Urban agglomeration - what is it: the origin of formations. Purposeful formation of urban agglomerations and megalopolises as a factor in the modernization of Russian space How the formation of an urban agglomeration occurs briefly
“Without the formation of urban agglomerations, the spatial development of the Russian Federation is meaningless.”
During the heated and impartial discussions at the All-Russian Civil Forum, organized by the Committee of Civil Initiatives between its organizer, ex-Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, this thesis was the only one that did not raise objections from either side.
It cannot be otherwise. After all, historically, the Russian Federation is a “country of cities”, which represent the nodes of the fundamental framework of the country, the so-called “heart” of the settlement system. The message to the process of spatial development in our country will always come from the places of greatest concentration of human resources.
Over time, the city reaches a critical threshold of its spatial development and turns into an agglomeration. The boundless spaces of Russia feel the need to create agglomerations, since only with their help can effective economic development of the territories be carried out.
This is obligated by the situation of the country, which is in a difficult environmental situation, as well as the inevitability of stimulating the development of large urban agglomerations, where it is possible to implement joint development projects.
In our country, urban agglomerations are one of the most important forms of territorial organization of the economy. There are more than thirty agglomerations in Russia, where more than 35% of the population and approximately 40% of the scientific and human resources potential are concentrated.
In agglomerations, the most convenient conditions have been created for the creation of market infrastructure and the emergence of new economic relationships.
The agglomeration has a powerful industrial potential, characterized by intensive internal production and technological infrastructures and social and labor ties. The agglomeration is characterized by a high level of diversification, as a result of which it is most stable in difficult market conditions.
The current struggle for the so-called “development resource” (human capital, innovative capital, modern social and production technologies), which guarantees the stability of the life support system in full, also encourages the creation of agglomerations.
Another impetus to the agglomeration process was given in 2013–2014. according to the Forecast of long-term socio-economic development of the Russian Federation for the period until 2030 developed by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation.
According to this document, the main direction of spatial development of Russia will be increasing the saturation of human capital, infrastructure, resources in large cities and the creation of twenty agglomerations with a population of more than 1 million people. These agglomerations will be able to implement specialized international functions in the global division of labor, will become engines of growth, and will develop new innovative clusters.
Extremely negative foreign policy processes, naturally, somewhat slowed down the practical implementation of the agglomeration restructuring of Russia's spatial development, but did not reduce the relevance of this problem.
Some problems and prospects for agglomerations in our country will be discussed in this publication.
The concept of “urban agglomeration” within the framework of legislative impotence
First of all, it is necessary to understand the content of the concept of “agglomeration”. From the point of view of the location of productive forces in the regions of the country, there is such a thing as “industrial agglomeration”. This is a territorial economic entity, characterized by a powerful concentration of various enterprises, infrastructure, innovative and scientific institutions with a very significant population density.
The advantages of industrial agglomeration are obvious and certainly impressive. It allows you to reduce the required area of the used territory by approximately 30%, the number of industrial buildings and structures - by 25%. Thanks to the availability of common infrastructure and auxiliary facilities, costs are reduced by an average of 20%.
However, as a form of settlement, agglomeration has a slightly different definition, deeper, covering a wider range of economic and social processes existing and occurring in the region.
This is how the term “agglomeration” is interpreted in the modern economic dictionary. This is a compact location, a grouping of settlements united not only in a territorial sense, but also with developed cultural and industrial ties. Continuing the definition, it is reported that the term refers mainly to urban settlements, i.e. we are talking about urban agglomerations.
Academician A.G. Granberg gives the following definition: agglomeration is a territorial entity that integrates industrial and transport hubs, communication systems, cities and settlements.
According to Professor T.V. Karakova, the agglomeration consists of cities and towns, communications, industry and transport.
Professor T.Ya. Rehbein defines an agglomeration as a group of populated areas united by territorial proximity, the presence of labor and cultural and social connections, limited to two hours of travel time, and production, administrative and other connections are not important for identifying the boundaries of an agglomeration.
The obvious inconsistency in the names of urban agglomeration associations, assumptions and strategies for the socio-economic renewal of territories is striking and attracts surprised attention. So what's the problem here?
In Russia, the legal status of agglomerations, their statistical accounting and regulatory mechanism are not defined, which allows us to assert the legislative impotence of this concept and does not allow us to rationally and effectively develop plans and programs for the development of urban agglomerations.
Often and recklessly boldly mentioning urban agglomeration, our legislators somehow failed to include its definition in the Town Planning Code of the Russian Federation. Thank God there is an opportunity to use foreign concepts.
Agglomeration (from the Latin to annex, accumulate) is a compact territorial distribution of urban settlements, united by intensive economic, labor, cultural and everyday ties. This term was first introduced by M. Rouget (1973) to refer to the situation when the boundaries of a settlement extend beyond the administrative (political) territories.
In the specialized literature, a number of authors propose to define agglomerations as a group of populated areas limited by a two-hour travel time. The only question that arises is - travel by what type of transport? Agree, it’s one thing to use high-speed modes of transport: cars, subways and trains, and another thing to ride a bicycle, ride a donkey, or even “number eleven,” that is, on foot.
In the EU, an agglomeration (metroregion) is considered to be a territory with a population of 250 thousand inhabitants (according to Eurostat). Foreign and domestic studies of the phenomenon of urban agglomeration have made it possible to clarify its definition as follows:
An urban agglomeration is a compact and relatively developed set of complementary urban and rural settlements, grouped around one or several powerful core cities and united by diverse and intensive connections into a complex and dynamic unity.
