Vol. 26 No. 1 (2019)

Meeting the needs of citizens of the Russian Federation with affordable and high-quality housing is a key activity of the regional construction complex. The task can be solved in a variety of ways, one of which is low-rise residential construction. For many years, the problem of providing the population with affordable housing in our country has been downgraded on the list of priorities due to economic and political stagnation. As a result, the problem of square meters for the population has not been resolved and housing provision is at an extremely low level. In recent years, the socio-economic life of the country has improved significantly, with the result that there has been a phased solution to the housing problem. Low-rise residential sector is becoming one of the most popular types of housing in the regions. As for the suburbs development, residential construction in the past decades is chaotic, both in the reconstruction and modernization processes, as well as in the new development. The above conditions lead to sporadic development with significant shortcomings: area planning difficulties; overloaded infrastructure; environmental imbalance; lack of an integrated approach to development issues; poor state of the urban environment architecture, etc. In these conditions, the problem of the urban low-rise residential buildings development and the search for the forward-thinking solutions is a crucial task.

The purpose of the article is to improve the use of information technology in the activities of local governments (for example, the Administration of the city of Magnitogorsk). Positive assessment of the government activity by citizens depends on the efficient performance of local bodies of power. To get such positive assessment, the government should arrange for the more comfortable conditions for the population in the frames of providing state and municipal services. The most appropriate way to create such conditions in municipalities is information technologies. They help to transfer the population-authorities relations to electronic space where everyone is free to interact with a certain authority. A variety of methodological approaches, including regulatory and systemic approaches, economic, structural, functional and comparative analysis, quantitative, scoring, questioning and interviewing, have been employed in the research. The results and practical significance are determined by the task relevance and the achieved level of problem development and is to develop a conceptual framework for using the information and communication technologies with the aim to improve the management of interaction process of the state authorities and civil society institutions, businesses and citizens in communication and information environment. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the development and application of a set of conceptual provisions to use the information and communication technologies, which are the basis of virtual relations between the state and citizens, business and other public institutions.

The aim of the research is to develop the theoretical basis of training of consumers by firms through educational tools of relationship marketing based on systematization of works on the cognitive concept of marketing. The key idea of the cognitive marketing concept is, primarily, that marketing is evolving and perceived in a broader sense than before, getting the ability to perform the function of the influence on and development of consumer consciousness. The research relies on the analysis and synthesis of the theoretical background of the cognitive marketing concepts development and on the generalization and analogy methods. The level understanding of the cognitive marketing basics (cognitive marketing concept), largely related to the consumption technology concept, which can be influenced by government and business structures, is still insufficient in the current economic conditions. The article features the results of theoretical analysis of the key ideas, theories and concepts, which underlie the cognitive marketing concept. The importance of the results is to identify the urgent research areas in this field, including those in the context of companies at regional and municipal levels. The article summarizes theoretical grounds for the cognitive marketing concept formation and identifies its development trends considering modern scientific research results.

The relevance of the research stems from the fact that the welldeveloped urban creative space can improve the urban social environment and make the city more attractive to residents and potential investors, including residents and non-residents of the territory. At the same time, the creative space development should be enshrined in the socio-economic development strategy, which is a complicated institutional process. The following methods have been used in the research: analysis, modeling, comparison, generalization, planning, design; observation, document analysis, expert interviews, mathematical and graphical processing of results. The practical significance of this project is in the development and implementation of a particular socio-cultural product, which will enable both state-funded institutions and small businesses to expand the range of services. Project justification of this product can be useful for other institutions of culture to hold similar events on their basis in order to attract new visitors and expand the range of activities. The scientific novelty of the research involves the development of strategic planning correlation with projects implemented in the municipality, in the institutional area of a modern city, which improves the quality of strategic planning at the municipal level.

The article considers the possible squeezing of state and municipal enterprises out of the sector of providing public services to consumers and the transfer of public property to private investors through concession agreements. The aim of the research is to study the causes and consequences of the transfer of public and municipal property used for providing services in the field of public utilities through concession agreements. Forecasting the possibility of infrastructural renewal in the Russian utility sector with reducing the state and municipal unitary enterprises and increasing number of private providers of public services. The requirements of the sectoral legislation on heat and water supply, as well as best practices of concessions in the municipal sphere are analyzed with formal logical and statistical methods. The result of the research the existing practice of concession agreements in the municipal sphere cannot be unequivocally considered as having real positive effects, which would express in improving the quality and reliability of public services. Moreover, currently, there are almost no economic incentives or legal regulations contributing to the modernization of municipal infrastructure transferred to private investors. It seems preferable to choose models that do not require public authority delegation to individuals, but rather a symbiosis of public and corporate governance, involving individuals in exercising public authority, preserving the property ownership with the public entity and also bearing the responsibility for violations committed while exercising authority.

The aim of the research is to identify the specific features of socio-cultural relations development between the city and universities in modern conditions and to elaborate improvement trends of the socio-cultural environment of a university city. The traditional urban functions are currently being reconsidered. The nature of changes indicates increasing interrelations of economic and sociocultural development of cities and transformations in higher education. Comparative analysis has been used as a research method. Based on the system review the signs of a university city (exemplified by Tomsk) are revealed. It has been found that the university city can be represented as a conglomerate of academic, technological, cultural, scientific and innovation features. A completely new level of urban culture has been registered in connection with the emergence of universities. The role of university museums, incentives of universities contributing to the socio-economic and cultural development of the city is analyzed. The socio-cultural environment improvement trends of the university city are featured. Scientific novelty is to identify the specific characteristics of the university city and to develop perspective trends to improve the socio-cultural environment of the university city.

