Almost the entire twentieth century was a period of rapid growth of cities and an increase in the number urban population of Russia.

The process of increasing the role of cities and the spread of urban lifestyle is called urbanization.

Level of urbanization is the proportion of the urban population of the country.

On the level of urbanization are influenced by the following factors:

1. The level of economic development of the territory- in industrially developed regions, the level of urbanization is higher than in agrarian regions (Central region and, conversely, the North Caucasus);
2. Natural and climatic conditions— in regions with favorable natural conditions for development Agriculture the level of urbanization is significantly lower than in regions with unfavorable natural conditions (the Central Black Earth region and the North Caucasus, on the one hand, and the European North, Siberia and the Far East, on the other);
3. Traditions of the population- for the peoples of the North, the traditional occupation of the population is hunting and reindeer herding, which leads to the predominance of rural settlement among the indigenous peoples;
4. Migrations- as a result of migration, as a rule, the proportion of citizens increases; This is especially evident in areas of new development, where the extractive industry is rapidly developing (Yamal-Nenets, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrugs).

The rate of urbanization — is the growth of the urban population of the country.

From the beginning of the 20th century level of urbanization in Russia increased from 15 to 74% in 1991, but in recent years the level of urbanization in Russia has decreased by 1% and currently 73% of the country's population lives in cities.

Level of urbanization in different regions of the country differs significantly. The most highly urbanized regions of Russia are the Northwestern (87%) and Central (83%), Northern (82%) regions and the Far East, where the level of urbanization exceeds 75%. The lowest level of urbanization was recorded in the North Caucasus, where only 56% of the population of the region lives in cities, as well as in the Central Black Earth region (63%). Among the subjects of the Federation, Moscow, St. Petersburg (100% each), Magadan and Murmansk regions (96% each) have the maximum level of urbanization, and the Republic of Altai has the minimum level (26%).

Currently in countryside 27% of the Russian population lives. material from the site

There are three types rural settlement of the population: group (de-ravenskoe), scattered (farmhouse) and nomadic. Rural type of rural settlement is dominant in Russia and is typical for almost all regions of the country. Farms are not rare in Russia in the North Caucasus and Siberia, but nomadic type of settlement characteristic of the peoples of the Far North, whose main occupation is reindeer herding.

Introduction 2

1. City and urbanization 3

2. Classification of urban settlements by population 8

3. Main stages of urbanization 10

4. Development of urban agglomerations 13

5. Level of urbanization modern Russia 16

in the conditions of Russia, on the one hand, and in Western countries, on the other 19

Conclusion 21

References 24

Annex 25

INTRODUCTION

The city is multifaceted. It is called a model of society, a mirror of the surrounding area, an engine of progress. This is both a "point on the map" and a whole world with great internal differences. The city is the main arena of social activity, a place of concentration of significant events, the stratification of which creates a special atmosphere of historical memory. Cities are the first to face societal development problems and must be the first to offer solutions. Cities are points for which geographical position has a special meaning: it determines their focal role and activity as centers of gravity. In cities loved by literature, real historical events are intertwined with fictional ones. All this makes the city a very special place on Earth.

The city is likened to a living organism, a complex system with complex dynamics. The city is the subject of research in many sciences, the object of national economic planning and programming, urban planning, and occupies the minds of urban planners, scientists, and writers. The city baffles politicians, scientists and science fiction writers. It contains a secret.

The city seeks to convince us (and it succeeds) that its development is unpredictable. Influencing the city, trying to direct its development and growth in the right direction, people are faced with its unexpected reaction and, along with positive consequences, receive many negative ones. Cities, as it were, scoff at clumsy attempts to solve their most complex problems by primitive means, avenge attempts to treat them unceremoniously.

Cities are the daily life environment of an ever-increasing number of people. And people are under their constant influence. This influence of cities has an important formative value. August Losh, known for his work on the organization of space, said: "If a person is surrounded by ugly, not perfect things, if he violated the symmetry created by nature, then, ultimately, he will destroy himself."

The topic of my essay is "urbanization". This topic is very relevant, because a city (especially a large one) is a model of the society that gave birth to it. It, like a drop of water, reflects the trends that are characteristic of the country and society as a whole. Moreover, very often they reflect not only the realities of today, but also predict the problems that society will inevitably face in the future. Therefore, the purpose of my abstract is to consider some of those global problems and issues that virtually every country in the world faces today, albeit to varying degrees. After all, their today's problems are a formidable indicator of the problems of all mankind of tomorrow.

1. City and urbanization .

One of the most important features modern life of our planet - the rapid growth in the number of cities and city dwellers. No wonder this growth, or urbanization, is called a phenomenon of the 20th century.

URBANIZATION (English urbanization, from the Latin words urbanus - urban, urbs - city), the world-historical process of increasing the role of cities in the development of mankind, which covers changes in the distribution of productive forces, primarily in the distribution of the population, its socio-professional, demographic structure , lifestyle, culture, etc. Urbanization is a multidimensional demographic, socio-economic and geographical process that takes place on the basis of historically established forms of society and the territorial division of labor. In a narrower, statistical and demographic sense, urbanization is the growth of cities, especially large ones, an increase in the share of the urban population in a country, region, world (the so-called urbanization in the narrow sense of the word or urbanization of the population), as well as the spread of an urban lifestyle to the countryside. .

There is no generally accepted unified definition of the city in science. The most general, although very vague, is given in the latest edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. "A city is a locality in which a relatively large population lives, mainly engaged in non-agricultural activities."

There is also no consensus on the definition of the level of urbanization; urbanization. Most experts agree that the main indicator of the level of urbanization is the share of the urban population in its entire population. This indicator is often referred to as "urbanization".

The prerequisites for urbanization are the growth of industry in cities, the development of their cultural and political functions, and the deepening of the territorial division of labor. Urbanization is characterized by an influx of the rural population into cities and an increasing pendulum movement of the population from the rural environment and nearby small towns to large cities (for work, for cultural and everyday needs, etc.). The reverse process of urbanization is called ruralization.

The first cities appeared in the 3-1 millennium BC. in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria, India, Asia Minor, China, Indochina, as well as in some parts of Europe and Africa adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea. AT ancient world cities such as Babylon, Athens, Carthage, Rome, Alexandria played a huge role. In the cities of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, elements of bourgeois civilization were formed. With the development of capitalism, the objective need to concentrate and integrate various forms and types of material and spiritual activity was the main reason for the intensification of the process of urbanization, the increase in the concentration of the population in cities.

In 1800, the share of the urban population in the entire population of the globe was about 3%, in 1850 - 6.4%, in 1900 - 19.6%. From 1800 to 2000, it increased almost 18 times (up to 51.2%).

How the level of urbanization changed throughout the world in the 20th century can be judged from the data in Table 1:

Table 1. Level of urbanization.

The main conclusion is that in the XX century. The level of world urbanization has increased very rapidly. This is evidenced by both absolute and relative figures. The following comparison can also be made: for the entire 19th century, the urban population of the world increased by 190 million people, in the first half of the 20th century - by 510 million, and in the second half of the 20th century - by 2 billion 200 million people. It is no coincidence that this phenomenon has received the name "urban explosion" (see Appendix).

In developing countries, urbanization has assumed a rapid and unmanageable character. In Latin America, where the level of urbanization is the highest of all regions of developing countries (70%), one feature of the urbanization of these countries is especially pronounced. It's called "false urbanization". This is a variety in which the proportion of the urban population far exceeds the proportion of the economically active population employed in the manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors. main reason such urbanization is a constant influx of poor rural population into the cities. Landlessness and the lack of opportunities to earn money in the countryside "push" millions of people to the city, which is no longer able to provide them with housing and work. Thanks to this influx, the growth of the city is explosive. Slum areas with unsanitary living conditions are being formed. Such areas are called "poverty belts". They can accommodate from 30 to 50% of the population of many large cities. Such "slum" urbanization will largely determine the pattern of settlement in developing countries.

In the early 90s. the level of urbanization in developed countries was approximately 72%, in developing countries 33%.

In the presence of common features, the process of urbanization in different countries has its own characteristics, which are expressed in the level and pace of urbanization.

According to the level of urbanization, all countries of the world can be divided into groups (see Table 2):

Table 2. Degree of urbanization of countries in the world

Despite rapid urban growth, half of the world's population still lives in rural areas. Their total number on Earth is 12-20 million. They are different in their size, the predominant occupations of their inhabitants. The difference between them is determined by the socio-economic development of the country, the level of development of its productive forces and the specialization of the economy.

The outpacing growth of the urban and non-agricultural population compared to the rural and agricultural population is the most characteristic feature of modern urbanization. In three parts of the world - Australia and Oceania, North America and Europe, urban dwellers predominate; they are being overtaken by rapidly urbanizing Latin America; at the same time, the population of the Afro-Asian countries, due to its large numbers, creates a preponderance of the village over the city on average in the world. The developed countries of the first world have the highest percentage of the urban population: in Europe - Great Britain (91%), Sweden (87%), Germany (85%), Denmark (84%), France (78%), the Netherlands (76%), Spain (74%), Belgium (72%); in North America, the USA (77%) and Canada (76%); in Asia, Israel (89%) and Japan (78%); in Australia and Oceania - Australia (89%) and New Zealand (85%); in Africa - South Africa (50%). When the proportion of the urban population exceeds 70%, the rate of its growth, as a rule, slows down and gradually (when approaching 80%) stops.

Urbanization of Russian regions in the second half of the 20th century

Dynamics of urbanization

The 20th century has become a century of urbanization for Russia. This process was far from going smoothly, but the main upheavals that disrupted its natural course occurred in the first half of the century. In the second, relatively calm, urbanization trends, which gained momentum at the beginning of the century, received the greatest development and entered a certain direction. It is this period that we will consider.

