City in the territorial space: a review of foreign studies

At the present stage of socio-economic development issues of spatial inequality become relevant, urban inequality and distribution of urban systems in space are of special interest. This issue is a subject of systematic research of foreign scholars; therefore it makes sense to study foreign experience in analyzing, evaluating and modelling city distribution in space. The study includes four areas: spatial inequality, sintering processes in the region, urbanization and urban growth, and Zipf ’s law. The section on spatial inequality analyses issues of migration flows as factors of the spatial balance. The author considers the models of P.-P. Combe, and also presents facts leading to structural adjustment in urban systems. The section on sintering processes analyses factors of economic activity concentration and methods for regional sintering processes evaluation, presents the work results of the founder of the new economic geography P. Krugman. The author presents D. Puga’s approaches to the concentration of economies. The section on urbanization and city growth considers works in city’s economy: the author studies issues of cities’ size and growth, defines the term of J. Dyurantona and D. Puga “effective city size”. The article considers the connection between urbanization and urban inequality in the works of K. Behrens, Robert F.- Nikouda, the impact of city size on development level in the works of R. Capello A. Faggiana, and the influence of urban population density on productivity in the works of A. Ciccone, R. Holla. The section on Zipf ’s law includes the analysis of works on the rule “rank-size” (Zipf ’s law). The author presents research results of T. Rozen and M. Reznik, considers the models of Y. Mansouri, Benguin L., E. Blyumenfeld-Liperthala based on Zipf ’s law. Results of the study will provide theoretic information for studying Russian cities systems; they also can be used to develop methodological tools for the creation of mechanisms to even spatial inequality, to establish programs of city’s socio-economic development.