FEATURES OF THE URBAN AGGLOMERATIONS DEVELOPMENT IN THE CONDITIONS OF CONTEMPORARY GLOBALIZATION

Abstract

The intensity of globalization processes and the role of cities in the socio-economic development of countries and regions increase at the current stage of society's development. Agglomerations that have the status of the global (world) level play the most crucial role. he purpose of the paper is to analyze the impact of globalization processes on the peculiarities of the development of urban agglomerations in the conditions of contemporary globalization, as well as to identify problems and prospects for their further evolution. The research was carried out based on the system, synergistic, informational and human-geographical approaches; using the methods of induction and deduction, comparison, analogy, analysis, synthesis, systematization, as well as mathematical, statistical and cartographic methods. Three waves characterized the spread of globalization in historical retrospect: the first one (the first half of the 20th century) described the intensive development of cities and industry, the development of transport infrastructure; the second wave (the second half of the 20th century) marked the formation of transnational, transcontinental and global corporations, the transfer of "dirty" industries to the territory of poor third world countries; the third (the beginning of the 21st century – until now) characterizes the emergence of urbanization beyond geopolitical and administrative borders. A significant trend in the contemporary development of cities is the tendency towards developing urban agglomerations, increasing their importance in contemporary spatial transformations and processes taking place on the planet. Agglomerations within regions of the world arose quite unevenly. The largest number are in the USA, Europe, and Asia, and agglomerations are growing at an accelerated pace in Africa and Latin America. Until the 20th century, the large agglomerations were formed mostly in developed countries and regions of the world due to the available resource and economic potential. Now the processes of intensive agglomeration are characterized for cities and developing countries, where the number of agglomerations is increasing. A significant increase in the number of cities and agglomerations in countries with a low level of development leads to the emergence and aggravation of global problems of modern times.