From the history of agglomeration processes in Russia
Speaking about the development of agglomeration in Russia, it should be mentioned that in our country the trends in population settlement have a deep historical background. By the end of the 18th century, the territory of Russia was more or less evenly covered by a network of provincial and district cities, where each large city was assigned a sufficiently large territory for trusteeship.
This was the result of a reform that affected the administrative-territorial foundations of the Russian Empire, which was carried out by Catherine II in 1775–1785. One of the consequences of the reform was the separation of cities that performed administrative functions at considerable distances from each other.
The first prerequisites for the emergence of urban agglomerations in Russia began to appear in the 19th century, as a result of the formation of capitalist relations. The most important prerequisites were industrialization, the rapid growth of the most important cities and the flourishing of railway construction.
Despite the fact that the Russian system of cities was still poorly developed, in 1913 only 4 large cities were formed and developed: Moscow, Riga, St. Petersburg and Odessa. Even then, factory and manufacturing villages and towns were located in the suburbs and nearby areas
At that time, the cycle of production and labor was closed, isolated and did not extend beyond the boundaries of the municipal unit. There were no production, labor, or socio-cultural ties between the large city and the surrounding territories; there was also no pendulum migration, that is, regular cyclic trips, for example, for work or trade purposes.
Full-fledged agglomerations in Russia began to appear only in the 20th century. The only exception is St. Petersburg. The core city and satellite cities were created and developed simultaneously. The reason for this was the originally planned division of the functionality of satellite cities. For example: Peterhof, Gatchina, Tsarskoe Selo - residences; Kronstadt - fortress; Sestroretsk, Kolpino are centers of industry. There was development not only of nearby satellites, but also of distant ones, an example of which is Lodeynoye Pole, which became the cradle of the Baltic Fleet.
The agglomeration of St. Petersburg, which arose much earlier than agglomerations became widespread, was a phenomenon in the methods of settlement of the urban population and continued to develop, being a unique example of an urban structure.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the rapid development of industry replaced the trend of locating factories and factories on the territory of large cities with a new trend - the location of enterprises in the suburbs of cities, namely in villages and towns near railway stations.
Urbanization of the Soviet era, thanks to active industrialization, increased at tremendous speed, but the Second World War caused a slowdown in the process of the emergence and development of agglomerations in our country.
In the post-war years there was a kind of breakthrough for further development. The years following the end of World War II saw an increase in the number of urban agglomerations, most notably in areas that were home front during the war. During the 60s and 70s, many urban agglomerations were formed, the total population doubled, more than half of the country's urban residents lived in agglomerations.
A particular intensity of agglomeration processes in the USSR was observed in the 70s. Then six binary (polycentric) agglomerations were formed: Crimean (Simferopol-Sevastopol), Dnepropetrovsk-Dneprodzerzhinsk, Gorky-Dzerzhinsk, Yaroslavl-Kostroma, Kavminvodsk, Fergano-Margilan.
There was an increase in the territories of core cities, as well as the formation of powerful satellite cities in the peripheral zone, which contributed to the growth of agglomerations in general.
In the 80s the general trend of population growth and agglomeration areas continued. The process of strengthening the role of the suburbs began, and connections between suburbs, peripheral zones, and satellite cities with the central cities of agglomerations also began to be strengthened and formed.
What is what urban agglomeration in the Russian Federation
Now there are 1,100 cities in Russia. Over the more than thousand-year history of our state, dramatic changes have occurred in its composition, economic appearance, and distribution of productive forces. But the outstanding role of cities remained unchanged in all these processes - the main focal points of socio-economic development and the administrative-territorial structure of the country, whose motivating influence extended to the territories gravitating towards them. But not every city in the Russian Federation can and should become the core of an urban agglomeration.
Currently, 50 urban agglomerations have naturally formed in the Russian Federation. Of these, 43, or 80%, are located in the European part of the country. However, only seven million-plus cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Samara, Togliatti, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Novosibirsk, fully fall under the above-mentioned definition.
Of course, on the territory of Russia, the most developed is the monocentric Moscow agglomeration, which has fully gone through all the necessary stages of development and has a clearly defined division of its territory.
Moreover, during the discussion, the mayor of Moscow repeatedly said that Moscow cannot be compared with any other agglomeration or with a large city - Paris, Istanbul, New York, London, because much more people live in Moscow and the Moscow region. According to the capital's mayor, 30–35 million people are already living in the Moscow agglomeration today, including nearby areas where Muscovites go for the summer, and local residents go to Moscow to work. “This is the core of the country, the original core, without oil and gas,” he noted.
According to Sobyanin, Moscow is “not a black hole that sucks out talent from all over the country, but an economic driver.” “The development of agglomerations leads to the development of competition and the strengthening of the country’s defense capability, and Russia has always been under attack, and is under attack today, even if not in a military sense,” he added. According to the mayor, labor productivity in Moscow is 2.5 times higher than the national average and 5-7 times higher than in rural areas.
As emerging agglomerations, we can consider the city of St. Petersburg and the adjacent territories of the Leningrad region, a number of other cities, primarily million-plus cities and closely related territories of neighboring entities.
The historical development of territories and settlement groups in Russia directly determines the formation of urban agglomerations in Russia. However, effective urban development requires government resources and management influence.
A feature of Russian agglomerations is the development and arrangement by large cities of vast areas of undeveloped rural areas with the organization of production and industrial processing of agricultural products, as well as a unique Russian form of seasonal settlement of a multimillion-dollar number of city dwellers in gardening, market gardening and dacha construction associations.
Therefore, the spontaneous development of unprepared territories often leads to negative consequences, for example, traffic jams, an increase in the gap between the incomes of municipal units located closer to the center and on the periphery, and an increase in the costs of construction and maintenance of road and infrastructure units.
