КОНЦЕПЦИЯ БЛИЗОСТИ: ЗАРУБЕЖНЫЙ ОПЫТ И ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ ПРИМЕНЕНИЯ В РОССИИ

Abstract

The article is devoted to the relatively new concept of proximity, which was born at the turn of centuries in the European regional science (economic geography and regional economics), but relies on long traditions of spatial studies (starting with J. Thunen and ending with studies of regional clusters and urban agglomerations). Proximity is orientated on the evaluation and analysis of potential interaction between different objects with account of their relative position and similarity in various parameters (social, institutional, organizational, etc.). This concept has similarity with the concept of economic-geographical position; however, due to including in the concept of proximity much larger number of factors (spatial, cultural and axiological community, position in social networks, etc.) the authors define it as a multidimensional economic-geographical position. Abroad, the concept of proximity is used primarily within the geography of innovation. In Russia, the tools of this concept are promising to use for studying of the spatial organization not only in the Western tradition (for instance, in the study of territorial clusters and sectoral innovation processes), but also for the analysis of specific Russian phenomena (dacha migration, otkhodnichestvo, etc.). Furthermore, conditions of the vast Russian spaces force to review and develop the concept of proximity with account of dialectical combination with concept of remoteness used in Arctic researches. Particular relevance in the context of Russia, according to the authors, should be given to temporal proximity as a form of compensation of factors of remoteness.