Urbanization processes in the context of spatial development patterns of municipalities in the zone of influence of megacities

Introduction. The theory of urbanization and its practice have significant territorial differences. To a certain extent, there is no generally applicable theory and, moreover, no universal practice. There are several basic theoretical positions that have withstood the test of time. First of all, let us point out the classical, philosophical position that “world-city and province are the two basic ideas of every civilization… In place of a world, there is a city, a point, in which the whole life of broad regions is collecting while the rest dries up” [1]. Spengler’s thesis should be recognized as important and very relevant; nevertheless, the forecast is a hundred years old, it is implemented, but in a fairly long historical perspective, in a complex stage. That is why the modern version of such a forecast looks less categorical: “the globalizing world is the world of cities and territories surrounding them” [2]. From our point of view, “surrounding territories” are an indication of the potential and problems of suburbanization. “In our time, during the industrialization and urbanization of economically developed countries, the city has ceased to be the highest and most complex form of organization of joint life of people and began more clearly and more often form an integral part of more complex socio-geographical formations – agglomerations of cities” [3]. We emphasize that it was written in the USSR almost sixty years ago, but it remains relevant today as well.

In order to achieve a high degree of effectiveness in applying the experience of Western countries in Russia, it is necessary to interpret the results of international activities in a certain context while maintaining the main target framework. It is not easy to do, as was noted by an outstanding Russian economic geographer, a specialist in the geography of the United States, and the meaning of his statement was that the international processes of urbanization known to specialists in the Russian practice are undergoing significant changes and are implemented in a slightly different interpretation of Western experience (an example is suburbanization).

In Russia, unlike the West, it is not about moving to the suburbs, but about the garden plots and dachas, which the majority of urban residents have; that is, the second house, not the first and the only one”[4]. The American experience of suburbanization is indeed most interesting, but it is most inapplicable for the post-Soviet space. American practices are ahead of post-Soviet and Baltic practices, at least by one stage. The completion of the stage of “classical” suburbanization (which has lost its relevance in the development of American practice) is considered as the beginning of a completely new period in the urbanization and suburbanization processes in the United States [5]. In fact, the formation of metropolitan areas – a key form of urbanization/suburbanization in the United States is not over, a new stage is coming, the characteristics of which and, moreover, the theoretical understanding of which have not yet taken shape. In these circumstances, one should be extremely careful in borrowing Western experience. This opinion has become sufficiently represented in the literature: enticing aspirations and experiments to correlate evolutionary processes in the suburbs of Russian regions with suburbs in Western countries seem untimely in the present economic and political conditions [6].

Methodology of research on territorial (spatial) development . Modern ideas about the territorial organization of society, as a rule, are reduced to considering it as a model that helps minimize economic costs with maximum social effect. Naturally, the agenda of settlement systems in this case becomes particularly important. This is especially evident in modern conditions, when the concept of “economy” in most cases is associated with urban economy or, in extreme cases, with the economy of suburbanized zones.

The specifics of spatial development theories lies in the fact that they tend to question the validity of a known statement – even with the permutation of the summands, the sum does not change. This question cannot be considered academically new, it has been covered extensively in the works of the Moscow, Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), and Novosibirsk economic schools [7].

In relation to territorial or spatial development (in this article, these concepts are used as synonyms), the rearrangement of economic “summands” in geographical space implies a change in their “sum”. It can increase or decrease in comparison with initially set values [8]. In the first case it is necessary to speak about the effect or efficiency of placement, in the second case – about inefficiency [9]. “In countries with a polycentric system of large cities, GDP per capita is also higher, in contrast to countries where the population is concentrated in several megacities. This is probably due to the fact that with the increase in the number of metropolitan areas there is also an increase in the area of the surrounding territories, which benefit from the proximity to the urban economy” [10]. Blair Ruble, a well-known expert on American and Soviet urbanization, also wrote about this: in his opinion, the city (as an administrative unit), on an international scale, has a decisive influence in the process of reproduction of national wealth, social development, mobilization of investments, application of technical (technological), human resources in the framework of the implementation of goals in terms of productivity growth and the level of competitiveness of the subject [11].