It is necessary to make a reservation that we will deal exclusively with those aspects of urbanization that have a quantitative expression and are associated with the processes of settlement. Among the latter, one can distinguish the growth of the urban population, its redistribution between urban and rural settlements, the growth in the number and population of urban settlements, the redistribution of the population between urban settlements of different populations. Of particular importance are the processes of growth and development of large cities (with a population of over 100 thousand people) and urban agglomerations (GAs), since these forms of settlement are the main focuses of urbanization, the focus of its most striking features. The qualitative aspects of urbanization, associated with the impact of cities on the environment, with the formation of an urbanized environment, as well as its social component (for example, increasing the role of cities and urban standards in society, improving the urban lifestyle, etc.) will remain outside the scope of the analysis.

It is convenient to consider the dynamics of urbanization in Russia and its regions in the context of intercensal periods starting from 1959-1969 (Fig. 1) Each period had its own specifics, expressed primarily in the different nature of urbanization processes: they all slowed down over time, but the rate of slowdown in different periods and was different in different regions.

Figure 1. Dynamics of Russia's urbanization in the second half of the 20th century in terms of a number of indicators, % to 1959

1959-1969

Russia entered this decade already as a predominantly urban country - in 1958, the share of the urban population in the RSFSR crossed the symbolic threshold of 50% (urban transition). After the transfer in the early 1960s of the Buryat village of Aginskoye to the category of urban settlements, there were no regions left without an urban population in the country. It was precisely during this period that there were more regions with a predominance of townspeople than "rural" ones: if in 1959 the share of the urban population exceeded 50% in 35 regions, 15 more were added to them in 10 years. The Russian average annual increase in the share of the urban population was approximately 0.8 percentage points, or 1.5%.

During this period, the urban population grew quite actively - both in an intensive direction (due to the growth of the population of existing cities and towns) and in an extensive direction (due to the formation of new urban settlements).

The main factor in the emergence and growth of urban settlements was industrial construction. At this stage, it was largely associated with resource development (the Kursk magnetic anomaly, oil and gas fields in Western Siberia) and hydropower, which led to a particularly rapid growth in urbanization in the regions of the Central Chernozem region, the Volga region, and in the Tyumen districts. However, the practice of artificial, purely administrative town formation was also widespread, when the status of urban settlements was assigned in an organized manner to all large rural district centers of the region.

In 1959, 2372 urban settlements were noted in Russia. For 10 years their number has increased by 466 units. Most of the new urban settlements - 23 - arose in the Kirov region. Such a high figure in a generally peripheral region could only be caused by administrative reasons. Altai and Krasnoyarsk Territories, Volgograd and Irkutsk Regions, and the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug also significantly increased the lists of their cities (by 15 units or more). Only in the latter case, the increase was provided in the full sense of the new settlements.

Only in four regions the number of urban settlements remained unchanged, but in the same number of regions it decreased. Basically, these are sparsely populated regions of the North, Siberia and the Far East, where small towns of timber industry and fishing have died off. There were also cases of administrative reduction of urban networks, mostly due to the absorption of some settlements by others: that is why the Moscow region also fell into the group of such regions, where there was a mass absorption of some urban settlements by others. The peak of this enlargement occurred in 1960, when five cities and 12 urban settlements entered the boundaries of Moscow, the city of Shchurovo was attached to Kolomna, and the city of Kostino and 2 urban settlements were attached to Kaliningrad (now Korolev).

Along with the growth of the urban population, its concentration increased. This was manifested, in particular, in an increase in the average population of urban settlements in Russia as a whole and in most of its regions. Throughout the country, it has grown over this period by 9% - from 26 to 28.5 thousand people. Among the regions, with the exception of the sparsely populated Siberian districts, the maximum increase in the average population (about 1.5 times) was noted in Chuvashia and the Belgorod region, where the second sub-center cities (Novocheboksarsk and Stary Oskol, respectively) developed rapidly. Only in 22 regions did the average population of urban settlements decrease: many small urban settlements were formed there against the background of a weak growth in the total population (among them, in particular, the above-mentioned Kirov region).

A special manifestation of the concentration of the urban population is the rise of large cities, as well as the formation and development of urban agglomerations. In 1959, there were 91 large cities and 26 GAs in the country, by 1970 their number had increased to 126 and 37, respectively.

Already in 1959 there were big cities in 65% of all regions. But among the "large-city" regions, almost the same percentage was made up of those in which there was only one large city (administrative center). The share of regions with two hundred-thousanders (the center and a strong sub-center) was 20%. And only in 9 regions there were 3 or more large cities, and a maximum of 6 - in the Kemerovo region.

For 10 years, the share of large urban regions has increased to 80%. Their list was supplemented by a number of regions of European Russia - Belgorod, Novgorod, Pskov regions, Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Komi, Mari El, Mordovia, as well as the Far Eastern Amur, Kamchatka, Sakhalin regions and Yakutia. The second large cities arose in the Arkhangelsk, Volgograd, Vologda and Lipetsk regions, the third - in Bashkiria, the Samara region and the Primorsky Territory, the fourth - in the Krasnodar Territory, Irkutsk and Chelyabinsk regions.

In the Vladimir, Saratov and Sverdlovsk regions, two large cities each appeared, and in the latter their total number reached 5. The leader in terms of growth was the Moscow region, in which 5 cities at once moved into the category of large cities in a decade, which doubled their total number.

Among the economic regions, the largest number of hundred-thousanders was formed in the Central (7), the Urals and the Far East (5 each). Their number has not changed only in the West Siberian region.

As for the GA, their main focus remained the European part of the country. Outside of it, at first there were only 6 agglomerations (Vladivostok, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, Novokuznetsko-Prokopyevskaya, Novosibirsk and Omsk), and 2 more (Barnaul and Krasnoyarsk) were added to them during this period. According to P.M. Polyana, most of the GA in 1959-1969 belonged to the average dynamic, that is, the growth of their population ranged from 1.25 to 1.5 times, and the growth of the development coefficient - from 1.5 to 2 times. Only the Vladivostok and Voronezh GAs were classified as highly dynamic, and Novokuznetsk-Prokopyevskaya, Ivanovo, Chelyabinsk, Yaroslavl, Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and Tula were classified as weakly dynamic.

1970-1978

During this period, the urban transition occurred in another 20 regions: thus, the share of "urban" regions reached 80% of their total number. At the same time, in Russia as a whole, the average annual increase in the share of city residents slowed down significantly - to 1.2%; the rate of absolute growth of the urban population in the country also decreased by 10%. Among the regions, the Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets okrugs became leaders in the growth in the number of citizens (more than 2 times). In addition, the urban population continued to arrive relatively quickly in the regions Far East and on the periphery of the European Center, especially in the Central Black Earth region. In the latter case, there was a significant increase not only in the absolute number, but also in the proportion of city dwellers.

The growth in the number of urban settlements slowed down more - in Russia by 2 times (231 for this period). Among them, there were less and less cities proper - the increase was mainly due to urban settlements. Of the regions, Buryatia (19 urban settlements) came out on top in terms of the intensity of urban development. In addition to it, only in Komi and Yakutia the growth exceeded 10. At the same time, the number of regions with zero growth increased almost 5 times (there were 19 of them). Already in 16 regions (against 11 in the previous period) the increase was only one urban settlement, in the same number (for the previous period of 9) - two.

But downsizing of urban networks was still rare. Only in three regions there were fewer urban settlements - in Primorsky Krai, Amur and Leningrad regions. In the first two cases, the decline occurred naturally - due to the withering away of the town, and in the last - due to the absorption of Krasnoe Selo by Leningrad in the absence of new urban settlements.

The continued intensive growth of cities with a population of 80-90 thousand people contributed to their transition to the category of large ones: during this period, 28 of them appeared in Russia. the last - two large cities at once (Surgut and Nizhnevartovsk), none of which, which is unique, is not an administrative center.

Basically, there was an expansion of networks of large cities in the relatively highly urbanized regions of European Russia - in particular, some of the regional sub-centers (Kineshma in the Ivanovo region, Velikiye Luki in the Pskov region, Stary Oskol in the Belgorod region, Dimitrovgrad in the Ulyanovsk region) reached a population of one hundred thousand. In total, the second large cities received 7 regions, of which the Belgorod and Pskov regions, as well as the Komi ASSR - only 10 years later than the first. In Tatarstan, over 8 years, three cities have exceeded the 100,000th mark - Almetyevsk, Nizhnekamsk and Naberezhnye Chelny, and the latter has increased its population by 8 times in 9 years. The maximum increase (7 large cities) was again characterized by the Moscow region.

At the expense of the capital region, the Central region again had the largest increase among the economic regions. In second place is Povolzhsky (6); no new hundred-thousanders appeared only in the Volga-Vyatka.

Many new large cities arose within the GA, the number of which increased during this period even somewhat more than in the previous one - by 13 units (all exclusively in the European part). But at the same time, the intensity of the development of the old GAs slowed down: the annual increase in population in all of them decreased compared to the previous period (most of all - more than 2 times - in Grozny, Ivanovo and Tula), and the growth of the development coefficient accelerated only in Yaroslavl, Moscow and Samara-Togliatti. The only highly dynamic GA for this period is Ulyanovsk.

1979-1988

The growth of urbanization has already slowed down significantly in a number of indicators. The number of citizens in all regions was still growing, but relatively high growth rates (more than 2 times) were recorded only in the Tyumen districts. The share of city dwellers stopped its growth already in 35 regions; in Russia as a whole, its average annual growth fell below 1%. A total of 5 regions have made an urban transition - the last 50% barrier was overcome by Adygea (in 1984). However, there were still no regions that reduced the share of the urban population, except for the unrepresentative Evenki Autonomous Okrug with its only urban settlement.

Continued to fall and the intensity of town formation:. in Russia, the increase in the number of urban settlements amounted to 161 units (1.4 times less than in the previous period), and already in 1/3 of all regions the urban network remained unchanged during this intercensal period. Only the traditional leaders - the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug and the Moscow Region - had an increase of more than 10. The extremely high result of the latter (33 units - the maximum among all regions for all periods) is explained by the one-time assignment of urban status to a number of summer cottages.