Today, the agglomeration form of settlement is formed on the basis of the combination of “large city - city”, “large city - region”, “region - region”. The decisive role here is played not by the scale of the center of gravity, but by stable socio-economic ties, high mobility of the population, interdependence and interdependence of the development of subjects united by the common use of labor resources and a common infrastructure.
In 2013, a “road map” for the development of agglomerations in the Russian Federation was developed for their differentiated management.
Many enterprises of various sizes and different profiles form the industrial complex of Russian agglomerations. An agglomeration, as a rule, is characterized by powerful industrial potential and a high level of territorial concentration of production assets, intensive internal production-technological infrastructure and social-production connections.
This complex multi-branch system determines specialization in the territorial division of labor. And at the same time, the production complex of an agglomeration in modern difficult market conditions is the most stable territorial organization of productive forces and easily adapts to various changes in the environment as a result of the possibility of redistributing functions and various resources within the agglomeration itself.
And the Mayor of our capital did not boast at all at the All-Russian Civil Forum, giving convincing arguments in favor of the above. For example, Moscow does not suck money out of the regions, but, on the contrary, produces 21% of the country’s GDP and every tenth pensioner in Russia receives a pension from the money of Muscovites.
On the world practice of agglomeration settlement
The development of urban agglomerations in foreign countries, which is successful and effective, is based on “agglomeration thinking”. This is the formation of a view of the territory as a whole, and not as a collection of parts; development of the entire territory, rather than preferably the center; as well as the desire to harmonize the interests of all participants in the process (residents, municipal administrations, private businesses, etc.).
Administrative boundaries, of course, matter, but they cannot be decisive. Indeed, in many foreign countries, some settlements as part of the agglomeration form of settlement remain formally cut by the administrative boundaries of municipalities, but neither business nor the population notice this at all.
Although each participant in the agglomeration process has their own interests. Central cities are afraid of a decrease in funding, cities on the periphery are interested in maintaining unitarity, the elite is under threat of a decrease in power and status.
In world practice, there are two main ways of development of settlement systems, which are parallel and sometimes intersect: natural, when the functioning of existing and the emergence of new settlements, the development of inter-settlement connections between them is carried out due to general development, and regulatory, when the “unloading” of the largest cities, the creation of new centers of attraction is being implemented through projects actively supported by the state.
In foreign countries, the goal of competent and successful development of an urban agglomeration is to create all conditions to compensate for existing costs. For example, by losing their unitarity, municipalities receive in return benefits that they did not have during independent development.
In foreign countries you can find many examples of stimulating the improvement of intermunicipal interactions. For example, municipalities in France that implement a joint project to create an agglomeration are provided with financial compensation ranging from 10 to 50%. Japanese municipalities united into an agglomeration are paid an additional 25% of their budget for five years. European countries, having implemented the “Greater Paris” and “Greater London” projects in the 70–80s of the 20th century, proved the effectiveness and feasibility of such programs as comprehensive urban planning, infrastructure, especially transport, and socio-economic development.
So far, there is no scientific evidence abroad of the need for a unified governing body in agglomerations in addition to the existing authorities. An analysis of world experience shows that both options (the presence or absence of their own institutions of power) can quite successfully coexist and be used in various situations.
Thus, the “metropolitan” agglomeration form of settlement Randstad in the Netherlands has been “living” for many decades without a single governing body, but Greater London has one. As a rule, there are common urban planning structures to coordinate the processes of creating a single urban space.
The most promising type of agglomeration is the polycentric type, when in addition to the main core city, several more cores will be created on the territory of the agglomeration, in which there will also be a concentration of business centers, museums, and residential complexes. The vast majority of urban agglomerations in the world try to preserve the autonomy and originality of the municipalities within them.
In the United States, the use of specialized districts (bodies created to provide services) to manage the operation of public transport, sewerage and water supply systems, control the work of hospitals, train stations, and airports is becoming very popular. Along with this, there is another project (for example, in Los Angeles), the essence of which is to provide basic services to the municipalities of the agglomeration through the central city.
It should also be noted that the concept of “agglomeration” is associated not only with megacities and million-plus cities. It is often applied to both medium and small cities that have objective conditions for this.
So, for example, in France there is no exception when small cities (up to 100 thousand) unite and create an agglomeration to organize the development of suburbs, housing construction, job creation, and improve the quality of life of citizens.
An example is Canada, where there are only six urban agglomerations with a population of more than 1 million people and more than 80 urban associations with smaller populations.
It is necessary, summarizing the above, to highlight the following features of the development of urban agglomerations in foreign countries:
- Availability of legal support for agglomeration processes.
- Creation of agglomerations from a group of small cities to improve the quality of life.
- Consideration of the developed territory as a single whole, and not a group of settlements under the influence of a large city.
- Development of the entire territory, and not just the core city.
- Coordination of interests of all participants in the process.
- Stimulation of processes of intermunicipal interaction (subsidies).
- Development of territories on a project basis.
Using the positive management experience accumulated by Western countries, of course, is quite possible for the Russian Federation, and first of all, to improve the mechanisms for managing the development of agglomeration forms of settlement. In resolving this issue, it seems to us, the development of principles and requirements for the design of the system and mechanisms of control actions is of paramount importance.
Conclusion
In the 21st century, such a form of territorial population settlement as agglomeration claims to become the basis for the organization of urban space, the main type of settlement of urban residents, which concentrates a key component of human life. Improving a territorial unit that is part of an urban agglomeration entails a number of advantages, such as:
- concentration of scientific and economic potentials, implementation of administrative and organizational functions, wide selection of services, improvement of quality indicators of life and culture;
- the most efficient use of labor resources, a large number of jobs and industries, reducing unemployment;
- the most rational use of the potential of the economic-geographical location and resources of a given territory;
- potential for regular use of cultural property;
- the most intensive and efficient use of the available territory.
