Trends and prospects for changes in the municipal-territorial structure in Russia

The purpose of the study is to analyze the vector for changes in the municipal-territorial structure in Russia, as well as to substantiate a methodological approach to determining the very expediency of implementing territorial transformations and choosing their form. These issues have become particularly relevant and important due to the beginning of the active transformation of municipal areas into municipal districts in many entities of the Russian Federation (since 2019) and urban districts (since 2011), as well as the task set by the Russian President to develop in 2021 new Foundations of the State policy of the Russian Federation in the field of local self-government development through to 2030, which should conceptually reflect approaches to the territorial organization of local self-government in the country. To achieve this goal, we have used economic, statistical and comparative analysis, methods of analysis, synthesis, generalization, and the monographic method. The analysis has revealed that in recent years there has been a tendency in Russia to transform municipal areas into urban and municipal districts with the elimination of the settlement management level (at the end of 2020, there are no urban and rural settlements in five entities of the Russian Federation - the Kaliningrad, Magadan, Moscow and Sakhalin Oblasts, the Stavropol Krai). The article shows the absence of real significant economic and budgetary effects from changes in the municipal structure in Russia. To solve this problem, we have developed an algorithm for implementing transformations of the municipal-territorial structure in the entity of the Russian Federation; have proposed the variants, and have evaluated the individual effects of these transformations in the case of the Velikoustyugsky, Vologda and Mezhdurechensky districts of the Vologda Oblast. The results of this work can be used in the activities of state authorities of the Russian entities and local self-government authorities, as well as serve as a basis for further research on this topic.