The desire for efficiency inevitably leads to the concentration of population in large agglomeration zones. According to a study by McKinsey Global Institute, “1.5 billion people or 22% of the population live in 600 cities and produce more than 50% of world GDP or 30 trillion US dollars (2007), with the top 100 cities producing 21 trillion US dollars of GDP or 38% of the world economy ... By 2025, two billion people or 25% of the population will produce 60% of the world’s GDP or 64 trillion US dollars” [12]. The seriousness of this process is recognized by the UN and its institutions. For example, the World Bank’s annual World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography (2009) highlights a number of significant factors (influencing the dynamic economic regional development):

• 1)    agglomeration effect (active growth of population density of territorial settlements);

• 2)    activity of migration flows of potential employees;

• 3)    relocation of business entities in the framework of leveling the territorial gap with sales markets, which reaches maximum values at the regional and local levels (losing, at the same time, the degree of its entrepreneurial and production value) [13].

This affects not only the understanding of the practice, but also the theory of the question. For example, the well-known urbanist Blair A. Ruble notes that there is a real need to revise the definition of what constitutes the city – the growing cities reduce the percentage of landscape territory by spreading over many hundreds of square miles in different directions. In addition, the forecasted sea level rise also increases the number of urban dwellers living on or near the coast – including 2⁄5 of all millionplus cities in the world and fifteen of the two dozen megacities (with a population of over 10 million each) [11]. Of course, we can see in the agglomeration processes the attraction to the “coverage” of all free space, as does Professor S.S. Artobolevskii: “We can argue for a long time about whether unidirectional migrations of population and economy are related, but the fact remains that the economy first increased its attraction to suburbanized areas and later – to extra-agglomeration spaces. No wonder there was even the term “green-field location” [14]. Somewhat later, this issue was developed in the works of S.V. Kuznetsov and N.M. Mezhevich who pointed out that suburbanization is not so much the transformation of the “green field” into urban space, as the development of a quasicity into normal European-type suburbia [15].

This approach considers several stages that are typical of these processes in Western Europe:

• 1.    “Pre-war” stage: stimulating the growth – overload.

• 2.    “Postwar” stage: unload – suburbanization (new and expanding cities) – reload.

• 3.    “Current” stage – stimulation of growth of internal areas, gentrification [16].

Let us take a closer look at these processes. In the second half of the 20th century, France carefully studied the Soviet experience of regulating the development of super-large cities in the context of regulating the growth of Paris. After the Second World War, France formed a system of regional measures, including ekistical policy that provides for additional taxation of enterprises established in Paris or withdrawn to Paris. Similarly, tax rates decreased relatively in Rouen, Lyon, Brest, Grenoble, Marseille, and Toulouse. Only since the mid-1980s with the weakening of Paris’ competitiveness, restrictive measures were relaxed, but public funding for the cost of moving businesses out of Paris was maintained.

Let us say a few more words about world experience. First of all, we shall look at American practice. It does not involve a distinct division into a highly effective center and periphery. The U.S. has adopted a different grouping cities and urban settlements in comparison with Russia. In the U.S., a small area (urban settlement) provides accommodation for about 2.5 thousand people. In addition to the generally accepted classification categories of “city”, “urban settlement”, in the United States of America included categories such as urban or metropolitan areas. The main thing, which is of interest to us, is that “two-thirds of American million-plus agglomerations are situated not in one, but in two or even three States. According to our concepts, such a mismatch of administrative division and public zoning should greatly complicate life in this country, especially since the States differ greatly from each other in legislation, business climate, etc.” [17]. This problem is considered by Stein Rokkan, who introduces the categories of “center” and “periphery”. He defines “Center” as a territorial locality within the country, which has preferential rights in all sectors of activity. Exclusive rights, bonuses and preferences in this area are due to both the level of investment attractiveness and the degree of influence of organizational and cultural factors.

