Key Settlements in New Strategy of Russia’s Spatial Development: Regional Functions

Abstract

The Government of the Russian Federation and the regional authorities have agreed on a list of 2,160 key settlements, the socio-economic development of which will receive state support until 2030, with a possible extension until 2036. Each such settlement has its main function in Russia’s spatial development. There are 16 identified functions. In our study, they are referred to as settlement functions. However, the role of each Russian region in this versatility is not entirely clear. Therefore, a study was conducted to identify regional functions. It was proposed to assess the role of a region in spatial development based on three aspects: significance, contrast, and diversity. To assess the importance of a region in a particular function, an index was used that shows the ratio of the region’s share in that function to its share in the total population of Russia. The calculations were performed for four regional functions (groups of settlement functions): providing social services, implementing investment projects, ensuring national security, and maintaining critical infrastructure. The regions were clustered based on the preference relations between four regional functions. Four clusters were identified that characterize the spatial distribution of regional functions. An index of the contrast between the borders of different regions has been proposed. According to its values, there are five regional functions of non-coincidence of key settlements: significantly different environment, predominantly significantly different environment, equality of significantly and slightly different environments, predominantly slightly different environment, and slightly different environment. Regions with low, medium, and high diversity have been identified. Nine nuclei of high diversity have been identified. It has been proposed to consider the distortion of the ideal scheme of decreasing diversity as a regional function. The distribution of regions according to three such functions – compliance, excess and underestimation of diversity is shown. The results obtained can be used to optimize the list of reference settlements in Russia