Constituent Entities Of The Russian Federation With Cities Of Over One Million Inhabitants: The State Of And Trends In Their Internal Disparities

Abstract

Sustainable development in Russia requires work to be done in a number of areas. One of the mechanisms for solving internal problems is to decrease the gaps in the level of socioeconomic development between the country’s regions. This article provides an overview of the current state of the internal disparities in the socioeconomic development of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation that include cities with a population of over one million.The constituent entities of the Russian Federation were analyzed in terms of the concentration of their population in the administrative centres. The population concentration ratio for cities of over one million inhabitants and the population polycentricity ratio for the corresponding entities were calculated. The ranking of entities was carried out based on these indicators. An analysis of the “contributions” of cities and peripheral areas to the formation of the gross regional product of the studied entities of the Russian Federation was carried out. The economic concentration ratios of cities with over one million inhabitants were calculated. The relationship of this indicator with the population ratio was established. Based on this, the following categories were identified: entities that are not in danger of a population or economy hyper-concentration in the administrative centre; entities with moderate population concentration in the city of more than one million inhabitants combined with an upward trend in their economic concentration; and entities with a high concentration of the population and economy in the administrative centre and signs of decrease in the population and economic concentration.