The number of regions that reduced the lists of their urban settlements increased slightly - up to 5 (Republic of Altai, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Kamchatka, Magadan and Sakhalin regions).
Anzhero-Sudzhensk (Kemerovo region) and Cherkessk (Karachay-Cherkessia) were the last cities to reach the mark of 100 thousand people. However, in the Kemerovo region, the growth of Anzhero-Sudzhensk was “levelled” by the loss of Belovo from the large ones (the first such case in the country). Therefore, only Karachay-Cherkessia joined the ranks of large urban regions, the share of which reached 84% and no longer increased.

After 1989

This period was characterized by a halt or at least a significant slowdown in the growth of urbanization in most indicators - both in the country as a whole and in most regions.

In 1992, the share of the urban population in Russia reached its maximum - 73.9%. At the same time, the absolute maximum of its number was noted - 148.7 million people. Since that moment, the steady growth in the number and proportion of the urban population has been replaced by their decline. Moreover, if the population decreased annually until the end of the century, reaching the level of 145.9 million people in 1999, then the dynamics of the share was less stable: it fell only until 1995, then for three years it froze at around 73.0%, in 1998 year increased slightly and fluctuated with a small amplitude for the next few years.

Such a change in dynamics was basically a consequence of the processes of reduction of natural increase population, reducing the intensity of industrial construction and exhausting the demographic potential of the village. However, its extremely sharp nature, and possibly the time of its onset, were due to the imposition of additional factors, namely, the mechanical outflow of city dwellers to the countryside and the mass transfer of urban settlements to the category of rural ones. These factors, in turn, were themselves a direct or indirect consequence of economic and political changes in the country and did not last long - until the mid-1990s. However, the previous dynamics could no longer be restored.

For the first time in the second half of the century, there were more regions with negative dynamics in the number and share of the urban population than with positive ones. These are, on the one hand, the Far Eastern and Northern territories, from where the migration outflow of citizens was observed, on the other hand, the regions that have experienced an administrative reduction in the number of urban settlements. There were atypically many of the latter during this period: in the early 1990s, a powerful wave of transformation of urban-type settlements into rural settlements, generated by the economic situation, swept across the country. Where its scope was greatest, the results were very tangible for urbanization. So, in the Kostroma, Rostov and Tomsk regions, Altai Territory and Karachay-Cherkessia "administrative ruralization", as A.I. called this phenomenon. Alekseev and N.V. Zubarevich, for one year 1992 caused a decrease in the share of city dwellers immediately by 2-5%, and in Kalmykia and Karelia - by 9 percentage points. In total, the network of urban settlements has shrunk in almost half of the regions.

In some places, the consequences of administrative ruralization were partly mitigated by a smaller, but no less unique action - the declassification in 1994 of a number of closed administrative-territorial entities (ZATOs). In the Kamchatka, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk regions and in the Primorsky Territory, the opening of the ZATO significantly added to the lists of urban settlements (despite the fact that these cities and towns actually existed for many decades). However, it had almost no effect on the regional levels of the proportion and size of the urban population, since the population of ZATOs was not removed from the statistics before, but was distributed in a certain way among other urban settlements in the region.

In none of the new regions did the proportion of city dwellers exceed 50%. Thus, in Russia there are 12 regions with a predominance of the rural population. This is half of all autonomous regions (except for two Tyumen, Nenets, Taimyr and Chukotka), two South Siberian regions (Republic of Altai and Tyva) and four republics North Caucasus(Dagestan, Karachay-Cherkessia, Chechnya and Ingushetia) with Kalmykia geographically gravitating towards them. Chechnya and Ingushetia should be mentioned separately. Until 1992, they constituted a single republic, the share of the urban population of which did not reach 50%, although it was very close to this mark. For the subsequent period, the statistics for both republics, for obvious reasons, were approximate. However, we can confidently assume that both in war-ravaged Chechnya and in Ingushetia, which received a significant number of refugees, the proportion of city dwellers is at a very low level, certainly not exceeding the level of the early 1990s.

The process of the emergence of large cities has almost stopped. In the entire country, only three cities have moved into the category of hundred-thousandths - Zheleznodorozhny (Moscow region), Obninsk (Kaluga region) and Zelenodolsk (Tatarstan), and another large city has been declassified - previously closed Seversk (Tomsk region). But at the same time, four cities, on the contrary, left the ranks of large ones due to population decline - Anzhero-Sudzhensk, Vorkuta (Komi), Grozny (Chechnya) and Zhukovsky (Moscow Region), which recently joined them. Two more cities - Kirovo-Chepetsk (Kirov region) and Kuznetsk (Penza region) - reached 100,000 people after 1989, but by 1998 they managed to lower it. In Russia, therefore, the increase in the number of large cities turned out to be zero.

Since 1959: general observations

The process of growth in the urbanization of Russian regions was accompanied by a gradual smoothing of interregional contrasts. This was facilitated by the high growth rates of urbanization in the regions catching up with the leaders in terms of initial values. The dynamics of the coefficients of variation in the values ​​of urbanization by region is inverse to the dynamics of the values ​​themselves: until the 1990s, the coefficients decreased, and the rate of decline gradually slowed down.
The decrease in interregional differences had a clear geographical expression: the initial areas of similar values ​​of indicators expanded and merged. The urbanization of the peripheral regions was gradually brought up to the level initially characterized by high values ​​of the cores. Let us consider how the geographical picture of the distribution of urbanization over the territory of Russia has been transformed.

In the early 1950s, the country's territory was urbanized extremely unevenly. Against the general motley background, several urbanization nuclei stood out - individual regions or their groups with increased urbanization values ​​for most indicators. At the macro-regional level, there were obvious huge differences between the center and the periphery of the country, passing along the line "north-west - south-east." The center with the maximum values ​​of urbanization included most of European Russia and the south of Western Siberia and to a large extent corresponded to the western, wide, section of the Main Settlement Zone of the country. Accordingly, the periphery, characterized by minimal urbanization, covered the Asian part and the north of the European one. Such differences were due to the unevenness, on the one hand, of settlement, and on the other hand, of the ATD of the country.

Among the regions - the cores of urbanization in 1959, two capital cities were in the lead - here the urbanization in all indicators was at a high level. But if the Leningrad region looked like an island of high urbanization against the background of poorly urbanized regions (only in terms of the share of the urban population, the northern regions adjoined it), then an area of ​​old industrial regions (Vladimir, Ivanovskaya, Nizhny Novgorod, Tula and Yaroslavl) was formed around the Moscow region, which also differed in high, albeit inferior to Moscow, urbanization.

As the second most important range, the Urals took shape, consisting of the Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk and, according to a number of indicators, the Perm regions. The Kemerovo region also stood out, lagging behind only in terms of the average population of urban settlements due to its early bicentrism, and the Samara region, where only the density of urban settlements was relatively low.

Spots of low urbanization were, first of all, the most sparsely populated and economically underdeveloped regions of Siberia and the Far East (most of the autonomous regions, including the Tyumen, Altai and Tyva Republics, which have not yet embarked on the path of resource development). Higher, but still low by the standards of the European part, was the urbanization of the regions of the agrarian periphery of the European Center, in particular, the Central Black Earth region. Only a relatively dense urban network did not allow them to be considered absolute outsiders of urbanization.

It is the periphery of the European Center, primarily the regions of the Central Black Earth and Volga-Vyatka regions, that began to increase their urbanization earlier and more actively than other regions. Because of this, by the end of the 20th century, the central area of ​​high urbanization expanded noticeably, and the contrast between it and the periphery smoothed out. As a result, the urbanization of the European Center not only increased significantly, but also became spatially more homogeneous. In addition, "bridges" have emerged between the Center and the Urals across the Volga region and between the Center and the North Caucasus across the Central Chernozem region.

In Siberia, there were also trends towards an increase in urbanization. The urbanization of the Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug went up especially sharply: the growth of most of its characteristics, against the background of the average Russian ones, was simply enormous. However, the areal characteristics (population density, density of settlements) still remained extremely low due to the large size of these regions.

In general, both within the European part of the country and within the Asian part of the country, interregional differences have noticeably smoothed out: the territorial distribution of urbanization in all indicators has become less contrasting by the end of the century. However, the contrast in urbanization between these two macroregions persisted, and the line of macroregional differences remained approximately the same as in the 1950s.

Types of urbanization of Russian regions

With all the diversity of individual scenarios, the urbanization of Russian regions in the second half of the 20th century had many features common to entire groups of regions. In total, 8 such groups can be distinguished. Each of them represents a special type of urbanization, characterized by the similarity of structural and dynamic characteristics throughout the entire period under consideration.

Of the many indicators characterizing urbanization, we single out the following as the key ones: 1) the share of the urban population, 2) its density, 3) density and 4) the average population of urban settlements, 5) the proportion of large urban population and 6) the number of large cities. Along with the key indicators, the typology also used such indicators as 7) the density of the rural population, 8) the share of centers in the urban population, 9) the share of urban settlements in the total number of urban settlements, and 10) the number of HA.

