Housing sector's state and quality of urban environment in small and medium cities (case study of the Vologda oblast)

The migration outflow of the population to the larger cities and agglomerations is one of the main problems of socio-economic development in small and medium cities. These processes are caused, among other things, by the low level of housing improvement and the poor state of the urban environment in localities. The relevance and importance of solving housing issues have also been noted at the country level, particularly, in the national project “Housing and urban environment”. The research is aimed at studying the issues related to the state of the housing sector and the urban environment’s quality in small and medium cities, through the example of the Vologda Oblast. By using the conducted analysis it has been justified that the municipal units under consideration have a number of problems in regard to providing the population with comfortable qualitative housing. The growth in indicators of the housing space per person is mainly caused by the decline in the population size; therewith, the new housing supply is primarily carried out through individual construction. The most pressing issues involve the improvement of living areas; however, solving the problems of housing and public utilities is not included in the list of measures specified in the national project. It has been established that almost all small and medium cities of the region are rated as localities with unfavorable urban environment. The article describes the experience concerning the participation of the Vologda Oblast in the federal project “Comfortable urban environment formation”; the researcher presents the results of implementing several other regional projects aimed at upgrading the comfort of living and provision of urban amenities. The author has used general scientific methods (abstract-logical and system approaches, generalization method, monographic method, etc.), economic and statistical method, along with graphical and tabulated techniques of data visulization. The significance of research results lies in the possibility of their use by the government authorities in order to improve the regional housing policy, as well as to solve the issues of improving and increasing the quality of urban environment.