This article provides the sociological portrait of youth in Saratov and Nizhny Novgorod regions in a comparative context. The young citizens’ demographic, national, religious and value aspects have been studied against the socio-economic background of the regions. The sociological research data aimed at identifying the value orientations of young people in the regions have been used as part of the process, with special emphasis on the political component of the young citizens’ interests and activities. The obtained results demonstrate that the social portraits of the youth of Nizhny Novgorod and Saratov regions are quite inadequate. Despite the rather different socio-economic conditions of Saratov and Nizhny Novgorod regions, the data presented in the article illustrates relatively calm social environment among young people. Values of vital importance underlying the prosperity of any nation are predominant among the young people’ orientations. Moderate attitude to ethnic and religious diversity shows the possibility of comfortable coexistence between representatives of certain nations and religions, and hence, contributes to the development of the multicultural social environment of the RF subjects. Along with that, in both regions, young people are unwilling to take an active part in politics.

The adoption of the Federal law of 23.05.2016 № 143-FL "On amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation in part of increasing the retirement age for certain categories of citizens" led to the formation of a new category of employees the seniors in public and municipal bodies. The aim of the research is based on the analysis of impact of public and municipal officials’ age on work efficiency to offer a set of measures to maintain the feasible level of residual work capacity. The following methods have been used in the research: system analysis, general scientific methods and questionnaire. According to the research, the issue of the decreased working capacity of the majority of senior officials is confirmed, and the need for additional measures to preserve and maintain work capacity for the service period is stated. Senior public and municipal officials will require special attention from the employer the state, otherwise the costs of their employment, given their age specifics, can exceed the benefits and make their employment economically and socially inefficient. The scientific novelty consists in researching the factors reducing the officials’ efficiency, as well as in the proposed set of measures aimed at maintaining the feasible level of their efficiency. The article can be of importance for managers and specialists of public authorities and municipalities and HR professionals. JEL classification: H10, H59, M38

Serious national efforts to combat corruption in our country hardly meet expectations of the population. Despite some positive achievements in this area, no fundamental shift has been observed in corruption-related crime. This is due to the predominance of the repressive-prohibitive restrictions among the anti-corruption means. Much less attention is paid to methods and measures of preventing corruption. In the author’s opinion, prevention of corruptive activities in the municipal authorities is of particular importance. These institutions are the closest to the population; their mission is to create conditions for ensuring the people’s vital rights and meeting their immediate essential needs. The subject of the research is the corruption crimes patterns, as well as activities to identify and prevent them. The aim of the research is to establish the corruption factors in the municipal authorities’ activity, to work out proposals on using the information about them to detect and prevent corruption crimes. Previous publications on this issue studied judicial and investigative practice, conducted sociological surveys of representatives of different social groups, identifying the most common corruption offenses and their essential features, but with no reference to the socio-economic, natural features of the territories or municipalities, regular staffing of municipal authorities, qualitative and quantitative specifics of their activities. While working on this article, based on the selective study of about 30 criminal cases on similar crimes, the author attempted to identify the above factors, to consider the possibility of using information about them to detect and prevent corruption crimes.

Currently, one of the key problems in the Russian local government development is the quality of municipal legal acts, which is particularly true for small municipalities and primarily, urban and rural settlements. The aim of this research is to analyze the existing system of municipal legal acts. General scientific methods, such as system-structural, comparative-legal and formal-logical ones have been used in the research. The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the municipal legal acts system and its structural elements (depending on their legal force, legal nature and rule-making bodies). The scientific novelty of the research lies in the author’s proposal of a new version of the "municipal legal act" legal definition. In addition, the author redefines the "municipal legal acts system" concept, specifies the legal nature of the acts by the head of the municipality (depending on the municipal power organization model); analyzes the current definitions of the "legal act" concept and provides the author's definition. Along with that, the article features recommendations for improving the current version of article 43 of the Federal Law "On General principles of local government organization in the Russian Federation". The article can be useful for managers and specialists of public and municipal authorities.

The issue of improving road safety and reducing the number of road accidents and the number of people injured on the roads of Russia is a burning issue. The aim of the research is to study the main causes of road traffic accidents and their reduction in populated areas. The causes of road accidents in Russia and abroad within the built-up areas are analyzed, the statistical analysis of road accidents in inhabited settlements is provided. Analysis of the current level of roads development in Russia demonstrates a significant lag behind the road transport growth. The rapid growth of the vehicle fleet leads to a considerable increase in traffic intensity. The development of innovative information technologies allowed for modernization and creation of the new technical devices aimed at ensuring road safety. Modern innovative technical means that can help to reduce the number of victims and all the affected road users in cities and small settlements are considered. The scientific novelty consists in the research and implementation of promising innovative means of technical regulation of road traffic, contributing to the reduction of accidents on roads in urban environment and driving culture enhancement.