuses of 1959, 1970 and 1979, and official estimates of 1974 and 1978. These towns are disproportionately located in the eastern USSR, especially coal-mining towns, and railroad towns. The vast majority were also small, young and on railroads. -from
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