Toolkit for Integrated Assessment of Socio-Economic Development Scale of Urban Agglomerations

The formation of urban agglomerations in the Russian Federation is currently one of the most significant forms of spatial development both at the national and regional levels. The need to strengthen agglomeration processes is dictated by the provision of polarised socio-economic development of different territories of the country. Urban agglomerations in the Russian Federation receive legal status at the federal and regional levels. Institutional support for agglomerations is the development of an appropriate legal framework and financial mechanisms aimed at the infrastructural development of territories, improving the quality of human capital, scientific and technological development, etc. At the same time, recently the public authorities at the federal and regional levels have started to pay attention not only to large and largest urban agglomerations defined in the Strategy for Spatial Development of the Russian Federation, but also to smaller urban agglomerations. A special intensification of institutionalisation of the status of urban agglomerations is observed in the normative legal acts of many constituent entities of the Russian Federation. However, the methodological aspects of formation and development of urban agglomerations in the regions are not elaborated. The analysis of existing theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of agglomeration processes also revealed the lack of methods for analysing the scale of complex socio-economic processes of urban agglomerations. Therefore, the need to form a methodology for assessing the scale of agglomeration development in the regions of the Russian Federation determined the relevance of the study. The aim of the study is to develop an indicator of the scale of socio-economic processes of Russian urban agglomerations. To achieve this aim, the existing methodologies of urban agglomerations research, presented in the approaches of Russian and foreign scientists, were analysed. The analysis allowed us to systematise the existing methodological approaches into two groups: the features of spatial development of agglomerated systems and the characteristics of their economic condition. The advantages and disadvantages of the existing methodologies are presented, on the basis of which a methodological toolkit for the scale of agglomerated systems is developed. The conclusion is made about the possibility of using the proposed indicator by public administration authorities in the development of normative legal acts of strategic planning in the field of spatial and socio-economic development of regions, in scientific and analytical research in the field of regional economy. The methods of content and comparative analysis, mathematical formalisation, expert assessments, modelling, observation and synthesis were used to solve the research problems.