Vol 8, No 4 (2018)

Districting is a means of continuous description and mapping of territory similar to classification and periodization; it connects space fragments with a narrative. The process of division is also called districting, and its result is a grid of areas that are connective and homogeneous, mosaic and zonal, individual and typological, etc. Cognitive districting is the mental conquest of space. Practical districting, which is the division of territory and waterbodies between owners or users, emerged long ago in the animal world. Human society is characterized by the transition from mobile methods (forays, hikes, expeditions, route description) to stable methods (occupation, bureaucracy, administrative-territorial division (ATD), and monitoring). The objectives of applied districting in Russia include improvement of ATD, functional zoning, rotational land use, and regional differentiation of laws, taxes and tariffs. Diverse districting is necessary for flexible regional policies and management.

The paper studies population dynamics of 75 regional centers and secondary cities in the Russia’s regions. The information base for the analysis was population census data from 1959 to 2010 and the current population accounting for 2011–2017. In the vast majority of regions, the center dominates over the secondary city significantly. This manifests itself both in the absolute parameters of the population and in the share of centers and secondary cities in the populations of their regions. In 31 Russian regions, the share of the center by 2002 had already reached 35% and continued to grow. After 15 years, it exceeded 45% in 13 regions. The upper limit of the possible population concentration in the regional center has not yet been revealed. Over time, the prevalence of centers over secondary cities has been increasing. The analysis showed that the possibilities of population increase in secondary cities depend on the size of said population: among secondary cities with a population greater than 250 000, they continue to increase; among secondary small cities, the share between depopulating and growing cities hardly changes at all. Thus, trends towards centrism in the regions prevail over polycentricity. The population is increasingly concentrated at separate points, vested with power. These processes are based on historical and evolutionary (history of settlement, development, and urbanization), functional–economic, administrative-territorial, and demographic determinants. Recently, an increasingly important factor contributing to population concentration is the institutional factor (associated with the execution of capital functions by regional centers and reducing the costs of business and consumers).

This paper presents the results of an analysis of the industrial dynamics in Russian regions in 2010–2016. The hypothesis is that the change in the Russian economic development model in the period 2014–2016 affected the economic situation in regions and activated economic dynamics factors that had no importance in previous periods. A set of factors is presented to describe the initial conditions for economic growth and the objective differences between regions as well as the regional economic structure, specific features and limitations of final demand, economic policy, and institutional conditions. Methodologically, the study relies on using extended production functions apparatus. Quantitative estimates of the contribution made by the factors to the dynamics of average GRP per capita of the regions in 2010–2015 are presented. It is shown that national trends were the key factors that controlled regional economic growth both in a favorable stable context and economic crisis context. This finding is confirmed by the estimates of regional dynamics obtained by the method of structural shifts. Factors associated with agglomeration economies and localization of the mining, agriculture, and the chemical industry were found to be statistically significant for the entire period under study. The importance of internal investment and consumer demand factors is higher for the period 2013–2015. At the same time, no fundamental change in the contribution of the factors has been established. Specifically, the factors characterizing regional innovation activity and the development of small entrepreneurship are not statistically significant. The areas of economic policy that most significantly affected regional growth are defined, such as stimulated investment and consumer demand. For 2015, a significant factor is the declining share of poor people.

The article presents a model-level verification of the hypothesis about the impact on foreign trade in the regions of the Siberian Federal District (SFD) and Russia made by oil prices in the world market, the ruble exchange rate, and anti-Russian sanctions. The results of research into the dynamics of foreign trade, its commodity structure, and regional specifics are outlined. An independent result is the experience of using iterative multiple stepwise regression, making it possible to identify a significant set of contributing factors and to estimate their role in inducing changes in the dependent variable. It is shown that the sanctions have not radically affected foreign trade. An impact on some SFD regions has been identified, but for the aggregate trade of the district, no influence from sanctions was revealed.

In the post-Soviet period, subsidiary household farming transformed from an “auxiliary” complementary type of activity as understood in Soviet terms into an important form of occupation and source of income for, primarily, residents of rural areas and small towns. However, the dramatic increase in the subsidiary household farms contribution to food production in the 1990s halted at the beginning of the 21st century and subsequently reversed to downturn. The absolute sizes of subsidiary household farming declined more rapidly in Non-Chernozem regions with an aged population as the large Soviet-style agricultural enterprises that fed it were liquidated. Animal husbandry production by subsidiary household farms grew increasingly concentrated in the southern regions of European Russia and Western Siberia. Based on official statistics, the article analyzes the leading factors that governed the regional peculiarities of subsidiary household farming transformation in the post-Soviet period. Its major types are identified, including involvement the dynamics of animal husbandry production, which is the most intensive part of subsidiary household farming.

The paper presents the results of a study on the collective gardening and dacha movement in the suburban area of Perm. The term “gardening and dacha formations,” which combines different types of citizen collective gardening, truck farming, and dacha associations is proposed and substantiated. Such collective formations represent special territorial communities. They exist outside of work time within a limited space, mainly outside the urban environment; they are characterized by seasonal activity and have a particular interaction with the surrounding territory. A methodology for identifying such formations has been developed, their number and features have been revealed, and their territorial distribution has been analyzed. It has been established that most dachas of Perm residents are located in the suburban Perm municipal district. In other areas close to Perm, there are also dachas of other residents of the territory. The paper determines the different territorial levels of gardening and dacha formations, which reflect the features of their interaction with each other and with the nearby territory: site, garden, set, cluster, and area. The factors of the distribution of gardening and dacha formations over the territory are distinguished, and their location is considered, making allowance for the geographic features of Perm krai. The features of gardening and dacha areas specific to the region are identified.

The article considers particularities of the social mechanisms of mutual adaptation of Muscovites and newcomers based on a series of interviews and focus groups conducted in Moscow. The author maintains the view that integration of the urban population cannot be solved by administration; it is necessary to understand the self-organization mechanisms that can be used to develop policies aimed at improving social institutions. The article emphasizes that a system of checks and balances that equalizes interethnic and, more broadly, intercultural contradictions in Moscow should harmonize the tasks of maintaining the cultural certainty of the urban society created by Muscovites with the plurality of needs introduced by newcomers. It is concluded that in order to overcome the excessive cultural fragmentation of urban society, the commonly accepted means of integration policy, such as education, tolerance training, support of cultural diversity and intercultural collaboration, are not enough. In addition to policy facilitating population contacts and the spontaneous hybridization of people’s notions, it is necessary to develop a civic culture that is a common heritage, rather than a specific feature of individual communities. Such an attitude minimizes the influence of the ethnic and confessional components of urban life, but does not suppress the multiculturalism of the urban population. The contradictory combination of values of rootedness that make it possible for a person to be like everyone else and cultural distinctiveness that allows one to be oneself helps to support confidence in society and reduces the risk of conflict situations.