The composition of regional types of urbanization and their main features are shown in Table 1, the geographical areas of regional types are marked in Fig. 1. 2.<…>

Table 1. Characteristics of regional types of urbanization in Russia in the second half of the 20th century

	The main features of the type	Regions (by geographic area)
	The main centers are the leaders of urbanization	Moscow region*; Vladimir Region, Ivanovo Region, Nizhny Novgorod Region, Tula Region, Yaroslavl Region, Sverdlovsk Region, Chelyabinsk Region, Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, Rostov Region, Samara Region, Leningrad Region, Kemerovo Region, Kaliningrad Region region
	early urbanization,
	Urbanization indicators had high initial values ​​and grew slowly,
	High concentration of urban population,
	A high proportion of new cities,
	Powerful regional centers,
	A bicentric urban structure is widespread,
	Many urban agglomerations of the upper classes of development
	Second Tier Leaders (additional centers of urbanization)	Astrakhan region, Volgograd region, Saratov region, Rep. Khakassia, Novosibirsk Region, Omsk Region, Primorsky Territory, Sakhalin Region, Jewish Autonomous Region, Murmansk Region, Perm Region
	Relatively early urbanization,
	Very low rural population density
	The urban population has grown relatively rapidly at an average initial level of density,
	Very high concentration of the urban population (high average population of urban settlements, their low density),
	High centralization of urban settlement,
	Many urban agglomerations (medium and underdeveloped)
	Actively catching up regions with a dense network of small towns	Rep. Mari El, Rep. Mordovia, Chuvash Republic, Ryazan region, Ulyanovsk region
	The urban population and its proportion grew rapidly, with a low initial level of proportion and density,
	The growth of urbanization continued into the 1990s,
	High density of urban settlements,
	A high proportion of cities founded before 1917
	A high proportion of cities with a population of less than 12 thousand people,
	A high proportion of settlements that were cities before 1917
	Catch-up regions with a sparse metropolitan network	Rep. Bashkortostan, Rep. Tatarstan, Udmurt Republic Voronezh region, Lipetsk region, Penza region, Tambov region, Rep. Adygea, Rep. Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, Krasnodar Territory, Stavropol Territory.
	The urban population and its proportion grew relatively rapidly, with an average initial level of proportion and density,
	Urbanization continued to grow in the 1990s,
	High average population of urban settlements,
	High proportion of large cities among all cities,
	A low proportion of urban-type settlements among all urban settlements,
	High share of new cities among all cities,
	Many urban agglomerations have emerged (underdeveloped)
	Medium urbanized regions	Vologda region, Kirov region, Kostroma region, Novgorod region, Tver region, Altai region, Kurgan region, Orenburg region, Tyumen region, Karachay-Cherkess Republic
	Urbanization for most indicators had average values ​​and grew at an average pace,
	The urban population continued to grow in the 1990s, its share during this period decreased,
	Relatively low urban development of the territory
	Regions of weak peripheral urbanization	Rep. Karelia, Rep. Komi, Arkhangelsk region, Rep. Buryatia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Khabarovsk Territory, Amur Region, Irkutsk Region, Kamchatka Region, Magadan Region, Tomsk Region, Chita Region
	The urban population grew relatively rapidly while maintaining a very low density,
	The share of the urban population grew slowly at a high initial level,
	A high proportion of urban-type settlements among all urban settlements
	Regions of active peripheral urbanization	Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Resp. Sakha (Yakutia), Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Rep. Kalmykia, Rep. Tuva
	The urban population grew rapidly while maintaining a very low density,
	The proportion of the urban population has grown relatively rapidly with medium and low entry levels,
	Very low density of urban settlements,
	Few big cities
	Extremely poorly urbanized sparsely populated regions	Koryak AO, Nenets AO, Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets) AO, Evenk AO Resp. Altai, Aginsky Buryat Autonomous Area, Komi-Permyatsky Autonomous Area, Ust-Ordynsky Buryat Autonomous Area
	All indicators of urbanization had extremely low values ​​and changed insignificantly,
	underdeveloped urban structure,
	No big cities

* Hereinafter, in the text and tables, the names "Moscow region" and "Leningrad region" denote, respectively, the Moscow and Leningrad regions, united with their administrative centers - subjects of the Russian Federation Moscow and St. Petersburg

Figure 2. Types of urbanization of Russian regions in the second half of the 20th century

Let us now turn directly to the description of regional types of urbanization.

Type 1. The main centers are the leaders of urbanization

The first type, the most representative, includes the most advanced regions in terms of urbanization - the main centers of the country's urbanization. Already by 1950, urbanization had reached a high level in them, as evidenced by the values ​​of almost all the indicators we used, and then it grew extremely slowly.

These are mostly old-developed regions with a dense urban network (in the regions of the European Center, except for Yaroslavl, as well as in the Kaliningrad region and North Ossetia, there are more than 10 settlements per 10 thousand square kilometers, in others - from 3 to 10) and quite large the average size of urban settlements (more than 20 thousand people). By 1959, in most regions of this type, the urban population equaled or even exceeded the rural population, and even then the urban population occupied a significant place in its structure. Subsequently, the growth of the urban population was small: by the end of the century, its share increased by no more than 1.5 times, and the absolute number - by almost 2 times.

The main factor in the rapid urbanization of regions of the first type is the early development of industry compared to others. For the most part, these are the centers of the old, still pre-war and pre-revolutionary industrialization - textile, metallurgical regions, the largest coal and mining basins. The exception is North Ossetia, where industry developed later and on a relatively modest scale, but this region is small in area and, moreover, has a powerful center (Vladikavkaz), which artificially inflates the values ​​of urbanization. Therefore, the assignment of North Ossetia to the first type is to a certain extent conditional.

The influence of individual factors also caused the high urbanization of the Kaliningrad region, which, despite the formal proximity in its characteristics to other regions of the first type (only the average population is significantly lower), has a completely different system of settlement. Its modern urban network was formed back in the period of German ownership and retained Western European features atypical for Russian regions - an abundance of small towns as the main form of settlement (there are 21 of them, that is, all the cities of the region, except Kaliningrad) and an extremely weak representation of such a specific Soviet form of settlement as town (there are only 5 of them). This structure turned out to be extremely stable: the composition of the urban settlements of the Kaliningrad region has not changed at all since the 1950s (only the sparsely populated Jewish Autonomous Okrug and the Evenk Autonomous Okrug differed in the same constancy of the urban network).

In the Moscow and Leningrad regions, along with industrial development, the capital status of their centers contributed to the high urbanization, which determined such factors of urban population growth as a variety of places of employment, a high level of infrastructure, migration and investment attractiveness, etc. The attractiveness of the capitals contributed to the urbanization of their regions: the first GAs in Russia were formed here, and the Moscow region is still the leader in the total number of cities, a significant part of which is part of the Moscow GA. The largest in the capital region and the number of large cities (17), but it is noteworthy that among them there is not a single large, two hundred thousand people, except for Moscow, only Podolsk has reached.

Of the 49 GAs observed in Russia at the end of the last century, 18 are located on the territory of the regions of the first type, and 13 of them already existed in 1959. Eight of them are among the most developed and highly developed (development coefficient over 10). There are GAs in all regions of this type without exception, and in the Kemerovo and Chelyabinsk regions there are two of them. In the Sverdlovsk region in the 1980s, in addition to the established Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg) GA, there was also a potential Magnitogorsk GA, which theoretically could grow into a full-fledged one by the end of the century.

The first type is characterized by extremely powerful regional centers: at the end of the 1990s, in almost every second region, they numbered more than 1 million people. Nevertheless, centers dominate only in the capital regions, Nizhny Novgorod and Kaliningrad regions and North Ossetia. In other regions, sub-centers are quite significant, yielding to the centers in terms of population by no more than 4 times. In general, the periphery of the regions of the first type is highly urbanized, despite the weight of their centers. There are many urban settlements here - in most regions there are more than 60% of all urban settlements, which corresponds to the average Russian norm. However, in terms of population, they, of course, are significantly inferior to cities.

Another feature of regions of this type is the relative youth of the urban network, which may seem paradoxical, given their predominant position in areas of old development. In absolute terms, of course, there are many cities everywhere with pre-revolutionary history, but as a result of active urban formation in the years, in most regions, less than 50% of all cities remained (even without taking into account urban settlements), a little more - in the Vladimir region and the Leningrad region. The exceptions are the "foreign" Kaliningrad region, which is generally devoid of new cities, and the Yaroslavl region, in which 10 out of 11 cities received their status before the middle of the 19th century (although Myshkin lost it after 1917, but returned it in 1991). The latter is a rare highly industrialized region that has developed entirely on the basis of the old urban network.

Type 2. Leaders of the second order (additional centers of urbanization)

The regions of the second type are close to the regions of the first in many characteristics, but are inferior to them primarily in urban development. In them, both the density of urban networks and the density of the urban population are lower. Urbanization here began later (although still early by Russian standards) and had a slightly different character: in particular, the contribution of regional centers was stronger.

The main feature of the regions of the second type is increased centralization. The proportion of regional centers in the total and urban population of the regions is also large, as well as their separation from the second most populated cities. In the first type, the regional centers are also large, but the periphery is quite urbanized. In the second, in most cases, the entire highly urbanized population is concentrated in a hypertrophied developed center, the environment is relatively poorly urbanized (the most extreme examples are the Novosibirsk and Omsk regions). Therefore, the indicator of the average population of urban settlements for characterizing this type loses its meaning.

The territorial structure of the urban network here is much less uniform than in the regions of the first type: urbanized territories adjoin rather vast spaces devoid of urban settlements. Bicentrism is practically absent - the second most populated cities, as a rule, are less than the first by 4 times or more. At times, the dynamics of the urban structure is also peculiar: in the most centralized regions - Astrakhan, Novosibirsk and Omsk regions - small and medium-sized cities and towns grew faster than regional centers. Therefore, the weight of the latter in the total population decreased over time, which was also reflected in the dynamics of the share of the large urban population, which decreased.

Most of the regional centers (except for Abakan, Birobidzhan and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk) have agglomerations here, but in terms of development they are noticeably inferior to most urban agglomerations of regions of the first type (development coefficient less than 10).

In addition to being more centralized, the second type is less rural than the first. Here, the density of the rural population was initially much lower, and it decreased more intensively. Largely due to the influx from the countryside, the urban population grew on average faster than in the regions of the first type: in some regions (Volgograd, Murmansk regions) it increased by more than 3 times. This, however, had little effect on its density, which, due to the relatively large areas of the regions and the extremely low initial level, remained low everywhere (less than 20 people per sq. km). For the same reasons, the density of urban settlements, despite the significant expansion of their networks in places, nowhere exceeded the mark of 7 units. per 10 thousand sq. km.

