The living conditions of the Vologda city population in the estimates of the residents of the regional center

In 2017, the staff of the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Science “Vologda Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences” conducted a regular survey of the Vologda residents, devoted to the study of living conditions of the population in the regional center. The purpose for the present paper is to present brief results of this study, as well as comprehensively assess the population’s satisfaction with the living conditions in Vologda. Based on the survey of the population in the regional center we identified the main problems that reduce the comfort of living in different areas of the regional center. These include poor household, service and social infrastructure support (this problem is most relevant for the outskirts of the city), poor road and yard area quality, low social activity of the population and low efficiency of authorities to solve urban problems.The positive trends include successful solutions to the issues of the city’s outskirts development, which equalized the living conditions of the regional center in the territorial context, increasing the level of sports and recreational facilities provision and the quality of these services. At the same time, the survey results draw a conclusion about further development of social, cultural, economic and other relations of the city with the Vologodskii, Gryazovetskii and Sokolskii municipal districts, i.e. about agglomeration links between these areas. In this connection, a series of actions to improve the living conditions in the regional center based on addressing key issues of city development was provided. During the research we applied the method of system analysis, methods of sociological research, and tabular and graphical methods of data visualization. The obtained results can be used in activities of executive authorities of the regional center to improve the municipal socio-economic policy and implement measures aimed at providing comfortable living conditions for the residents of the regional center.