The specifics of periphery are reflected in the number of economic parameters (realization of the subject activity) in the context of social and status-related building of the location: central part – periphery [18]. Here, the location at the central part or at the periphery is considered in the correlation between the positions of resource components and the degree of their territorial distance (but not from the viewpoint of the spatial-geographical ratio).

At the same time, the social and status proximity to the central part of the territories provides an opportunity to obtain resources, which implies a high degree of achievement of the goals of activity (social and economic development). This has the opposite effect in terms of the peripheral location of business entities (resource restriction, rigid life position).

This position is shared by Stein Rokkan, according to whom the periphery, being in a subordinate position and controlling (not always) only its own resources, feels the force of factor influence both in the near and far markets and is disconnected with other regions (except the dominant one) [19].

It should be emphasized that “centers” are located in the national-territorial borders and beyond. This concept, due to the complex mechanism of agreements among the political subjects of the center and the periphery, was built over time (years, centuries) under optimal conditions [20].

Thus, it can be stated that while the content of theoretical concepts of urban development, as a rule, is based on the dominant paradigm of economic thinking, the practice (and, accordingly, tools) of urban management largely depends on the level of socio-economic development of a particular country, the management system, as well as the mobility of the population.

In this regard, in our opinion, in Russia it would be advisable to pay serious attention to the study of practical experience in this area in more economically “advanced” countries in order to systematize and adapt it to the development of future policies in the field of management of the development of cities and agglomerations.

According to Professor S.S. Artobolevskii, the issues of practical application of issues related to the management of agglomerations in the West are subject to discuttions, but it is necessary to have information about different opinions in this field of research [21]. The results of studies of the international experience of developed countries demonstrate the following: the formation of joint activities in the framework of administrative units (where the agglomeration is implemented geographically) is a key tool for managing agglomerations.

At the same time, the outlined vector of administrative units in international practice leads to the creation of a competitive position such as the increase in real estate prices (within the territorial affiliation), which is a basic element in the formation of their budget; whereas in Russia the financing of administrative units comes from the regional budget.

It should be noted that the dispersal of the functions of state activity, as a result of the world process, determines the increase in the obligations of administrative units. The growing population in small towns makes it difficult for municipalities to carry out planning and management tasks. Such a situation makes it necessary to initiate the implementation of new approaches to the formation of planning and management algorithms, if we take into account the factor impact (in particular, population growth) [22].

World and domestic experience in spatial development and the results of agglomerations development analysis

Global trends of spatial development at the beginning of the 21st century include the concentration of population and economy in the largest forms of settlement, among which the leading positions are occupied by the largest urban agglomerations.

Currently, the Spatial Development Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2025 is being actively implemented, which involves the formation of a “spatial framework” of the country in order to develop promising centers of economic growth with an increase in their number and their maximum dispersion on the territory of the Russian Federation, acceleration of economic growth and technological development of agglomerations.

The analysis of the activity of agglomeration movement in the Russian and in the practice of international experience show Russia’s lagging behind, which is reflected in the small quantity of forms and alternatives of population resettlement according to the type “urban agglomeration”, the insufficient number of conurbations, etc. However, “if earlier the population of metropolitan agglomerations was concentrated in Moscow and Leningrad, then, since the 1990s it was for the first time distributed in their oblasts [23]. At the beginning of the second decade of this century, these processes were reflected in the works of the Institute for Regional Economic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Saint Petersburg State University [24, 25, 26].

The so-called monocentric model of agglomerations development with the concentration of jobs in the core of the megalopolis, created in the Soviet years and currently operating, has a number of objective drawbacks. The most obvious of them include a significant burden on the transport complex (primarily the road network) due to the transport flows directed only from center to periphery, as well as a decrease in the investment attractiveness of the metropolis due to the high cost of housing within the boundaries of the agglomeration center. Modern Russian and foreign experience has a lot of examples showing that in remote points of growth of agglomerations there are several central functions, including scientific, cultural, educational, research and innovation, administrative, business, shopping and entertainment; they create the necessary prerequisites for the development of attractive areas on the periphery of the metropolis.

