Socio-economic development of cities of Russia: main tendencies and factors

Abstract

At the last decade the XX century socio-economic and institutional conditions for development of Russian cities changed dramatically, which inevitably increased their differentiation and intra-regional economic and social inequality considerably exceeds the interregional inequality. Most of the studies on spatial socio-economic differences in Russia, however, focus on interregional inequality. City inequality is scrutinized to a far lesser extent; and little attention is paid at all to researching the factors that underlie such inequality. The purpose of this study was to investigate the dynamics of socio-economic disparities between large and major cities of the Russian Federation for the period 2001-2013 in the context of factors that determined these processes. We consider both objective factors (size of the city, its specialization, administrative status, geographical location) and policies implemented by various levels of authorities. The paper presents a central-peripheral aspect of the analysis; which is more adequate to the reality of non-uniform pattern of development of the Russian cities.

The study found strengthening of leading position of cities of Moscow agglomeration, oil and gas towns of the Tyumen region, the largest cities in the South of Russia in terms of socio-economic development and the increasing concentration of factors of development in regional centers, which is reinforced by the policy of federal and regional authorities. As a result, a set of cities decomposes into two groups - the regional capitals and non-capital cities. Homogeneity of each group become larger and the difference between them increases. The study expands knowledge about the dynamics and factors of development of large and major cities of the Russian Federation for the period 2001-2013.