Today, in post-crisis times, there is a need for territorial reorganization of Russia, providing for the fragmentation of the country's territory into agglomerations, which is becoming an even higher priority. This was discussed at the All-Russian Civil Forum on November 21-22, 2017.
The discussion participants directly linked the future improvement and reconstruction of the Russian economy with the requirements created by the external environment, as well as the implementation in Russia of a new territorial policy that envisages the formation of regions that are competitive in the global economic system.
To date, the processes of the emergence and development of urban agglomeration have been well studied. Many methods have been developed to classify a territory as a GA. Despite the fact that agglomerations exist in Russia, and the issues of their study are of great practical importance, the concept of “agglomeration” as such is theoretical, and there is no legislative basis for this phenomenon.
Due to the lack of a legislative framework, there is a significant range of problems not only in the management process, but also in the creation of territorial planning documents.
This gives rise to an excessive number of different methods and disputes regarding the validity of applying the term “agglomeration” to certain territories. The lack of a single generally accepted method for analyzing statistical data, and sometimes the lack of qualitatively collected and processed data, complicates the qualitative study of the problems and prospects of urban agglomerations.
The solution to current problems lies in serious study and understanding of the acquired experience in the formation and development of agglomerations, both in foreign countries and in modern Russia.
In this regard, it is necessary to carry out: a reconstruction of the legislative framework at all levels of government; create mechanisms for establishing ongoing processes.
The solution to these and many other problems can be arranged within the framework of individual projects studying the territory of the agglomeration as a single socio-economic system.
Boris Skupov
Agglomeration is a compact territorial grouping of urban and rural settlements, united into a complex local system by diverse connections - labor, production, communal economic, cultural, everyday, recreational, environmental, as well as the joint use of various resources of a given area.
Proximity of cities and towns in the agglomeration, the high density of their network favors their intensive and effective interaction
Therefore, the center of gravity of development is objectively moving to the area surrounding the city. Satellite settlements arise (most often based on existing small settlements) of various profiles. Essentially, these are parts of a big city, which, becoming the center of an agglomeration, creates a system of additions and partners. On the one hand, everything that does not fit in the city “spills out” beyond its borders. On the other hand, much of what strives towards it from the outside settles on the approaches. Thus, the agglomeration is formed by two counter flows.
Development of the agglomeration “from the region” typical for resource zones, in places of development of the mining industry, where, during the development of large deposits, a group of villages of similar specialization usually arises. Over time, one of them, located more conveniently than others in relation to the settlement area and having better conditions for development, attracts objects of non-local importance. It becomes an organizational, economic and cultural center, where science and design work are developed, construction industry enterprises and transport organizations are concentrated there.
This is how a city arises, which takes on the functions of an agglomeration center. Among his companions, under the influence of their main “profession,” a closed labor balance prevails: the residents of the village work mainly at the enterprise located here in the village. Therefore, labor ties with the city center in formations of the type under consideration are weaker than in agglomerations developing “from the city.” With further growth and increasing multifunctionality of the city center, the differences between the agglomerations of the two categories described are weakening, although there remains a significant difference in the nature of the use of the territory. In agglomerations of industrial areas (mining industries), significant areas are occupied by dumps, warehouses, access roads, pillars
Basic properties And features of agglomerations. Being a natural result of the evolution of settlement, the post-urban stage of its development, agglomerations do not arise automatically. Their formation (agglomeration) is a geographically selective process that unfolds where conditions are favorable for it. Therefore, agglomeration should be considered as one of the forms settlement, which should remain diverse in the future, since the interests of different segments of the population are heterogeneous. Agglomerations differ in the predominant types of activity, size, and degree of maturity.
The most common two ways of forming agglomerations are “from the city” and “from the region”. Formation of an agglomeration “from the city”. Upon reaching a certain “threshold” (which is strongly influenced by the size of the city, its economic profile, local and regional natural conditions), a dynamically developing large city feels an increasing need for new development resources - territory, water supply sources, infrastructure. However, within the city limits they are exhausted or close to exhaustion. Further continuous (perimeter) expansion of the urban area is associated with negative consequences.
Urban agglomerations began to appear from ancient times. They are formed and growing to this day. It is worth explaining what the term “agglomeration” means. The simplest definition: “an agglomeration is a compact spatial collection of settlements united by intensive production and cultural ties.”
The issue of creating urban agglomerations has recently become one of the most pressing and frequently discussed. Moreover, it interests the broadest segments of the population. Scientific and practical conferences are held on this topic, special issues of journals are published, and meetings of regional governments are held. This issue was on everyone’s lips after the Ministry of Regional Development stated in 2007 that large urban agglomerations should become part of Russia’s long-term development strategy.
If large cities were called monsters, condemned to continuous growth (in the words of the French geographers J. Beaujeu-Gortier and J. Chabot), then agglomerations - close clusters of cities - are real titans. Many are frightened by such growth, which results in fierce criticism of such entities. Agglomerations are considered the result of unsystematic urban growth, spreading like an oily slick. The swelling metropolis, absorbing the cluster of satellite settlements surrounding it, is likened to destructive diseases or elemental forces of nature. It's like an avalanche or an uncontrollable flood, sweeping away everything that gets in the way. Agglomeration researcher Michel Rouge called agglomerations “a cancerous form of urban formation.”
The opposite points of view are also known. Agglomerations are described as optimal forms of modern settlement, with a deep future, believing that they will solve the problem of unsystematic settlements and improve living conditions.