For example, in our opinion, for large agglomerations, such as Moscow and Saint

Petersburg, it is most important to have two functional types of activity for the development of the territories of the Moscow and Leningrad oblasts adjacent to the boundaries of megacities:

• •    location of educational, research and innovation functions;

• •    location of business, shopping and entertainment functions.

Placement of educational, research and innovation functions began in 1899, when the Polytechnic Institute complex began to be formed in the north-east of Saint Petersburg. In the 1950s, the scientific and educational complex of Moscow State University was built on Vorobyovy Gory, which was at that time the southwestern outskirts of Moscow. In the same period in the major regional centers of the country (Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, etc.) on the outskirts large complexes of research institutes were being constructed, around which scientific research towns emerged. Near Moscow, a ring of science towns and high-tech production centers (Dubna, Korolev, Zelenograd, Troitsk, Fryazino, Chernogolovka, Protvino, etc.) were gradually forming. Classic examples of the development of scientific and educational functions in the 1950s and 1970s in the Leningrad agglomeration can be found in educational and scientific complex of Leningrad State University in Petrodvorets and the Institute for Nuclear Physics in Gatchina.

In the post-Soviet period, educational, scientific and innovative facilities were continued to be placed in the peripheral parts of the agglomeration, which can be illustrated by the famous examples of the development of the innovation center SKOLKOVO near Moscow, the satellite town Innopolis near Kazan, on the territory of Saint Petersburg agglomeration – the development of a nanopark in Gatchina, the project of placing the campus of the Higher School of Management in Petrodvorets, potential plans to move part of the campus of the ITMO University to the satellite town of Yuzhny.

The world’s best practice demonstrates a large number of examples of significant and developed innovative, technical and innovation clusters and business centers in high-tech sectors of the economy in the peripheral zones of agglomerations. The most famous examples include:

• –    Silicon Valley in California (United States), formed around Stanford University in Paolo Alto on the periphery of the San Jose Metropolitan Area;

• –    Tsukuba Science City (Japan), developed around a number of universities and research and education centers on the periphery of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area;

• –    multifunctional district of Laoshan on the eastern outskirts of Qingdao (China) with large educational, scientific centers and research organizations, exhibition complexes, and an industrial zone for the development of high-tech industries;

• –    business district One Noth, formed around the metro station of the same name in the south-western outskirts of Singapore, where there are the National and Polytechnic universities and several high-tech clusters (biopolis, fusionopolis, mediapolis, etc.);

  – multi-district Adlershof in the southeastern outskirts of Berlin (Germany) that develops as the campus of Humboldt University and related research institutions, the business district, mediacluster, modern residential area, industrial area of high-tech companies.

The Soviet experience in the formation and integrated development of research activities in the territory of the agglomeration (for example, Novosibirsk Akademgorodok) was certainly an important administrative and breakthrough solutions in terms of spatial development, and it served as the basis for similar solutions in many countries. At the same time, the domestic centers of science were formed initially on the basis of the principle of a closed ecosystem, and their foreign counterparts, integrated into the transport system of the agglomeration, were designed for human resources of the entire metropolis. It can be concluded that transport accessibility in combination with significant public investment has played a key role in the formation of multifunctional clusters based on the already functioning research centers.

The creation of new jobs and the development of the peripheral part of the agglomeration are also possible on the basis of the formation and development of business and shopping and entertainment functions.

The Russian experience in forming and comprehensive placement of multifunctional public and business spaces on the periphery of the agglomeration is widely represented by large shopping and entertainment complexes near the ring roads of such major megacities as Moscow and Saint Petersburg (for example, “Mega” shopping malls in the Moscow and Leningrad oblasts adjacent to the borders of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, respectively). Within the boundaries of the peripheral zone of the Saint Petersburg agglomeration there are large multifunctional projects (business areas “Lakhta Center”, “Aeropolis-Pulkovo”, “Expoforum”) with the development of congress-exhibition and business centers, and office space. In modern conditions, the main deterrent to the full-scale implementation of these projects is the weak level of transport infrastructure. The Moscow experience of complex placement of public and business spaces in the agglomeration zone allows us to highlight the following examples:

• 1.    A multifunctional social and business area located at the exit from the Moscow ring road near the metro station Myakinino (Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast). Here are the largest shopping and entertainment complexes (Vegas,

• 2.    A business area near the junction of MKAD and Kiev highway. Rumyantsevo and Comcity business parks have been formed here.

