Vol 7, No 3 (2017)

In connection with targeted distinguishing of the territories expanding beyond the borders of one or more federal subjects as objects for state regulation, the concept of a macroregion is clarified. The specific features of a macroregion as a holistic object of statistical observation and monitoring are demonstrated using specific examples. Multiple regulatory acts governing the organization of state monitoring are analyzed. A case study of Russia’s Arctic zone is used to discuss the tasks and substantiate recommendations for organization of systemic monitoring of the macroregions’ current state and development.

The article shows that the observed exacerbating problem of balancing budgets in many Russian regions, primarily those specializing in mining, is associated with an objective trend toward increasing the importance of the exterritoriality factor, which is characterized by both budgetary and corporate projections. In this regard, not only the fair distribution of effect produced by the activity of exterritorial agents is relevant, i.e., large corporations, but also the participation of these agents in the development of territories where they conduct their economic activity. The example of the Siberian Federal District is used to show that over the last decade, the role of exterritorial factors, primarily related to changes in tax legislation and the activity of major mining corporations, has been increasing noticeably. Analysis of the dynamics and structure of revenues generated by the largest companies makes it possible to quantify the extent of the increase in exterritoriality as well as the observed and expected consequences of this trend for the development of resource regions and individual territories. It is proposed to alleviate the negative consequences by the switching to new regional policy principles and, in particular, to the regulated formation of local content in regions hosting large-scale natural resource development projects.

The paper shows Novosibirsk oblast’s reindustrialization program as an instrument of strategic planning and structuring of interactions between participants of innovative projects. Rationale is provided for how the strategic maneuver and innovative vector of the reindustrialization program can reinforce interactions between scientific institutes, universities, and innovative companies and ensure demand for innovation given the current insufficient interest in innovative development on the part of large businesses. An outline is given for the competences of the main innovation actors in Novosibirsk oblast capable of implementing innovative projects to develop a knowledge economy. A typology of reindustrialization projects is proposed in terms of the level and significance of problems to be addressed and their impact on the regional economy. The typology highlights flagship and infrastructure projects as well as national-, interregional-, and regional-level projects. We discuss some of the risks associated with the project’s implementation and ways of mitigating those risks through a combination of federal and regional support measures.

The article provides a comparative analysis of existing approaches to assessing regional economic security and proposes an original procedure for integrated assessment of economic security in resource regions. It includes an assessment of economic security thresholds based on Russia’s strategic development priorities in comparison to the level of developed countries, as well as trend and multivariate statistical analyses that help to identify crucial imbalances that threaten economic development in a region. The assessment is based on data from Krasnoyarsk krai. We have identified several economic security paradoxes, namely, an imbalanced development of human assets and the environment, the industrial sector and hi-tech business, as well as disequilibrium in financial security, which are forcing the region to transform from an advanced industrial territory with a diversified economy into a “national storehouse” that has predominantly mining monoenterprises and to end up in the trap of technological inferiority.

Cities form the backbone of human civilization, but only 600 of them become centers of world development. A special elite club consists of 183 world cities (according to Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) methodology), which represent the network substance of the globalized geoeconomic space. It is cities that lay down the global policy agenda, determine guidelines of economic management, and generate innovations and technological or consumer impulses. Intensive transformations take place in million-plus cities that affect the structure of the economy, urban space, and public realms. Most of these trends reflect processes that have affected most of the modern urbanized world. Study of the millionplus cities yields great opportunities for geographers. St. Petersburg, which is one of the world cities (gamma+), is experiencing a period of internal transformation within the paradigm change of economic development. Like other world cities, St. Petersburg has entered the postindustrial stage of development. This paper studies and interprets St. Petersburg’s main economic, territorial, and spatial transformation trends. In fact, the city is a testing ground for studying global urban trends in Russian practice. Particular attention is devoted to the remaining old post-Soviet features and the those of a new world city.

Problems regarding the development of the North Caucasus have been key issues on the agenda of federal and regional authorities for many years. Their visions of the possibilities and methods of development vary widely. Practically all regional elites place emphasis on the uniqueness of their republics, while the federal authorities, on the contrary, seek to move beyond the asymmetry of the relationships, seeing the solution to the problem as a broader use of unified and politically neutral approaches to development. This article assesses the results of administrative efforts to develop the regions of the North Caucasian Federal District. The authors focus on analyzing processes that adapt the reforms being implemented to regional specifics, as well as on the symbiosis of the results of self-organization of the population and federal and regional novations. The topics associated with management policy in the North Caucasus is preceded by a brief analysis of the region’s demographic situation, which is considered as a challenge that simultaneously creates opportunities for development and amplifies social instability. The main topics considered in the article are development strategies for the North Caucasus, “anchor” investment projects, internal resources of development (regional budgets and the shadow economy), the land question, municipal reform, and local development. It is concluded that universal mechanisms of socioeconomic development—federal subsidies, direct investments in infrastructure, and public-private partnership in large-scale projects to create new high-paying jobs—are insufficient for solving local problems. Special strategies are necessary that would involve not only investments and institutions but also measures of indirect influence based on common values.

The paper studies the spatial aspects of the 20-year demographic history of the Karelian Isthmus based on a wide range of demographic statistics for the Soviet Union and Finland (including unpublished data). Different data on the population dynamics of the whole region and separate parts of it are given. It is shown that for the isthmus in 1920–1939, moderate growth rates of the population are characteristic, which lag slightly behind the average rates across Finland. The demographic development of the isthmus differed by a pronounced irregularity: the population in the territories adjacent to the cities and rural industrial centers increased at the highest rates. By 1939, about 295000 people lived in territory belonging to Finland and which at present is included in the structure of Leningrad oblast; a medium population density was characteristic, with an increase to a high density in the suburbs of cities and industrial centers. Within the short period of 1940–1941, the prewar demographic potential of the territories attached to the Soviet Union recovered by approximately half, but primarily due to the urban population. The development of the space of the isthmus decreased sharply during this period. Under the Finnish occupation of the isthmus in 1941–1944, the prewar demographic potential and peculiarities of its spatial organization were significantly restored, but only for a short period. The paper specifies the main spatial differences of the results of the second colonization (1944–1949) of the Karelian Isthmus from the first one (1940–1941) and their reasons. Special attention is devoted to the characteristics of urbanization in the newly developed territory; the relationship of these processes with the consequences of the war is described. In addition, the role of the altered economic and geographic position of the transferred territories during transformation processes of the spatial organization processes of the population is shown.