The range of opinions and the wide dispersion of assessments are by no means accidental. This is explained by the fact that, like a city, an agglomeration is very contradictory in its essence and combines both obvious negative and undoubtedly positive features.
Despite how people perceive agglomerations, they are an inevitable reality that follows the laws of development. Today, in many countries, not cities, but urban agglomerations are the main form of settlement. And they continue to multiply in number and size. According to estimates from the Moscow design institute Giprogor, the 34 largest agglomerations in Russia, occupying only 153.7 thousand km2, concentrate 50.5 million people, i.e. 1/3 of the country's population.
The main advantages of an agglomeration are the opportunity for all its residents to use the services available to those living in large cities, and a wider choice of place of work than in a separate settlement.
It must be said that in Russia today the prospects of Moscow, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Chelyabinsk, Vladivostok, Tomsk and other agglomerations are being discussed. In any case, interest in agglomerations is an interest in searching for additional development opportunities outside the framework of formal administrative-territorial boundaries. In modern conditions, agglomeration provides opportunities for increasing the efficiency of using labor potential, increasing human capital, and improving the quality of life. And these are powerful factors for increasing the competitiveness and attractiveness of territorial systems.
In the historical evolution of settlement forms, traditional types of populated areas - urban and rural settlements developing relatively autonomously - are increasingly being replaced by new “group” forms of highly concentrated settlement, formed when settlements are placed close together and intensive connections are formed between them.
These are urban agglomerations - clusters of populated areas that are rapidly developing throughout the world, often consisting of tens, and sometimes hundreds of settlements, including rural settlements, closely connected with each other. We can say that “global cities” - agglomerations have become the centers of the modern world; “global cities” - agglomerations endowed with colossal financial and political functions have become. No state can be among the leaders if it does not have at least one “global city”. Even a superficial acquaintance with statistics allows us to understand that the economic potential of global cities is enormous. Their top ten accounts for over 1/10 of the world's total GDP.
There is no uniform terminology to refer to these population clusters. Along with the term “urban agglomeration”, the terms “local settlement systems”, “districts of large cities”, “group settlement systems”, “constellation of cities” are used. However, the most commonly used concept is “urban agglomeration”.
There is currently no generally accepted definition of an urban agglomeration. Meanwhile, the concept of agglomeration is significant not only for theorists, but also for practitioners who, in specific cases, need to determine whether a certain territory (settlement) belongs to an agglomeration. Not only the formation of strategies, but also elementary statistics depends on the answer to this question.
The term agglomeration (from the Latin agglome-rare - to attach, accumulate) - English. agglomeration; German Agglomeration, in relation to settlement, was introduced by the French geographer M. Rouget, according to which agglomeration occurs when the concentration of urban activities goes beyond administrative boundaries and spreads to neighboring settlements.
In the economic geography of different countries, this concept is defined in different terms. What all these concepts have in common is that they all characterize a set of settlements between which there are functional connections. At the same time, all countries have established clear criteria according to which a particular cluster of settlements can be classified as urban agglomerations.
It is necessary to understand the nature of urban agglomeration; for this purpose, we will consider the criteria by which clusters of settlements are classified as agglomerations.
These criteria are usually the population of the central city, the volume of commuter migration, and the population density of the territory.
In Russian literature, the concept of urban agglomeration was used quite widely already in the 10s and 20s, although under different names: this is also the “economic district of the city” by A.A. Krubera, and “agglomeration” by M.G. Dikansky, and the “economic city” of V.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky.
Let us consider the definitions given in the literature for the word “agglomeration”.
In Russian geography, an agglomeration is understood as a cluster of settlements, mainly urban, in some places merging, united into one whole by intensive economic, labor, cultural and everyday ties. This definition was formulated in the late 50s - early 60s. G. M. Lappo and V. G. Davidovich, and then enshrined in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
According to N.V. Petrov, urban agglomerations are compact clusters of territorially concentrated cities and other populated areas, which in the process of their growth come closer (sometimes grow together) and between which diverse economic, labor, cultural and everyday relationships intensify.
E.N. Pertsik gives another definition: an urban agglomeration is a system of territorially close and economically interconnected populated areas, united by stable labor, cultural, social and production ties, common social and technical infrastructure, a qualitatively new form of settlement, it arises as the successor of the city in its compact (autonomous) , point) form, a special product of modern urbanization. And large urban agglomerations are the most important areas in which progressive industries, administrative, economic, scientific and design organizations, unique cultural and art institutions, and the most qualified personnel are concentrated.
In accordance with the definition, an agglomeration is distinguished by the commonality of everyday life of the population of its territory, the presence of daily labor commuting on weekdays, and the use of a single set of recreational facilities on weekends.
The boundaries of an urban agglomeration are mobile in time due to changes in the most important parameter of agglomeration - the range of daily movements from the place of residence to the places of employment: within the framework of the spatial self-organization of these movements, their range increases in proportion to the increase in the speed of means of transport, and the time spent increases slightly.
The development of urban agglomerations is characterized by: the build-up of gigantic urban clusters, including non-stop growing and spreading cores, drawing ever new territories into their orbit, and the concentration of large masses of the population in them; the rapid development of suburbs and the gradual (although not clearly visible everywhere) redistribution of the population between city centers and suburban areas; attracting the rural population to non-agricultural work, especially in urban areas; pendulum migrations and systematic movements of people within agglomerations to work, places of study, cultural services and recreation, acquiring an unprecedented scale.
