Moscow under Construction explores the growth of place-based opposition to destructive redevelopment practices in Moscow and the consequent changes in city’s governance regime. The groups of citizens discussed in this study have struggled to defend homes, neighborhoods, heritage buildings, and historic districts, and in the process they’ve built up civil society and advanced democratization. Heritage preservationists and other aggrieved Muscovites have organized themselves into “initiative groups” and “social associations” to protect specific places in the city and to influence the planning process, and these place-defenders have become more confident and capable as citizens. Their activities also have caused Moscow’s city government to shift along the political spectrum away from highly authoritarian and opaque habits of ruling toward a more open and collaborative governance regime.

"There are some books that one knows, almost from the very first page, one will enjoy. For the present writer this is such a book. Its value is in the refreshing light it throws on the Russia that has emerged since 1991. In contrast to the picture which is painted by so many journalists, politicians, and Cold War publicists of Russia as a dreary, monolithic and authoritarian land verging on totalitarianism, a perspective based essentially on Kremlinology, this book looks at Russia from “below,” from the perspective of ordinary people (or at least ordinary Muscovites). What emerges is a picture which is much more interesting, colorful and, in a way, more optimistic than the mass media and its informants will commonly allow.... There is much to ponder in this excellent book." - Slavic Review