The state and prospects of demographic stability of the network of urban settlements in the region (based on the materials of the Amur region)

The article is devoted to an urgent problem of regional development - the analysis of the development of demographic processes in the network of urban settlements of the Amur region and the assessment of prospects for ensuring demographic stability of the supporting framework of the regional settlement system. The authors aim to assess the development of demographic processes in different types of cities in the region, emerging under the influence of changes in economic activity, to determine the possibility of forming positive trends through the use of the existing investment potential. The ongoing transformations in the dynamics of demographic processes indicate that the foundations of crisis processes were laid in the initial period of market transformations. The analysis of changes in the number, natural and migration movement of the population of various types of cities in the region indicates the persistence of negative trends, the continuation of demographic degradation, the weakening of the possibilities of the basic framework of settlement to influence the regional periphery. It is established that the spatial policy is not effective enough to ensure the transition to demographic stability of the regional settlement system. The creation of a TOP based on the largest cities in the region has not yet become a source of increasing their attractiveness for foreign and domestic capital, active population growth. It is determined that in medium-sized and small cities of the region, the personnel potential remains, the use of which ensures the development of the service sector complex through individual entrepreneurship, the creation of small and medium-sized enterprises. It is concluded that small and medium-sized cities in the region are not only losing their population and have a deteriorating demographic structure, but are also deprived of investment attractiveness for the placement of production facilities, the possibility of developing economic activities focused on the production and processing of agricultural products. Proposals have been developed to improve the management of the development of cities in the region, taking into account the peculiarities of the settlement system that has developed in the region.