How sustainable are Russia’s Arctic cities? Russia’s far north metropolises are distinctive from other Arctic cities in terms of their large size, efforts to conquer nature, and big business’ impact on the urban landscape. The Russian Arctic cities’ Soviet-era design gave them compact and dense population structures. Such features led to many benefits for achieving sustainability, including more efficient energy use, a larger number of hospital beds, more numerous cultural amenities, and greater access to public transportation. However, Arctic cities outside of Russia have made progress in their own pursuit of sustainability through on-going investments, business development, educational resources, and solid waste management. By teasing out these distinctions, this article highlights urban features that make it possible for the cities to adapt to changes in the global environment and economy. In doing so, it provides the first multidisciplinary, comparative analysis of 46 Arctic cities employing historical, remote sensing, and quantitative methods. It demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of the world’s Arctic cities in their quest for sustainability and points to where they can learn from each other in adopting best practices.

俄罗斯北极城市的可持续性如何？俄罗斯最北部的大都市与其他北极城市相比，其规模之大、征服自然的努力以及大企业对城市景观的影响都与众不同。俄罗斯北极城市的苏联时代设计赋予了它们紧凑而密集的人口结构。这些特点为实现可持续发展带来了许多好处，包括更高效的能源使用、更多的病床、更多的文化设施以及更方便的公共交通。然而，俄罗斯以外的北极城市通过持续投资、业务发展、教育资源和固体废物管理，在追求可持续发展方面取得了进展。通过梳理这些区别，本文重点介绍了使城市能够适应全球环境和经济变化的城市特征。在此过程中，它首次采用历史、遥感和定量方法对 46 个北极城市进行了多学科比较分析。它展示了世界北极城市在追求可持续性方面的优势和劣势，并指出了它们在采用最佳实践方面可以相互学习的地方。