Concept of sustainable development of small historical towns

Small towns belong to problematic urban settlements in Russia. Unlike larger cities with diverse economies, developed infrastructure, financial and information flows, small settlements did towns of Russia have passed quite a long way of ontogenesis and contain a significant layer of cultural heritage from different eras included in the modern life of their residents. New principles of development and management must be applied to bring the living and working conditions of residents of small historical settlements closer to modern progressive cities. In the contemporary global consciousness, issues related to various aspects of sustainable urban development are considered as key ones for the development of modern Russia. Among them the authors identify the problems of small towns that have acquired a certain acuteness and the solution of which is related to the problems of social and economic development of the Russian Federation. In this article, the researchers make an attempt to enrich the characteristics that are solved with an integrated approach to the study of small historical towns, proposing an enlarged model of sustainable development of a small historical settlement. The researchers assume a basic tenet of sustainable development - balancing the interests between economic, social, ecological and architectural urban development factors, based on which a strategy development for each specific historical settlement, depending on its functional value, is developed.