E.N. Pertsik offers various criteria for urban agglomerations: urban population density and continuity of development; the presence of a large city center (usually with a population of at least 100 thousand people); intensity and range of work and cultural trips; proportion of non-agricultural workers; share of people working outside their place of residence; the number of satellite urban settlements and the intensity of their connections with the center city; number of telephone conversations with the center; industrial relations; communications for social, domestic and technical infrastructure (unified engineering systems of water supply, energy supply, sewerage, transport, etc.). In some cases, a combination of characteristics is taken as a criterion, in others it is focused on one of them (for example, the boundaries of an agglomeration are distinguished by 1.5- or 2-hour isochrones of labor movements from the center city).
Kharchenko K.V. emphasizes that the external context of the concept of agglomeration is outlined by the concepts of city, outskirts, suburb, rural area, region. In spatial terms, an agglomeration includes the entire suburb (less often individual suburban zones) and part of the countryside (depending on the orientations of its residents), i.e. some portion of the region's territory. In terms of content, life within an agglomeration may not differ from life on the city outskirts.
Sometimes the spatial aspect of an agglomeration is determined through the unity of signs of proximity and remoteness in relation to the core city. So, E.N. Koroleva notes that “in Russian science, agglomeration is understood as a territorial grouping of urban and rural settlements, close together, but separated by spatial gaps.” Nevertheless, the development of transport and information communications leads to the fact that the proximity factor ceases to play a key role in determining the profile of the territory: relatively remote settlements can also be included in the agglomeration. Remoteness is also not a characteristic feature, since intensive construction in both the city and the suburbs leads to a narrowing of gaps between settlements.
The difficulty in defining the concept of agglomeration is that opinions on this matter gravitate towards two poles: is the agglomeration a continuous territory around the core city or is it a collection of pockets of the urban environment among rural areas.
The choice of a specific position on this matter is important insofar as it determines further understanding of agglomeration processes. Thus, the question is whether it is possible to recognize the role of the subjective factor (representations of residents) in determining the external border of an agglomeration, as well as what sign of classifying a territory as an agglomeration is primary, territorial or functional. In the first case, spatial factors will be put at the forefront, and in the second - social ones (specialization of the territory, occupation of the population, ratio between workers and residents in a given territory).
From a formal point of view, an agglomeration can be classified as a certain continuous territory that meets one of the following criteria:
transport accessibility within a certain time, for example, one hour;
administrative correspondence to several municipal districts adjacent to the core city area.
This approach has a right to exist because it offers clear objective criteria. Still, the scope of its application is on a macro scale, for example, the framework of a regional development strategy. If we go down one level, understanding the agglomeration as a continuous territory will reveal a number of shortcomings.
The suburban zone includes territories that differ significantly in their purpose. In addition to settlements with an urban lifestyle, these can be the following types of territories:
villages whose population is employed in the agricultural sector, no different from remote areas;
holiday villages in which most of the buildings are suitable only for seasonal living;
cottage villages, i.e. comfortable “second” housing;
other areas of individual housing construction (for example, houses of young families - participants in mortgage programs; single housing intended for permanent residence).
Understanding agglomeration as a set of pockets of the urban environment adds to the definition of this concept such a characteristic feature as the instability of external boundaries. This means that over time, new settlements can be included in the orbit of the core city (theoretically, the reverse process is also possible), and in this case the determining factor will not be administrative decisions, but the aggregate will of people as a result of the actions of individuals.
A qualitative feature of an agglomeration is the unification of its constituent settlements into a dynamic system of diverse connections. The nature of these connections determines whether the agglomeration of a territory will be a social problem or a source of economic growth.
The most typical connection for Russian agglomerations is the pendulum migration of the majority of the population, directed towards the core city. Let us note that pendulum migration itself should not be a “qualitative sign” of agglomeration due to negative effects - unnecessary waste of people’s time, load on the natural environment. Moreover, it is necessary to avoid pendulum migration even within the boundaries of the city proper, developing jobs and social infrastructure on the outskirts.
For Russian realities, the sign of transport accessibility is decisive in the formation of an agglomeration: in fact, without developed public transport, commuting will disappear, and if the settlement cannot be self-sufficient, it will disappear due to migration in the strict sense of the word.
Currently, economic and institutional analysis of agglomeration processes, analysis and forecasting of external effects are becoming increasingly relevant. Agglomeration processes in institutional terms are characterized as follows. Agglomeration involves the creation of a fundamentally new system for managing territorial development and planning. Agglomeration involves building contractual relations between independent municipalities regarding subjects of common interest, for example, general economic or infrastructural processes. World experience shows that agglomerations created on administrative initiative are, as a rule, unstable and disintegrate when administrative intervention and financing are completed.
The main ways to accelerate agglomeration processes in publications are:
* accelerated development of transport and communication infrastructures, creation of common logistics centers;
* coordination of the system of territorial development and land use, coordinated environmental policy;
* implementation of projects aimed at expanding “bottlenecks” in the resource supply of the agglomeration (provision of building materials, electricity, water, etc.);
* development of sociocultural space.
The formation of large modern agglomerations provides the following effects. Firstly, agglomeration increases the population’s ability to access scientific, industrial and cultural information, the ability to choose the type of work, and access to educational, medical and cultural institutions. Secondly, economies of scale for the regional economy, modern trade formats, promising production of consumer goods and, most importantly, the service sector. The emergence of agglomeration creates both the opportunity for large businesses to enter the region and opportunities for local companies to grow to the level of market leaders.
Third, the creation of a deep and diverse labor market. People have the opportunity to quickly find a job that matches their qualifications and personal life strategy. Fourthly, there is the “infrastructure effect”, which is of utmost importance.
Projects for the construction of new energy capacities, powerful transport complexes - ports, airports, multimodal logistics centers and information hubs - are justified and have great economic returns specifically for agglomerations. The same applies to educational and especially innovation infrastructure.
The positive effects of agglomeration are described in the publications of Losch A., 1944, Maier G., Todtling F., 1992, Giffinger R., 2004, etc.
