Mono-industry towns of the 1980-1990-ies: foreign and national experience in solving social and economic problems

In the second half of the twentieth century, practically all industrial countries faced the problem of single-industry towns’ development. The problem was primarily caused by the progress of science and technology. As a result of the developing challenge the United Kingdom of Great Britain, France, Germany and other countries of the Western Europe had to deal with multiple closures of unprofitable mines and old, non-competitive factories. Nevertheless, the Western countries managed to solve this problem with a much less negative repercussion for their population than Russia. This fact can be explained by a much higher population density characteristic of the Western countries and by the living habits of the people who were not so closely tied to the place of residence. As a result of the research, the author comes to a conclusion that the Western countries solved the problem by encouraging migration of the population to the places of effectively functioning industry. In our country, the problem was tackled through the transfer of industrial sites to the places of settlements. The purpose of the article was to analyze the problems of the single-industry towns’ development abroad and in our country (in the region). The study is also focused on the comparison of foreign and national experience in solving the problem of mono-settlements at the level of the state and company owners. The study is based on the research of various sources: articles from central, regional and local periodicals, statistics, monographic studies, and collections of legislative acts. Development of the social and industrial structures in the regions of Eastern Siberia represented the ongoing transition “from crisis to crisis”. Hardly having recovered from a difficult situation of the 1990s, in the “zero” years, multiple single-industry towns were forced to introduce new anti-crisis policy management. They had to deal with conversion of industrial enterprises, the need for governmental support, rising unemployment and social tensions, and migration. According to the author, the main efforts addressing the most challenging issues in the social and labor spheres of mono cities should be directed at the elevation of competitiveness of the city-forming enterprises; stabilization of the situation on the labor market, monoprofile formations; and creation of new jobs in small and medium-sized business.