A special place among representatives of the second type is occupied by sparsely populated Far Eastern regions - the Jewish Autonomous Region and the Sakhalin Region. They are distinguished from others by the low average population of urban settlements and the peculiar characteristics of the large urban population (in the Sakhalin region it is insignificant, and in the Jewish Autonomous Region it is completely absent). We can say that these regions form a kind of subtype within the second type. Khakassia was not far from them, in which the average population exceeded 20 thousand people ( lower threshold for type) only at the end of the century and only through the transfer of small urban settlements to the category of rural ones. These three regions are also brought together by the stability of the urban network: the number of urban settlements in them either did not change at all (Jewish Autonomous Region) or, after a series of multidirectional transformations, returned to its original level (Khakassia and Sakhalin Oblast).

Note that in the Sakhalin region, the atypicality of the settlement system has almost the same nature as in the Kaliningrad region. Most of its urban settlements are concentrated in the south of the island and arose when South Sakhalin was part of Japan, but retained their status after the return of Russia. This is the reason for the relatively high density of urban settlements and cities of the Sakhalin Oblast, which is typical for Japanese territories: it is higher here than in any of the Far Eastern regions (5.9 units per 10 thousand sq. km in 1959, 5.6 - in 2000).

Geographically, some regions of the second type are adjacent to the regions of the first, constituting their near periphery: the Perm region complements the Sverdlovsk region, Khakassia - the Kemerovo region; Astrakhan, Volgograd and Saratov regions constitute a transition zone between Samara and Rostov regions. In cases where the second type is territorially isolated from the first, there are centers of urbanization around centers that are less powerful than the centers of the first type (Murmansk Region, Primorsky Territory), and around super-powerful centers surrounded by an extremely weak periphery (Omsk Region).

Type 3. Actively catching up regions with a dense network of small towns

Regions of the third type embarked on the path of accelerated urbanization rather late, in the middle of the 20th century, and during the period under review they overtook the leaders in urbanization from the first and second types. Their main distinguishing feature- the rapid growth of urbanization in most indicators when starting from a relatively low initial level, that is, a ratio opposite to that characteristic of the first two types.

The third type is represented by the agro-industrial regions of the west and the center of European Russia. Due to agricultural specialization with its zonality, this type is very compact geographically - it consists of two areas bordering the central area of ​​the first type from the west, south and southeast and separated only by the Tula region belonging to the first type.

Urban networks of regions of the third type were basically formed long ago: until now, everywhere, except for the Ulyanovsk region, among all cities founded before 1917 prevail (and in the Oryol region, all seven cities were formed before 1800). These networks are in some way relic: in almost every region, more than 15% of all cities formally do not correspond to their status due to low population (the exception is Mari El, where there are none at all, but there are only four cities). By the end of the century, networks were significantly updated, but mainly at the expense of urban settlements - their share among all urban settlements in regions of this type increased by 1.2 times by 2000 (the maximum increase among all types) and caught up with the Russian average (64%). It should be noted that here about 5% of all urban settlements are former cities that were lowered in status after 1917. This is 1/3 of the total number of such settlements in Russia - also indirect evidence of the old age of urban networks.

Old development in combination with favorable natural conditions in all regions, except for the northernmost and largest in terms of area Pskov region, has resulted in a high density of urban settlements by Russian standards (5-10 units per 10 thousand sq. km). The urban network is denser only in the regions of the first type, but the urban settlements themselves are also larger there - here their average population has always remained below the average Russian level, which was 25 thousand people in the middle of the century and 35 at the end. For this type, a relatively small main city is common (only Ryazan and Ulyanovsk reached a population of 500 thousand people), surpassing the second city in population by 5-6 times, which corresponds to the average Russian norm. The only big gap is Ryazan region(14 times), but there are also few regions where the second cities are inferior to the first by less than 3-4 times (Belgorod, Kaluga, Pskov regions and Chuvashia).

The territorial structure of urban networks in the regions of the third type is quite uniform. In many ways, it inherits the networks formed during the administrative reform of the late 18th century, the key principle of which was precisely the uniform distribution of county centers across the territory. Violations of this uniformity are caused both by the abolition of a number of weak county and provincial towns, and the emergence of new towns and urban settlements near those that have lost their significance, but not the status of the old ones.

Due to the agrarian specialization of regions of this type, their rural population at the beginning of the period under review significantly predominated over the urban population - its share in 1959 was the lowest among all types (less than 35%). The density of the urban population was also relatively low (less than 10 people per sq. km).

The formation of an industrial base in the post-war period spurred the urbanization of these regions, activating both the formation of new cities and towns (Gubkin, Zheleznogorsk, Kurchatov, Obninsk) and the growth of old ones (Melekes-Dimitrovgrad, Novocheboksarsk, Stary Oskol). The number of urban settlements increased over the period under review by an average of 1.5 times (least of all in the Kaluga region, where many urban settlements became villages in the 1990s), and doubled in Mordovia, Kursk and Oryol regions.

Even more powerful was the intensive growth of the urban population, which, with small areas, led to a significant increase in its density - almost to the level of the first two types. At the same time, the rural population was decreasing everywhere, so that the proportion of the urban population increased greatly. As is typical for late urbanization, the slow growth of the urban population in most cases continued into the 1990s - only in the Bryansk region and Mari El at that time was its stabilization observed.

In the growth of the urban population, the leading role was played by the regional centers, which outstripped the smaller urban settlements in terms of growth rates: their weight in the urban population of the regions increased everywhere, except for the Kursk and Oryol regions. The front population of urban settlements increased by 1.5-2 times: in most regions by the end of the century it approached 30 thousand people, and in Chuvashia and the Belgorod region with their dynamically growing second cities it exceeded this mark. In the structure of the urban population everywhere, except for the Bryansk and Smolensk regions, the large city population began to predominate, the strongest (more than 70%) - in Chuvashia and the Ulyanovsk region, where the combined population of the first and second cities is the largest.

Urban agglomerations grew rapidly around regional centers. In 1959, there was not a single GA on the territory of the third type, but after 20 years there were 7 of them (plus 2 more potential ones). At the same time, the coefficient of development of the Bryansk, Ryazan and Ulyanovsk GAs exceeded 2.5. Of the centers of regions belonging to this type, only Belgorod, Pskov and Yoshkar-Ola did not form agglomerations.

Type 4. Catch-up regions with a sparse metropolitan network

The fourth type is in many respects close to the third. It unites regions with a significant share of the agricultural sector in the economy (exceptions are Tatarstan and Udmurtia). Its two areas - the central one (the western part of the Central Black Earth region and the Penza region) and the Ural-Volga region (Bashkiria, Tatarstan and Udmurtia) - are separated only by the Ulyanovsk region, which belongs to the third type, but according to a number of characteristics (concentration of large urban population, the proportion of new cities) is close to the fourth. The third area - the southern one - occupies most of the North Caucasus and is unique in many respects. Its regions are the most agriculturally oriented and therefore the most "rural" among all: they have increased both the density and the proportion of the rural population.

Active industrialization and, consequently, urbanization here, as in the third type, began rather late, already in the second half of the 20th century, and were distinguished by high rates. The regions of the Ural-Volga area have especially advanced on the basis of oil refining, energy and mechanical engineering, as a result - the maximum growth rates and the achieved level of the share of the urban and large urban population. The fourth type, however, was somewhat inferior to the third in terms of the rate of growth in the proportion of urban dwellers, since the rural population here decreased on average more slowly, and in a number of North Caucasian republics it even grew throughout the entire period under consideration due to the remaining high natural increase.

In contrast to the third type, industrialization in the fourth developed mainly on the basis of new centers. Therefore, the cities here are generally younger, with a larger proportion of those formed after 1917 (in 2000, 62% versus 35% in the third type). Only in the Lipetsk and (slightly) in the Penza regions there are fewer new cities than old ones. However, in terms of the increase in the total number of urban settlements, the fourth type is inferior to the third, since there are few urban settlements here: in 1/3 of the regions there are fewer of them than cities, and in the rest - no more than 60% of all urban settlements. These indicators are especially low in the Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories, where many villages and villages were transformed into cities, bypassing the urban settlement stage. The proportion of the population of settlements in the entire urban population is also small - everywhere, except for Adygea, it never exceeded 15%. Below this threshold, only in regions of the first type.

A large number of new cities has led to a lower uniformity of the territorial structure of urban networks in comparison with the third type. It is all the more uneven in the North Caucasian republics, as it is superimposed on the complex physical and geographical conditions of the foothills and mountains.

The relatively low growth of the urban network (more than twofold only in the Tambov region and Dagestan, and even in Adygea, where initially there were only two urban settlements) is partly due to the administrative ruralization of the early 1990s, which took place in half of the regions of this type.

The main difference between the fourth type and the third is a higher concentration of the population in urban settlements. Here, networks of urban settlements are rarer, but their population density is higher. It grew by an average of 1.5-2 times, reaching the maximum average level (over 60 thousand people) in Lipetsk region, Tatarstan and Udmurtia. The number of "unauthorized" cities, which is maximum in the third type, here, on the contrary, is minimal among all types - only 8 cities with a population of less than 12 thousand people (5% of the total number of cities), and half of them are concentrated in the Penza region (Bednodemyanovsk, Belinsky, Settlement, Sursk).

In terms of the absolute number of large cities, the fourth type is second only to the first, and in terms of their share among all cities in 1959 it was slightly inferior to the sixth, and by 2000 it came out on top. By the end of the century, there were 5 large cities in Bashkiria and Tatarstan, 4 in Udmurtia, Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories. Of these, two cities (Kazan and Ufa) had over 1 million inhabitants, and five - more than 500 thousand people. In addition, there are 12 GAs on the territory of the fourth type: they are in all regions except Adygea and Kabardino-Balkaria, and in Tatarstan and the Stavropol Territory there are two of them each (in Krasnodar Territory there is also a potential GA - Sochi). This is not much less than in regions of the third type, but here GAs are less developed: as of the 1980s, all of them were classified as underdeveloped or least developed (development coefficient less than 5).

