Sustainable development of large cities in strategic planning imperatives: actualization of approaches to assessment

The purpose of this article is to prove the validity of the methodology of measuring the level (index) of sustainable citydevelopment by means of using the sociological surveyof citizens on the basis of the retrospective analysis of existing approaches to measuring this index. In the contemporary economic literature there are discussions on the possibility of measuring the level (index) of sustainable city development, various lists of indicators and various mathematical formulas. The authors of these methodologies are united in one thing, i.e. in recognition that all known approaches are not ideal, although theycomplement each other. The diversity of cities in terms of size, geographical location, specialization and a number of other criteria makes it difficult to reach a common opinion in measuring this economiccategory. Thearticle presents the main provisions of the authors’ method ofmeasuring the level (index) of sustainable citydevelopment based on the perception of cityinhabitants. The approbation of this approach was carried out using the example of the cityof Volgograd (city with a population of 1 million or more) based on the sociological survey conducted in 2014 and 2018. The obtained results allow determining the degree of sustainable development of the citywith reasonable accuracywithout taking into account the errors of municipal statistics. The proposed approach can be considered universal and it can be used bycity authorities at the stage of strategizing and later at the stage of implementing municipal reforms. The most accurate results for comparing the state of sustainable development will be observed in the cities of the same or similar typology. The article substantiates the expediency of the sustainable development assessment among individual cities belonging to the same type (city with a population of 1 million or more, medium-size cities, etc.), as well as the ability to track the dynamics of this state in different periods. The application of the proposed methodology will ensure their competitiveness in the market economic conditions.