Russia has a lot of towns with no economic reason to be there, because they did not grow naturally for some economic purpose, but were placed there by decree by Soviet government planners.
“Russia has a lot of towns with no economic reason to be there, because they did not grow naturally for some economic purpose, but were placed there by decree by Soviet government planners.”
One such city is Magnitogorsk, translated as “Magnetic Mountain.” Magnitogorsk sits on a giant iron ore deposit so large it has (or had) its own magnetic field. Magnitogorsk was built as a steel manufacturing city to be the “Soviet Pittsburgh.” Sounds great...put the steel mills on the iron ore, right?
Wrong. Under then prevailing technology, it took about three tons of coal to one ton of ore to make steel. It made no economic sense to put the mills on the iron ore deposits, it made much more sense to put them on the coal deposits to minimize transportation costs. Thus, Duluth did not become the “American Magnitogorsk” because it didn’t make economic sense.