In terms of the proportion of the large urban population, regions of the fourth type are on average inferior to representatives of the first two types, in which, in particular, cities with a million inhabitants are more common. However, Udmurtia, the absolute leader among all regions of the country in this indicator (85.3%), belongs to this type. Its urban structure, which had developed by the end of the period under review, is unique: one city with a population of over 600 thousand people and an agglomeration (Izhevsk) and three cities with a population of just over 100 thousand inhabitants each (Votkinsk, Glazov and Sarapul). The area of ​​the region is only 42 thousand square meters. km.

Type 5. Medium urbanized regions

The main area of ​​distribution of the fifth type is located at the junction of the North-Western, Northern, Central and Volga-Vyatka regions. These are five relatively sparsely populated regions by the standards of European Russia, forming a kind of borderland between the slightly urbanized North and the highly urbanized Center. Four more regions are located in the steppe south of the Urals and Western Siberia - only two of them border on each other, but since they are separated by Northern Kazakhstan, which goes deep into the Russian territory, they can also be considered parts of a single area. Only Karachay-Cherkessia is significantly removed from other regions - its proximity to them in terms of urbanization characteristics is to a certain extent formal and is caused by a small area and population.

In the regions of the fifth type, urbanization in terms of most characteristics, both structural and dynamic, has average values. According to the totality of indicators, this type can be called transitional between the second and fourth. It is similar to the second type by the reduced density of the urban population (less than 5 people per sq. km at the beginning of the period under review and less than 20 at the end), with the fourth by a low initial level (25-35%) and rapid growth (more than 2 times ) share of the urban population. In other words, compared to the second type, the fifth is more rural, and compared to the fourth, less urban.

Two areas of this type - northern and steppe - differ somewhat in structural characteristics urbanization. With an equally low density of the urban population in the northern regions, the urban network is denser, and the settlements themselves are smaller than in the steppes; the northern regions, as a rule, are monocentric and yield to the steppe regions in terms of the share of the large urban population. In the steppe regions, the density of the rural population is higher and its decline is faster, while the urban population is more concentrated; they have powerful sub-centers, of which Biysk in the Altai Territory and Orsk in the Orenburg Region had more than 100 thousand people by 2000.

The Vologda Oblast, the largest of the northern regions, stands out from this pattern: in comparison with neighboring regions, the urban network is less frequent in it, and the population of urban settlements is higher (including two centers with a population of three hundred thousand), and the density of the rural population is lower.

Feature regions of the fifth type - the opposite dynamics of the number and proportion of the urban population in the 1990s. In this segment, the population everywhere, except for the Vologda Oblast, decreased or remained stable, and the share, as in the regions of the third and fourth types, continued to grow due to the greater loss of the rural population compared to the urban population.

The decline in the share of urban residents took place only in the regions that suffered from administrative ruralization (Altai Krai, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kostroma, Orenburg and Tyumen regions), but even there, soon after the decline, the share resumed growth. Moreover, in the Orenburg region, the administrative reduction in the number of urban settlements - by 10 units at once - happened in 1999, that is, much later than the peak of such actions across the country.

Type 6. Regions of weak peripheral urbanization

Regions of the sixth type occupy most of Siberia with the Far East and the north of the European part of the country. The Tyumen districts divide the distribution zone of this type into the northern European and Asian areas. This is the periphery of the country in terms of urbanization.

The specificity of the urbanization of these regions is determined by their vast size, which does not allow urbanization trends to spread throughout the territory, and the focal and rare focal nature of settlement, which has led to a comparatively small rural population. Therefore, they are characterized, on the one hand, by a constantly low urban development of the territory (the density of the urban population is not more than 4 people per sq. km, the density of urban settlements is not more than 1.5 units per 10 thousand sq. km) and, on the other hand, the dominance of the urban population over the rural (at the beginning of the period under review, the share of city dwellers was over 35%, at the end - over 60%).

If in the regions of the second type the weak urbanization of most of the territory is compensated by the over-urbanization of regional centers, then here, although monocentrism is also pronounced, the population density of the centers is lower, and therefore the "weight" of the periphery is greater. Naturally, the average population density of urban settlements in the sixth type is not so significant (less than 30 thousand people in most regions), although by Russian standards it is still high. The territorial structure of urban networks is also extremely uneven here - a few cities and towns, as a rule, are confined to transport routes and centers of mining.

In a number of regions of the sixth type, even before the 1990s, there was a reduction in urban networks due to economically insolvent fishing, timber industry and other settlements. The share of urban-type settlements here, as a rule, decreased or remained stable, while in European Russia their representation only increased. But on regional size These processes did not noticeably affect the urban population - it continued to grow due to larger settlements.

However, in the 1990s, these regions turned into centers of mass exodus of the population, which affected, among others (and in some regions, in the first place) large cities. This has already significantly affected the dynamics of urbanization: the number and proportion of city dwellers have gone down, while the average population of urban settlements, on the contrary, has increased. In those regions where the decline in the population of the centers outpaced the reduction of smaller settlements, there was a decrease in the share of the large urban population. Thus, in the Republic of Komi and the Kamchatka region, the large-town population relative to the entire urban population decreased by 10 percentage points from 1989 to 2000, in the Krasnoyarsk Territory - by 5.

Along with the migration loss of the urban population, there was also an administrative one. It acquired the largest scale in the Tomsk region, which, due to the mass abolition of the urban-type settlement, came out on top in Russia by the end of the 1990s in terms of the average population of urban settlements (more than 100 thousand people). By 2000, only one urban-type settlement remained in the region with six cities, including four small and two large ones (Tomsk and "legalized" Seversk). Accordingly, this region ranked second in the country in terms of the proportion of the large urban population (more than 80%).

The abolition of the urban-type settlement in Karelia was also massive. As a result, there were actually more cities in it than villages, which is unusual for this type: as a rule, in its regions the number of urban settlements exceeds the number of cities by 2 or more times (this ratio is maximum in the Magadan region, where in 2000 two cities accounted for 28 villages). The dominance of urban-type settlements is generally typical for the resource-rich Siberian, Far Eastern and Northern regions, and exceptions to this rule almost always indicate a past campaign to "demote" urban settlements.

Type 7. Regions of active peripheral urbanization

Regions of this type at the beginning of the period under review were characterized by extremely low urban development - even lower than that of representatives of the sixth type. But they had the potential to build it up and used it relatively successfully, which was reflected in the rapid growth of urbanization in a number of indicators.

Thus, the urban population in these regions increased by more than 3 times. Its density, however, remained low (less than 2 people per sq. km), but with an extremely low initial level (less than 0.5), it is impossible in principle to reach higher values. The share of the urban population everywhere increased by more than 1.5 times.

Despite the similarity of quantitative and, first of all, dynamic characteristics of urbanization, its nature in regions of this type is very different, just as the regions themselves are dissimilar in many respects. Each of the three areas has its own specifics.

Thus, the Tyumen oil and gas districts represent a rare example for Russia in the second half of the 20th century of predominantly extensive urbanization, coupled with the massive founding of new cities and towns, both on the basis of a few rural settlements in harsh climatic conditions, and "from scratch". In terms of growth in urbanization, they are many times superior to all other regions. The urban population increased 19 times in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and 38 times in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, while the share of city dwellers, which in the 1950s was less than 40% in both regions, reached almost maximum values ​​during the period under review, in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Okrug exceeded 80%, and in Khanty-Mansiysk - 90%.

The regions of the Far Eastern area - Yakutia and Chukotka Autonomous Okrug - are close in physical and geographical conditions to the Tyumen area, but there was no such powerful impetus for expanding the urban network and, consequently, a jump in urbanization, therefore, the dynamic parameters of urbanization are more modest. In Yakutia, the urban structure is more developed , among all regions of the seventh type, only in it and in the Khanty-Mansiysk district there are large cities. But the Yakut urbanization is restrained by the largest area among all regions of Russia, and urbanized mining areas confined to deposits of coal, diamonds, and gold are only islands on a common sparsely populated background of the region.

Kalmykia and Tyva belong to a completely different physical and geographical zone - the steppe. They are considerably distant from each other, but similar in both natural and socio-cultural conditions. The nomadic way of life that persisted for a long time in both regions hampered urbanization: until now, the proportion of city dwellers in them is less than 50%. The network of urban settlements began to take shape only in the 20th century and mainly in an administrative way, by raising the status of rural settlements. The general small population with the formation of each new urban settlement gave a significant increase in the share and density of the urban population. However, the main part of the growth from the very beginning was provided by powerful capitals by local standards, which accumulated more than 60% of the urban population of the regions - they are still growing rapidly and by the end of the century came close to the hundred thousand threshold of population

Type 8. Extremely poorly urbanized sparsely populated regions

Regions of the eighth type are the least urbanized among all regions of Russia. Starting levels density of the urban population, density and average population of urban settlements and, with some exceptions (Taimyr and Nenets districts), the proportion of the urban population, as in the regions of the seventh type, is extremely low, but here, moreover, there was not any significant growth. These regions were outsiders of urbanization at the beginning of the period under review and remained so by the end of it. under the new Constitution, they received the status of subjects of the Federation, but in fact remained the periphery of the "mother" regions.

