Spatial analysis and evaluation of sustainable development factors of municipal formations

The article discusses the factors of sustainable development of municipal formations in Volgograd region and methods of their analysis. The subject of this study is spatial regularities in the distribution of economic potential and economic activity in municipal districts of Volgograd region determining the activeness of intermunicipal cooperation and the sustainable development of the region. The object of the study is the regional social and economic system as a complex of municipal formations. On the basis of the evolutionary-genetic and spatial approaches the method of assessing the factor components of economic potential and economic activity in the municipal districts of the studied region was first executed. The novelty of the research consists in analyzing sustainable development based on assessing spatial variability of the factor components of productive capacity and economic activity in the municipal districts. In the course of the study the authors used the histogram analysis for verifying the normality of distribution of the parameters under analysis. The research resulted in developing the method of assessing sustainable development in municipal districts. The article demonstrates the effectiveness of creating thematic maps using GIS technologies that provide a high-quality visualization of spatial regularities in the distribution of values of factor indicators of economic potential, economic activity and sustainable development of the municipal districts. The condition of sustainable development in Volgograd region in 2016 was ensured mainly due to labor, natural resource, institutional and organizational factors and was assessed below than the regional average value. The scientific importance of the research results consists in the theoretical and methodological substantiation of methodological approaches to the explanation of decision making in the sphere of managing social and economic development of the region and its municipal formations.