• 3.    A multifunctional public and business area, Putilkovo near the junction of MKAD and Novokurkinskoe highway. Within this area, the large business area of Greenwood and a complex of shopping and entertainment centers are developing.

Crocus City Mall, etc.), the exhibition complex Crocus Expo, concert hall Crocus City Hall, a complex of buildings of the Government of the Moscow Oblast.

Foreign experience in the spatial development of agglomerations demonstrates numerous examples of complex development of large social and business sub-centers on the periphery of the megacity, with excellent transport accessibility from the central business area. Successful examples of placement of public and business areas located in the peripheral zone of agglomerations and having good transport accessibility include:

– Westchase business district on the western outskirts of Houston (U.S.), which contains a variety of business centers;

– Montigala shopping town in the northeastern outskirts of Barcelona (Spain) at the entrance to the city from the highway B20.

– the multi-functional district of Haabersti on the western outskirts of Tallinn (Estonia), where the largest shopping centers, sports complexes, business centers, and hotels are located.

Also, we can name the following successful examples of developed public and business areas located in the peripheral zone of agglomerations and focused on accessibility on the basis of high-speed rail transport:

• —    the multi-district Zlicm-Stodulky on the western outskirts of Prague (Czech Republic), where the largest public business area with

numerous shopping centers and office parks is developing on the basis of two metro stations;

• —    the multifunctional district Itakeskus in the eastern part of Helsinki (Finland) around metro stations, where numerous shopping malls are located;

• –    the multifunctional district Dornach on the eastern outskirts of Munich (Germany), where numerous high-tech companies have their offices near the S-Bahn Munich-Rome stop;

  – the multi-district Mats formed in the southern part of the Metropolitan Area of Haifa (Israel) near the transport hub Hof HaCarmel, where there are offices and manufacturing sites of high-tech companies, large shopping centers, and a sports complex.

The development of business, shopping and entertainment functions in the peripheral areas of urban agglomerations is a common practice not only in the United States and Western Europe, but also in Eastern Europe. In contrast to the location of large state research centers, this type of development of the territory is focused primarily on attracting private investors and is a consequence of the redistribution of flows in the structure of the megacity.

Conclusion. Summing up, we can say that the Russian processes of suburbanization have the same genesis as similar processes abroad. However, the stages in the first and in the second case are different. From our point of view, the processes of urbanization in Russia lag one or two stages behind the American ones. Russia is drawn into the processes of suburbanization, and in the United States of America suburbanization has reached its ultimate development and is transformed, including the phenomenon of “return to the updated city”. It is possible and expedient to take into account the version and practices of suburbanization processes in Central Europe. Here suburbanization in some cases went much further than in Russia. Moreover, the socio-economic conditions and practices of transformation and modernization are close to those of Russia. Accordingly, verification of the results of suburbanization in CEE in relation to Russia is possible. Suburban spaces, which have a traditional fractional municipal division, do not meet urban management standards. That is why countries encourage the transformation of municipalities through their unification [27, 28]. This happens through the provision of additional subsidies, i.e. it is stimulated economically, and another option is also possible – through the reforms by administrative means, through coercion.

Thus, in the given perspective, new areas of fundamental and applied scientific research are coming to the fore, and their subject will be socio-economic mechanisms of functioning of agglomerations and their effect on the development of municipalities within their area, and also at the regional, national and world economy in conditions of globalization.

The most important task for further scientific research is to study the theory of urbanization and the processes of spatial and socio-economic development occurring in the territory of municipalities adjacent to the boundaries of megacities and developing the provisions and conclusions of this study.

The practical significance of the work consists in the fact that its results can be used to improve the management systems of agglomeration processes in the socio-economic space of the Russian Federation; they can also be used by the municipalities that are included in the zone of influence of megacities.