Ситковский А. М.

The issues of sustainable and spatial development of municipalities are practically not considered in the scientific community, giving way to the study of regions of the Russian Federation and economic regions. However, the local level of government has significant specificity and great potential for study. The article discusses the issues of strategic development methodology in relation to municipalities in terms of determining the supporting framework for the settlement of the territory. The conceptual and theoretical foundations of the study were the work of Ural researchers in the field of sustainable socio-ecological-economic and spatial development of territories. In addition, the article uses materials generated during applied research to develop a “Spatial Development Strategy for the Troitsky Municipal District of the Chelyabinsk Region for the Period Until 2035”. As the main research methods, the ones employing information-adapted (geoinformation) approaches with a combination of visualization, heuristic approaches, classifications and formalized mathematical assessment tools for calculating the population covered and the boundaries of transport accessibility have been used. The research result is the methodological development of the scientific problem of identifying the settlement support framework at the municipal level. The similarity of agglomeration impact principles at settlement level, closest to population is revealed; the name and definition of a small social services center as a growth point for the settlement support framework are proposed; a method of revealing small social services centers is developed and the necessity of employing this tool is substantiated. In addition, the article proposes to identify a multi-level system of social services centers, considering the simultaneous influence of various agglomeration impacts on municipalities. Using the system of municipal services centers in strategic planning by the development of the municipality allows us to consider the territory relative to the existing real settlement system and in isolation from the archaic administrative-territorial structure. As a result, to form targeted events with the greatest coverage in terms of population and a more efficient use of the funds spent. In the future, it is planned to study inter-municipal, inter-regional and cross-border systems of social services centers.

The article deals with the problems of socio-economic development typical for many regions of Russia in the conditions of spatial heterogeneity of the territory at municipal level. The solution to such problems largely relates to studying the “path dependence” or institutional inertia of the previous development, which limits necessary transformations. The administrative-territorial division, as the historical heritage of the previous development, in many cases determines the specifics of local institutions and enlarges the “path dependence”. The paper analyzes administrative-territorial development restrictions associated with the assessment of the basic spatial characteristics of municipalities. The methodology for conducting such an analysis involves the use of informationally adapted (geoinformation) approaches using a combination of visualization, heuristic approaches, classifications and formalized mathematical assessment tools. A similar analysis was carried out for a group of municipalities in the central part of the Chelyabinsk region. In this case, there is quite a representative indicator of spatial problems of the old industrial territories. According to the analysis and research results, the article presents a number of conceptual and methodological provisions on institutional transformations in spatial development management. They are targeted at developing effective inter-municipal interaction for a system of heterogeneous municipalities.