“Big Sarov”: some of the not-so-obvious strategies for the development of single-industry towns

The article studies possible strategies and principles of development of single-industry towns. Given the presence of a signifi cant number of scientifi c papers and government attention to this topic, no concerted decisions have yet been found that have shown a marked number of sustainable results in the form of progressively developing cities that have transitioned from mono- to diversifi ed economy. The empirical analysis recorded the gradual spread of new strategies and principles of development and diversifi cation of the single-industry city economy, which we called “not-soobvious” because they are not in the offi cial documents and scientists have only begun to pay attention to them. They include the need to take into account the features of the social contract in the design of development strategies, the transition of city-forming functions from the enterprise to the holding; the diversifi cation of the economy of a single-industry city through the diversifi cation of the city-forming enterprise and the city-forming holding; the possibility of diversifying the economy of single-industry cities through the development of science and education, the need for large-scale, purposeful government participation in such process; the danger of transition of city management functions from local authorities. As a case study, we chose the town of Sarov, which has the status of a closed administrative-territorial entity. The status complicates the processes of economic diversifi cation, but methodologically does not change the monostructure of the town's economy, participation in the processes of development of the town's holding - State Corporation “Rosatom”, the essence of the municipal part of the social contract. In order to obtain objective results, we analyzed the socio-economic development of Sarov, compared it with other closed towns, other single-industry towns, the situation in foreign countries.