The ranges are located in different natural zones, which is reflected in the values ​​of some indicators of urbanization. The densities of the urban and, especially, rural populations differ most of all - they are lower in the regions of the circumpolar range. However, due to the overall low level of urbanization, this difference is not fundamental. There is no large urban population in all regions of the eighth type, and the share of urban settlements is the highest among all types of urbanization: in 2000 they accounted for more than 75% of all urban settlements by type in general and more than 50% in each of the regions. However, it should be noted that the lag of regions of the eighth type from the regions of the seventh is easily overcome. The specificity of the sparsely populated northern and Siberian regions is such that the slightest increase in the urban network entails a sharp increase in urbanization. The impulse in this case can be very different - for example, the formation of several urban settlements in connection with the development of Evenkia deposits, the construction of a port on the basis of Indiga in the Nenets Okrug, or the administrative reassignment of Norilsk to Dudinka (all these projects were discussed). However, here it is easy to cause a decline in urbanization, and it is not for nothing that it was in the region of the eighth type, namely in the Ust-Orda district, that an extreme manifestation of administrative ruralization took place - the complete elimination of the urban population.

Geographic zones of urbanization in Russia

As can be seen, some regional types of urbanization in Russia mutually gravitate, as if complementing each other, while others, on the contrary, contrast sharply in most parameters. Three peripheral types (6,7 and 8) and five central ones (from 1 to 5) can be distinguished, and among the latter there are two types of leaders - the main centers of urbanization (1 and 2), two types of regions catching up with the leaders (3 and 4) , and a transitional type between them (5).

This ratio makes it possible to move from the level of regional types of urbanization to a higher level. Based on the location and mutual attraction of areas classified as different types, five geographical zones with a relatively homogeneous territorial structure can be distinguished on the territory of Russia: Central, North European-Asian, South Siberian, South European and Ural-Volga (see Fig. 2). The composition of zones by regions and regional types of urbanization is shown in Table 3.

The North European-Asian zone is the largest and most homogeneous in its territorial structure. This is the urbanization periphery of Russia. It stretches in a wide strip from the Kola Peninsula and Karelia through all of Siberia (except for the south of the West Siberian region) to the eastern borders of the country. Most of it is composed of peripheral types of urbanization - 6, 7 and 8, of which only the seventh is found outside this zone. Only on its northwestern and southeastern outskirts are regions representing the 2nd type of urbanization - one of the most urbanized.

Table 3. Geographical zoning of Russia based on regional types of urbanization

Types of urbanization	Regions
I. Central zone
	Leningrad, Moscow regions, Vladimir, Ivanovo, Kaliningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Tula, Yaroslavl regions
	Republics of Mari El, Mordovia, Chuvash Belgorod, Bryansk, Kaluga, Kursk, Oryol, Pskov, Ryazan, Smolensk, Ulyanovsk regions
	Voronezh, Lipetsk, Penza, Tambov regions
	Vologda, Novgorod, Kirov, Kostroma, Tver regions
II. North European-Azsht zone
	Primorsky Territory, Murmansk, Sakhalin Regions, Jewish Autonomous Region
	Republics of Buryatia, Karelia, Komi, Krasnoyarsk, Khabarovsk Territories, Amur, Arkhangelsk, Irkutsk, Kamchatka, Magadan, Tomsk, Chita regions
	Republics of Tyva, Sakha (Yakutia), Chukotka, Khanty-Mansiysk, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug
	Republic of Altai, Aginskiy Buryatskiy, Komi Permyatskiy, Koryakskiy, Nenetsskiy, Taymyrskiy (Dolgano-Nenetsskiy), Ust-Ordynskiy Buryatskiy, Evenki Autonomous Okrug
III. South European zone
	Republic of North Ossetia - Alania, Rostov region
	Astrakhan, Volgograd, Saratov regions
	Republics of Adygea, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Krasnodar, Stavropol Territories
	Republic of Karachay-Cherkessia
	Republic of Kalmykia
IV. Ural-Volga zone
	Samara, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk regions
	Perm region
	Republic of Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Udmurt
	Orenburg region
V. South Siberian zone
	Kemerovo region
	Republic of Khakassia, Novosibirsk Omsk region
	Altai Territory, Kurgan, Tyumen Regions

The remaining four zones have a belt territorial structure - regional types of urbanization are arranged from the first to the fifth. The cores of each of them are the main centers of urbanization - regions of the first type. In the Central zone, this is the central old industrial core (the main area of ​​the 1st type), in the Ural-Volga region - the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions (the Ural area of ​​the 1st type), in the South Siberian - the Kemerovo region. But the full form of the territorial structure is nowhere manifested - in each zone, some types drop out. Thus, in the direction to the east, the 3rd and 4th types characteristic of the European part gradually disappear, but the representation of the 2nd type increases.

The central zone is the most compact, its territorial structure has concentric features. It covers four economic region center of the European part countries- Central, Volga-Vyatka, Central Black Earth and North-West, and in addition to them - the Penza and Ulyanovsk regions of the Volga region and the Vologda region of the Northern region.

On the territory of the Central Zone, the 2nd type is absent - the old industrial core is directly adjacent from the south to the "catching up" regions of the 3rd type, followed by the 4th, from the north - the medium urbanized regions of the 5th. Thus, there are elements of the sublatitudinal structure here. The Leningrad region, representing the 1st type, violates it. It can be considered the second local core of urbanization, in addition to the central old industrial one, from which it is separated by a belt of regions of the 5th type.

There are no regions of the 3rd type in the Ural-Volga zone: the larger urban representatives of the 4th type (Bashkiria, Tatarstan and Udmurtia) adjoin the core of urbanization leaders. However, these same regions simultaneously act as the eastern periphery in relation to the regions of the 3rd type of the Central zone. Thus, the Central and Ural-Volga zones are connected by a kind of bridge. Also transitional, but already between the Ural-Volga and South Siberian zones, are the Kurgan and Tyumen regions, representing the 5th type.

Like the Leningrad region within the Central zone, on the territory of the Ural-Volga region there is a region of the 1st type located outside the belt structure - the Samara region.

The South Siberian zone represents the "remainder" of Siberia, not captured by the North European-Asian zone. This, in fact, is the main focus of urbanization in the Asian part of Russia. Type 4 is absent here, the zone is formed by regions of the 1st, 2nd and 5th types, characterized by a significant proportion of regional centers, but differing in the degree of development of the periphery

The South European zone covers the North Caucasian region and part of the Volga region south of the Saratov region inclusive. It is possible to single out two parts of the zone - the northern one, represented by regions of the 2nd type, and the southern one, formed by representatives of the 4th type. However, this scheme is violated by highly urbanized regions of the 1st type located outside the belt structure (the Rostov region of North Ossetia) and a slightly urbanized region of the 7th type (Kalmykia). Karachay-Cherkessia belonging to the 5th type turns out to be completely foreign here.

Among all urbanization zones, the Central and North European-Asian zones are distinguished as two poles of urbanization - on the territory of each of them exactly half of all regional types of urbanization are represented, and their composition does not intersect (on the territory of the first there are only 1, 3, 4 and 5 types in the territory the second - only 2,6, 7 and 8th) Three other zones can be considered transitional between these two, but they still gravitate towards the Central one - both in terms of internal diversity and in terms of a set of regional types of urbanization. They have in common with the North European-Asian zone only the 2nd and 7th types, the latter being represented by only one region (Kalmykia).

In general, the contrast between the North European-Asian and other zones reflects the obvious macro-regional unevenness of the territory of Russia, which is based on a wide range of differences in the nature of settlement, the history of development and the principles of building ATD in the western part of the Main Settlement Belt, on the one hand, and the northern and northeastern the periphery of the country - on the other.

1 - see: City and Village in European Russia: One Hundred Years of Changes: Monographic Sat. / Ed. T.G. Nefedova, P.M. Polyan, A.I. Treyvish. M.: OGI, 2001. S. 33-63 - Ed.
2 - Russia here means the RSFSR before 1991 and the Russian Federation after - Ed
3 - Popov R.A. Quantitative characteristics of the urbanization of Russian regions in the second half of the 20th century. // Izv. RAN. Ser. geogr. No. 1. 2002, p. 50
4 - See Polyan P.M. Methods for isolating and analyzing the supporting frame of settlement. Moscow: IG AN USSR, 1988
5 - Alekseev A.I., Zubarevich N.V. The crisis of urbanization and rural areas in Russia // Migration and urbanization in the CIS and the Baltics in the 90s. Moscow: Center for the Study of Problems of Forced Migration in the CIS, 1999. p. 91
6 - Lappo G.M., Polyan P.M. New trends in changing the geourban situation in Russia // Izv. RAN. Ser. geogr. No. 6 1996. S. 7-19
7 - Hereinafter, the centers are conditionally understood as the first cities in the regions in terms of population. As a rule, they are also the administrative centers of the regions, but there are exceptions, such as Vologda and Kemerovo region and Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets okrugs (data for 1998)
8 - This number does not include the Grozny GA, which not only significantly reduced its share in the 1990s. a class of development, but also, according to some assumptions, completely ceased to exist (see [City and village in European Russia: one hundred years of changes: Monographic collection / Ed. by T.G. Nefedova, P.M. Polyan, A.I. Treyvish Moscow: OGI, 2001, p. 141])
9 - Hereinafter, data on the development of GA are given according to [See. Polyan P.M. Methods for isolating and analyzing the supporting frame of settlement. M.: IG AN SSSR, 1988]

In terms of the proportion of the urban population, Russia is on a par with the highly developed countries of the world. The share of city dwellers is 73% of the total population of the country.

The quantitative predominance of the rural population over the urban population is observed in five neighboring countries: Moldova (46%), Turkmenistan (45%), Uzbekistan (39%), Kyrgyzstan (36%), Tajikistan (28%). These countries are classified as rural type. The remaining countries of the near abroad have more than 50% of the urban population.

A more interesting situation is with the federal districts of Russia. By degree of urbanization regions Russian Federation differ significantly at the level of federal districts (Table 1).

Table 1 - The share of the urban population by federal districts of Russia on the dates of the censuses and on January 1, 2002,%

Russian Federation Federal districts Central Northwestern Volga Ural Siberian Far Eastern
European part of the Russian Federation Asian part of the Russian Federation

Among the federal districts, the Northwestern (81.9%), Urals (80.2%) and Central (79.1%) stand out with the highest proportion of the urban population.

