Spatial tendencies and peculiarities of socio-economic development of cities and rural areas of a region

Abstract

Modern dynamic development of the Ukrainian society and its integration into global social and economic space is followed by emergence of a wide range of problems (internal and external calls and threats of political and financial and economic nature; spatial deformations at the regional and local levels, growth of a fragmentariness and asymmetry in social and economic development of regions, areas, cities and rural territories, lack of systemic nature and coordination of all participants of regional development), the majority of which is especially sharply shown at the regional level. In this regard, there is a need to reveal the spatial development characteristics and problems of the cities and rural territories for Ukrainian regions, to identify their weaknesses and strengths, in order to determine the optimal mechanism for improving spatial development, which would in the future allow for efficient combining of the state and regional interests in the process of ensuring sustainable development of social and economic space and its regional subsystems. The basic spatial tendencies and characteristic features of socio-economic development of cities and rural territories of Zaporizhia region are highlighted, as well as the optimum mechanism of improvement of their spatial development taking into account regional specificity is outlined. The analysis of the main socio-economic and spatial development indicators allowed us to identify the main characteristics of the urbanization process in the region and its impact on the development of suburban areas. Ranging of cities and areas of the region by the level of social and economic development by means of an integrated index of economic development of the cities and districts of the Zaporizhia region based on quantitative and qualitative characteristics of various aspects of social and economic dynamics of their development is carried out. This approach allowed us to ensure the validity and methodological correctness of comparisons of cities and districts parameters in Zaporizhia region by partial integral indexes (economic, social and environmental), and also to determine the place of each of them by rating in the region, which allowed to reliably estimate the depth and extent of their socio-economic development differentiation.