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The things that cause this are low property taxes, much lower levels of affluence among Russian middle class and the lack of support for suburban-style living: the state has well-established plans for building districts of housing blocks along with the required infrastructure, including financing solutions for real estate developers and mortgage offers to potential buyers.
Despite that, people have been building single-family homes. When a few years ago mortgages for single family homes became a thing, the demand for them SURGED, it is so high that there simply aren't enough real estate developers to build all these houses. And all this without schools, clinics and malls.
Yeah it's true and I'm writing this from one of those recently built single-family houses. But I think this development isn't major enough, will be limited because of the lack of infrastructure and can be stopped by various government policies. Like mandating different flat plans and sizes, reinvigorating public transit in smaller cities and making personal houses even more expensive tax wise. I'm not necessarily advocating for this, but that and many other things can be done to keep people in cities(despite the growing uselessness of living close to work when everything can be done distantly).
Yeah, good luck convincing everyone that Euro-4 is the correct flat plan for a family with two children and not this.
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