Spatial Issues in Strategies of Municipal Districts

Abstract

The representation of spatial issues in the texts of municipal strategies of administrative districts was studied using an original technique. On the basis of samples of 30 Russian and foreign strategies, it was found that spatial issues (in this study these were: economic and geographic location, population distribution and economic activity in the district, comfortability of the environment, connectivity, transport accessibility, migration flows) in the majority of municipal strategies are taken into account in one way or another and in half of the cases spatial issues are presented at a good level. The depth and quality of the analysis of spatial issues are significantly differentiated (ranks range fr om 3 to 18). A high level of presence of spatial issues correlates with the overall quality of strategic documents and is shown in the strategies of the districts of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and the Leningrad oblast, wh ere there are strong traditions of strategic planning at the regional level and professional consultant teams are involved in the strategy development. An attempt to test quantitatively the hypothesis that there is a relationship between the degree to which spatial issues are taken into account in the strategy and the success of social and economic development did not give reliable results due to a small sample size and low quality of statistical indicators at the municipal level. Nevertheless, the introduction of three-point scales made it possible to compare roughly the distribution of districts into three groups for the assessment of spatial issues inclusion into the strategy and into three groups according to the success of social and economic development. The highest average assessment of the manifestation of spatial issues is in the group of successful districts. The share of districts that are successful in terms of social and economic development is higher in areas whose strategies feature an average or high degree of presence of spatial issues.