As a result, conditions are created for accelerated socio-economic development of territories, which allows the “nuclei” of agglomerations to increase their own status in the urban and regional hierarchy.
It must also be said that modern Russian agglomerations are children of the Soviet system. Back then, cities were often founded in hard-to-reach areas rich in oil and gas; ensuring their functioning was extremely costly. A large number of cities have a single city-forming enterprise. A number of megacities have large industrial facilities located in the central regions. There are holiday villages around many cities.
But our agglomerations also have global features: the development of the land and real estate market, reflecting the real value of objects in different areas; gradual removal of large industrial production to the outskirts; development of transport links between the center and the outskirts; other adaptations of the urban environment to the needs of the population.
It should be noted that when discussing the prospects for the formation of agglomerations in Russia, significantly less attention is paid to the study of the negative external effects of agglomeration. This makes it difficult to systematize practical experience in order to regulate and predict agglomeration processes. In this regard, the results of studies of socio-economic restructuring taking place in the city of Perm and neighboring municipal areas are of interest.
So, an urban agglomeration is a compact spatial grouping of settlements united by diverse connections (production, labor, cultural, recreational) into a complex system. As a rule, it occurs around the core city. Among the settlements included in the agglomeration, satellite cities often appear.
The main features of agglomeration include:
Urban population density and development continuity; the presence of a large city center (usually with a population of at least 100 thousand people);
Pendulum migrations and systematic movements of people within agglomerations to work, places of study, cultural services and recreation, acquiring an unprecedented scale;
Proportion of people working outside their place of residence;
The number of satellite urban settlements and the intensity of their connections with the center city;
Number of telephone conversations with the center;
Industrial relations;
Communications on social, domestic and technical infrastructure (unified engineering systems of water supply, energy supply, sewerage, transport, etc.)
Everything in this world has the ability to change. Moreover, sometimes these changes occur very quickly. Just a century ago, most of the world's inhabitants lived in villages. Today, cities are becoming locomotives of scientific and technological progress, centers of economic, political and cultural life. Cities increase in size, grow and eventually merge with each other, forming large agglomerations.
The meaning of the word "agglomeration"
This term is currently used in three scientific disciplines - biology, geology and urbanism. However, it is believed that it originally appeared in the bosom of geological science.
In geological science, agglomeration is the thermal treatment of ore and ore concentrate.
Later, this term migrated to social geography, urban studies and demography. Here, by analogy, agglomeration is the merging of urban settlements into a single whole. In the second half of the twentieth century, urbanists began to actively use this word to refer to general global trends provoked by processes of global urbanization.
Urban agglomeration
Cities are expanding, acquiring new factories and enterprises, and attracting an increasing number of new residents. As a result, more and more residential areas and sleeping areas are being built on the outskirts... Unnoticed by itself and its residents, the city begins to “absorb” the once independent villages and towns located nearby. This is how the process of connection is born.
An agglomeration is a compact merger of several cities, which from now on become a single whole, one organic system with its own internal stable connections.
To more vividly imagine what agglomeration is, imagine that you are flying high into the sky on a clear, cloudless night. Looking down, you will see on the earth’s surface, in some parts of it, dense and bright clumps of light, indicating places of compact urban development. It is by these spots of light that the largest urban agglomerations can be identified.
All agglomerations are divided into two types:
- monocentric (those that formed around one large nucleus);
- polycentric (formed from several centers).
Historical aspect
The process of formation of urban agglomerations is very interesting and sometimes unexpected. For example, the city of Vasilkov, founded in 988, was once as important a city in Kievan Rus as Kyiv. Today it is just part of the large Kyiv agglomeration.
The very first agglomerations, oddly enough, appeared in the ancient world. These were Rome, Alexandria and Athens. In the 17th century, London and Paris joined the ranks of urban agglomerations. True, these were tiny (by modern standards) agglomerations, numbering only 700 thousand inhabitants.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, blocks of buildings stretching for many kilometers into the distance seemed completely wild. Today this is perceived very prosaically. Moreover, children from large cities may not see a forest, a wide field or an ordinary village for years. All this is the reality of our century.
By 1970, there were already 16 large agglomerations in the United States, in which about 40% of the country's population was concentrated. However, agglomerations continue to grow today! And if individual cities used to merge with each other, today entire urban agglomerations are merging. Scientists have even come up with a name for this phenomenon - conurbation.
Formation of Russian agglomerations
All Russian agglomerations are the creations of the 20th century. Previously, there were simply no conditions for their formation. The only exception here can be considered only St. Petersburg, the agglomeration of which began to form somewhat earlier.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, during the era of the industrial boom, plants and factories began to appear near large Russian cities. The settlements that naturally appeared nearby became the basis for future satellite cities. Thus, already at the beginning of the twentieth century, Mytishchi, Lyubertsy, Kuskovo, Orekhovo-Zuyevo and others were “born” around Moscow.
The largest agglomerations in Russia
According to modern Russian standards, an agglomeration is a group of settlements with a population in its central city (core) of at least 100 thousand inhabitants. At the same time, there must be at least two more cities or towns within 1.5-hour transport accessibility from it.
Monocentric agglomerations with one central core city dominate in Russia. Such a center, as a rule, far exceeds its surroundings both in size and in level of economic development. Russian agglomerations are not alien to global characteristics and trends: high population density, high degree of industrialization, as well as an abundance of scientific and educational complexes.
Today in Russia there are 22 millionaire agglomerations (that is, more than one million people live in each of them). The largest Russian agglomeration, it goes without saying, is Moscow with a population of about 16 million people. It is followed by St. Petersburg (approximately 5.5 million), Rostov (about 2.5 million), Samara-Togliatti (2.3 million), Ekaterinburg and Nizhny Novgorod (2 million inhabitants in each agglomeration).