The Northwestern District is characterized by a high level of urbanization for Russia - almost 82% of the population lives in urban areas, while almost a third of the population is concentrated in the country's largest agglomeration, St. Petersburg. The smallest share of the urban population is noted in the Pskov, Arkhangelsk, Vologda regions and the Komi Republic.

The Ural Federal District is an urbanized region: 80% of the population lives in cities. The population of two cities exceeds one million inhabitants - Yekaterinburg (1266 thousand) and Chelyabinsk (1083 thousand). In the Sverdlovsk region, 87% of the population lives in cities and urban-type settlements, in the Chelyabinsk region - 83%.

The Central Federal District is highly urbanized. The proportion of the urban population is 72.3 people. per km 2, and in the Moscow, Tula, Yaroslavl regions, this figure is even higher. Almost 3/4 of the population lives in 40 large cities with a population exceeding 100 thousand people. Three large urban agglomerations have formed on the territory of the district: Moscow, Tula, Yaroslavl.

The Far East (76%) also belongs to the regions exceeding the average indicator of the urban population in Russia. The population of the Far East is 7.1 million people. The urban population is about 76%.

The minimum indicators of urbanization are noted in the Southern Federal District (57.3%). In terms of population, the Southern District occupies the 3rd place in Russia, second only to the Central and Volga. Here, on the territory that makes up 3.5% of the total area of ​​the country, 21,523 thousand people live, or about 15% of its population. The urban population prevails (58%). But if in the Volgograd region the townspeople make up 75% of the population, in the Rostov region - 71%, then in Kalmykia - only 37%, Dagestan - 44%, The network of urban settlements is represented mainly by medium and small cities. Among large cities, Rostov-on-Don (997.8 thousand people), Volgograd (982.9 thousand people), Krasnodar (634.7 thousand people) should be singled out.

Among the subjects of the Federation, the lowest rate of urban population is typical for sovereign republics: Altai - 25.8%, Dagestan - 44%, Kalmykia - 37%, Ingushetia - 42.3%, Karachay-Cherkess - 44.0%, Republic of Tuva - 49 .6%. However, even in these republics, the proportion of the urban population tends to grow.

Man is a being with social needs who always tries to surround himself with some kind of society. It is for this reason that most of the population of our world is moving more and more to the territory of cities.

But from another point of view, man is a being and biological. Man is considered an important part, as well as a special link in the arrangement and development of natural landscapes. On the other hand, populous cities and countries, as well as natural areas without industrial enterprises and increased emissions, remain today the main parties around which the entire process of development of modern society takes place.

In contact with

What do such concepts as urbanization, suburbanization and deurbanization mean? What is the main meaning of these definitions?

The term urbanization of cities, what does it mean?

Word urbanization originated from the Latin word urbanus, which literally translates as urban. Under the term urbanization (in its broadest sense) is perceived the growing role of urban areas in the overall life of a person and the surrounding society. In a narrow sense, this word means urban population development process, as well as the resettlement of people from the territory of the village - to simple cities, as well as in cities with a population of over a million.

Urbanization as a socio-economic phenomenon and the process of developing the number of cities began to be mentioned in the middle of the 20th century, when the number of urban residents began to increase continuously. The main factor that contributed to this was the process of rapid development of industrial enterprises in urban areas, the emergence of a need for new specialists, as well as the development of science, culture and spirituality in the territory of large cities.

Scientists classify urbanization by several processes:

The science of georbunastics will help answer such questions as: what does urbanization, suburbanization, as well as deurbanization and ruralization mean. Geourbanistics is one of the main branches of modern geography.

The concept of urbanization is similar to such a term as false urbanization, which is described and presented in such areas of the planet as Latin America, as well as Southeast Asia. What does false urbanization include? This is mainly unsupported and unofficial urban population growth, while it is not accompanied by an increase in the number of jobs and specializations, as well as the development of infrastructure.

In the end, the population living in the countryside is simply forcibly transferred to the territory of developed cities. So, false urbanization, as a rule, is capable of bringing with it a special increase in the level of unemployment in a certain territory and the emergence of so-called houses - slums in the territories of cities, which in no way can correspond to the normal standard of human life, and are also simply unfavorable for living.

What rate of urbanization exists in other countries?

Thus, the UN Department of Social and Environmental Affairs every year compiles a new rating for urbanization in the countries of the world. Such studies and annual rechecking began in 1980.

Find level of urbanization it is not difficult - you just need to correlate the percentage of urban residents and the total number of people living in the territory of a particular region. The rate of urbanization is very different in each country. So, the highest level of urbanization(if you do not consider small countries that consist of only one town) have: Belgium, Malta, Qatar, Kuwait.

In these countries, the parameter of urbanization of the population reaches the level of 95%. With all this, the rate of urbanization is just as high in Argentina, Japan, Israel, Venezuela, Iceland, and Uruguay (more than 90 percent).

The level of urbanization of our country according to the UN is only 74%. Burundi, Papua New Guinea, is at the bottom of the rankings, with urbanization levels of just 12.6 and 11.5 percent.

On the territory of Europe, Moldova has the smallest indicator of urbanization - only 49 percent.

What does the urban agglomeration include?

is a term that goes along with the process of urbanization of the entire population of the world. This concept means the combination of city points located in the neighborhood into one large and functional system. Within such a system, strong and multifunctional ties arise and grow: transport, industrial, cultural, and also scientific. Urban agglomerations are one of the important urbanization processes.

This is interesting: about the concept and functions.

Scientists distinguish two main types of agglomerations:

1. Monocentric type (development based on one central city - the core)
2. Polycentric (a combination of several cities of an equivalent nature).

The urban agglomeration has its own characteristics and distinctive features:

According to the results of a UN study, there are less than 450 urban agglomerations on the territory of our planet, in each of which no less than one million people live freely. Tokyo is considered the largest agglomeration in the world, in which, according to compiled data, there are about 35 million people. The leading countries in which the largest number of urban agglomerations are located are: Brazil, Russia, the USA, China and India.

Urbanization in Russia: what large urban agglomerations exist in Russia?

It should be noted that no research and accounting of the number of urban agglomerations is conducted on the territory of Russia. Therefore, the actual figures may vary comparatively with each other.

Nevertheless, on the territory of our country is about 22 urban agglomerations. The largest of which are:

For urban agglomerations in Russia characterized by high industrialization of the regions, as well as a large level of developed infrastructure. We also have a large number of research facilities and educational institutions top level. The main parts of the Russian agglomerations are considered monocentric, that is, they have one core - a pronounced center, from which the rest of the suburbs, as well as small settlements, diverge.

What does suburbanization entail?

Now it is worth talking about other terms that are actively used in urbanization. Suburbanization, this word came into use in the second half of the 20th century. suburbanization- this is one of the phenomena that is accompanied by a rapid and targeted development of suburban areas located near large metropolitan areas.

By the end of the last century, most of the population began to move to the outskirts of large cities, where there is not much noise and air pollutants, and there are also natural landscapes. At the same time, such people begin to actively use agricultural land and breed domestic animals. At the same time, they continue to work in the city and spend a large amount of their free time on the road. Of course, suburbanization began to develop actively only after mass motorization.

Urbanization is turning into suburbanization

Not so long ago, a fascinating article was published in one of the magazines, which was called "The Planet of the Suburbs." If you carefully read the text of the article, you can understand that suburbanization is nothing but urbanization in disguise. So, throughout the planet, megacities and small towns are increasing only due to the development of the territory of the suburbs. The only exceptions in the magazine are considered to be only two modern metropolitan areas - Tokyo and London.

Now we can see a very interesting picture. So, even 30–40 years ago, the outskirts of large cities became a place of residence for the poorer segments of the population, but today everything has changed dramatically. Now quarters with elite houses can be increasingly seen in the suburbs.

What does deurbanization mean?

In the end, it is worth noting another important concept. is a process that is fundamentally different from urbanization (translated from French des is negation).

De-urbanization is characteristic of the process of resettlement of people outside of developed cities, that is, in rural areas. In a more profound sense, such a term carries a denial of the positive side of society in the city. The main principle of deurbanization is the elimination of all large cities around the world.

Causes of urbanization

The city did not immediately become recognized and did not immediately become the main area for human habitation. For a long time, urban areas were the exception rather than the rule due to the dominance of such forms of production, which were based on the individual labor of each person, as well as work on agricultural plots. So, during the days of slavery cities were considered closely related to landed property as well as agricultural labor.

In the era of feudal processes cities carried the features of their antipode - agriculture, it is for this reason that all cities were scattered over a large territory and did not communicate well with each other. The predominance of the countryside in the life of that society was mainly due to the fact that the function of production and industry was still undeveloped, which did not allow a person to break away from his territory financially.

Relations between urban areas and rural areas began to change after they began to actively develop factors of production. The main basis for this was the improvement of urban production by including manufactories in it, and then full-fledged factories. With the help of the rapid growth of production in the city, the number of the urban population also began to actively increase. The industrial revolution in Europe at the end of the 17th century and the 19th century radically changed the face of modern cities.

Urban conditions are becoming the most typical form of life for the population. It was at this time that a rapid build-up of the settlement environment developed, artificially obtained from a person in the process of his life.

These changes in production processes created a new historical stage in the processes of population resettlement, characterized by an increase in urbanization, which meant a rapid increase in the share of the population of urban settlements, closely related to the processes of industrialization and development of production. The fastest rates of urbanization were noted in the 19th century, since at that time there was an active migration of the population to the cities from the countryside.

Conclusion

Urbanization, suburbanization and deurbanization - all these concepts are interconnected with each other. Thus, if urbanization means only an increase in the role of cities in Everyday life society, then suburbanization is a radically opposite concept, the outflow of the population to rural areas of settlement.