Quality of life and housing conditions of the population in the largest agglomerations and million-plus cities of Russia

The role of the largest urban agglomerations and cities with millions of inhabitants in Russia in shaping the quality of life and housing conditions of the population is analyzed in the article. The main problems of the development of large urban agglomerations of Russia in the post-Soviet period are considered. The existing methods of defining their boundaries are analyzed. Based on the calculation of the pair correlation coefficients, the nature and degree of closeness of the relationship between the population of the largest urban agglomerations of Russia and a number of basic characteristics of the housing sector (housing provision, its construction, financial accessibility of apartment purchase in the housing market), as well as with the level of monetary incomes of the population, incomes and expenditures of the budgets of the core cities of agglomerations are determined. The coefficients of the pair correlation between the population of cities with millions of inhabitants - the cores of agglomerations and the characteristics of the housing sector and the quality of life of the population of the regions - subjects of the Russian Federation, where these cities are located, are calculated. The results of the calculations allow us to conclude that the population size of the largest agglomerations and cities has a significant impact on the value of the analyzed indicators of the quality of life of the population. The larger the agglomeration and the higher the population of a million-plus city, the higher the indicators of housing commissioning, the level of monetary income and the quality of life of the population of agglomerations and regions where they are included. At the same time, larger agglomerations have, due to excessive concentration of the population, as a rule, the worst values of specific indicators - housing commissioning per capita, housing provision per 1 inhabitant. The higher level of monetary incomes of the population in them does not cover the higher level of prices in the primary and secondary housing market. As a result, the higher the population of the urban agglomeration and the core city, the lower is the financial availability of buying housing on the market. It is concluded that it is necessary to find an optimal balance between different forms of settlement.