Development of Urban Agglomerations in the European North of Russia

At present, in Russia, the development of urban agglomerations is designated as one of the priorities of the country’s spatial development. At the same time, there is still no common understanding of how many agglomerations there are in Russia, what is their composition; unified approaches to organizing a management system for the development of agglomerations have not been formed either. The main idea of this article is that not only the largest and largest agglomerations (with a population of more than 500 thousand people – they are indicated in the Spatial Development Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2025), but also agglomerations with a population of less than 500 thousand people. people play an important role in the development of regions and the country as a whole, and therefore require state support and the formation of a management system for their development, which will increase the positive agglomeration effects. The article presents a methodological approach to the analysis and assessment of the main parameters of the development of urban agglomerations (a formula for calculating the indicator of the economic power of an agglomeration and a methodology for assessing the level of socio-economic development of agglomerations). On the basis of this approach, the identification of 10 agglomerations in the European North of Russia has been substantiated. The calculation of the agglomeration development coefficient showed that 9 agglomerations (Apatitskaya, Arkhangelskaya, Vologodskaya, Vorkutinskaya, Kotlasskaya, Petrozavodskaya, Syktyvkarskaya, Ukhtinskaya, Cherepovetskaya) belong to the least developed (emerging or promising), and Murmanskaya – to the category of underdeveloped. Taking into account the analysis of successful foreign and domestic experience, the key elements of the mechanism for managing the development of urban agglomeration are substantiated. The results obtained will be interesting and useful to the state authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and local governments in the development of management decisions in the implementation of regional and local socio-economic policies, as well as serve as a basis for further research on this topic.