Paradigmatic foundations of health resorts’ municipal economics (case of Russia’s urban districts)

Abstract

The scientific paradigm of exploring health resort towns’ municipal economies is just emerging and becomes a relevant research issue, because the problems of maintaining, promoting and restoring population health have been gaining particular significance recently. The paper aims to generalise about and systematise the scientific heritage concerning the factors behind and conditions of appearance, as well as peculiarities of economic structure and dynamics of urban settlements, the principal function of which is providing health resort services. The methodological basis of the research rests on an interdisciplinary approach that combines the achievements of economic and social geography (principles underlying the typology of settlements), economic sociology (theory of the consumer society), and municipal science (municipal economics as its main part). The research benefits from methods of systematisation and formalisation, bibliometric analysis and content analysis. As a result, the study explicates the scientific paradigm of the research of health resorts’ municipal economies and exemplifies it by the case of Russia’s urban districts; identifies essential characteristics of the concept “urban district of a health resort type”; and justifies the peculiarities of functioning and transformation of municipal economies of health resort towns. The said peculiarities include special infrastructure, high degree of specialisation, distinct seasonality of municipal economy, dependence of business activities on the characteristics of the arriving population. The theoretical and methodological findings allow organising scientific achievements in the field of functioning and transformation of the municipal economies of health resort towns and outlining the directions for further exploration to complete the paradigmatic foundations and determine the key predictors of the future dynamics and economic growth.