Economic rural-urban cooperation as a tool for balancing the economic space of the region

The formation of sustainable links between urban and rural areas is the most important task on the way to achieving the strategic goal for Russia - ensuring a balanced economic space. One of the tools for its solution is the economic cooperation, interpreted in a broad sense as the association of enterprises, industries, sectors based on sustainable production and economic relations within a single production process. The purpose of the study is to examine the current state and justify the need to intensify the economic rural-urban cooperation as one of the tools to ensure the balance of regional economic space. During the work we used monographic, calculation and analytical methods, method of systematization, analogy, etc. On the example of the Vologda Oblast we have established that rural areas have unrealized production potential, not enough effectively used resources. For example, involving in the turnover of unused 166,8 thousand hectares of arable land in the region could provide an increase in gross yield of crops (fl ax fi ber by 1.8 thousand tons, or 3.9-fold, compared with the actual level in 2021, vegetables by 68.4 thousand tons, or 2.7-fold, etc.), the amount of revenue and profi t offarmers - by 9.8 and 0.2 billion rubles respectively, the amount of taxes paid to the budget - 43.6 million rubles. It was determined that the weakening of economic links between urban and rural areas in the post-reform period, including such a “traditional” connection as “agriculture - light (linen) industry”, restrains the development of rural areas and causes the underutilization of their production potential. We proposed strategic directions for the development of economic cooperation on the “city - village” line. The results of the work can be useful to researchers when carrying out research on similar topics, to public authorities of the entities of the Russian Federation and local self-government when implementing projects and improving policies in the sphere of socio-economic and spatial development of territories.