There is no single definition of urban agglomeration in the world. The UN understands this as “a compact territory where at least 100 thousand people live, there is at least one city with a population of at least 50 thousand people and administrative units gravitating towards this city.” In Russia, as in relation to urban settlements, a more expansive interpretation has been adopted.
The economic bases for the formation of urban agglomerations, as a rule, are compact local territorial-industrial complexes and their development is economically feasible. With their help, the territorial structure becomes more rational. There is a transition from a “point” urban concentration to its areal form and the nodes of the supporting frame are strengthened. In the conditions of Russia, with its large open spaces, harsh conditions and relatively small concentration of population in a number of regions, such a solution is especially relevant. Therefore, the growth of agglomerations in Russia is of particular importance. In our country with vast spaces, it is important to close as much of the connections as possible within limited-size areas, to transfer them to the category of local ones, which will reduce the cost of money and time for moving goods, people, and information. By organizing the main connections in the main directions, in multi-highway corridors, the economy has the opportunity to achieve a significant economic effect.
The formation of agglomerations in Russia is associated with the formation of the railway network when the most significant cities became major transport hubs. Transport connections between the city and its surroundings emerged. Large enterprises settled on cheaper lands near the city and dacha construction revived. Along with the previous light industries, which traditionally occupied the first place in the suburbs, heavy industries also took an active part. Near Moscow, for example, factories were built - carriage building in Mytishchi (now metro cars), agricultural machinery - in Lyubertsy, sewing machines - in Podolsk (ZAO Zinger).
With the increase in population concentration, it became extremely necessary to develop public utility facilities near large cities - water supply stations, aeration stations, as well as transport facilities - marshalling railway stations, and subsequently airports. Thus, from the very beginning, agglomeration was the result of several processes superimposed on each other.
Industrialization gave a new impetus to the development of agglomeration scales. Suburban areas have begun to be more actively developed by large-scale industry. And some new cities arose on the basis of large enterprises. So at the mouth of the river. Northern Dvina appeared Severodvinsk with a population of 227.6 thousand people (2002) - the center of underwater nuclear shipbuilding (JSC Northern Machinery Enterprise). 25 km. From Nizhny Novgorod the city of Dzerzhinsk grew with a population of 274.6 thousand people (2001). - the largest center of the chemical industry associated with the military-industrial complex. 32 km southeast of Moscow, the city of Zhukovsky with a population of about 100 thousand people (2001) and many others was founded as a holiday village called Otdykh, which later became the center of Russian aviation science. etc.
There was an active transformation of former dacha or small factory settlements into cities. The preconditions were created for changes in settlement. Satellite cities emerged, closely connected with the economic center. Previously, this was not the case; county centers, located at a distance from each other, were economically disparate.
In agglomerations, negative aspects quickly emerged in the form of disorderly development, inconsistency in the development of neighboring cities, and deterioration of the environmental situation. Agglomerations were even viewed as the result of spontaneous, disorderly development and disruption of orderly settlement, a kind of settlement disease, which obscured their inherent progressive properties.
The next stage in the development of agglomerations began in the post-war period. This process reached high rates, becoming a characteristic feature of the development of settlement of that time. Approximately a third of the new cities that arose within the USSR settled surrounded by large cities. Large centers, experiencing the need for satellite cities and creating the conditions for their emergence, became the cores of urban agglomerations. From 1959-1989 the number of agglomerations increased from 26 to 49. The share of the population living in them constantly increased, and in 1989 it was already about half of the total population of the country. The nature of rural settlement has also changed. Russia gradually began to turn into a country of suburban rural settlement. This process is intensified due to the lack of quality roads.
Thanks to the increase in the speed of commuter trains and the improvement in the organization of communications at the same time, the radius of the settlement zone increased, resulting in an increase in the range of trips acceptable in terms of time. In modern Russia, more than 80% of city residents already live or are directly connected with urban agglomerations.
The structure of agglomerations is also becoming more complex. They often represent complex conglomerates of settlements, sometimes fused together by their outskirts, and are distinguished by a patchwork of territories with different functional purposes and a complex, not always rational infrastructure and often environmental problems.
By their structure, urban agglomerations can be divided into mono- and polycentric. A distinctive feature of the former is the sharp predominance of their population and the functional socio-economic role of the city center. In polycentric ones (Samara, Kuzbass, etc.) this is not observed.
In Russia, monocentric agglomerations predominate, around millionaire cities. So Moskovskaya, which includes more than 70 urban settlements with a total population of about 13 million people, see (Table 8.4.).
Table 8.4.
The largest urban agglomerations in Russia (according to Gladky et al., 1999)??
The process of agglomeration of urban settlements in Russia is younger than in most economically developed countries. Therefore, it is not always possible for a sufficiently developed system of satellite cities to emerge. This can be clearly seen in the example of young agglomerations in the eastern regions - Omsk, Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk.
In the post-war period in Russia, as well as in the USSR as a whole, the population of core cities and satellite zones grew relatively evenly. This was different from the United States, where the suburbs grew at a faster pace with clearly insufficient development of the infrastructure of the suburban areas.
In the process of growth of agglomerations, their settlements are superimposed by peripheral parts on neighboring ones. Zones appear that are simultaneously included in both agglomerations. A complex supraglomeration formation appears. This is how the Moscow agglomeration connected with Kaluga, Tver, Ryazan and Tula. Similar formations are beginning to form in the Urals and Kuzbass.
In the zone of influence of agglomerations, the rural population is growing. While outside of them there is an outflow of population from rural areas.
