comprehensive planning process vanished in Estonia. And top down sector planning
continued its dominance.
Despite very detailed (up to 30 years) long term general plans it included many
special features and spontaneous elements. Central planning was actually sector planning.
Separate ministries and their subsidiaries planned separate elements like health care,
education, transport and communications. City/rajoon administration could only co-
ordinate this development, but had no decisive power. As a result of weak co-ordination,
infrastructure development caused serious bottlenecks in infrastructure development
(Enyedi, 1996).
Soviet urban planning was clearly dictated from above as far as central government
(ministries) used most important development funds. Investments to CI were actually
concentrated to the republican capitals (like Estonian capital Tallinn) and in lesser extent to
other larger centres and so-called perspective developing smaller centres. There was
actually no good concept and a real solution how to combine modern urban lifestyle and
required CI with traditional rural life.
“Planned urbanisation” from above concentrated later on integration of towns and
rural settlements in order to provide non-agricultural (service) jobs in larger villages.
Second goal was making CI more accessible in rural areas. As there was great lack of
existing CI, solution was found in concentration of housing. Instead of traditional Estonian
sparse dispersed settlement structure of separately located farmhouses was launched
campaign of so-called perspective and non-perspective villages, which resulted abandoning
of small and remote villages. Such modernisation policy was applied in several former
socialist countries, where many villages were defined as non-perspective, often according
to subjective opinion of planners without consulting with local people (Enyedi 1996).
3.3. Defining hierarchies and planning of the CI in Estonia during the 1970’s and 1980s
Territorial planning dealing with the location of service sector should respond to the
consumers needs in the best way and minimize construction and operation costs
simultaneously (Volkov 1969). The hierarchy of settlement system was taken as a basic
framework for the service sector development. When defining hierarchies, Soviet planning
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