STATE AND TRENDS OF URBANIZATION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE FORMATION OF A SMART ECONOMY

Abstract

The article is devoted to the diagnosis of the state of urbanism and urbanization trends in the world, in its individual regions and in Ukraine. The etymology of the term "smart" and the peculiarities of modern scientific approaches to its interpretation have been established. The relationship and difference between the concepts of "urbanism" and "urbanization" are studied: urbanization is considered as a process of spatial evolution of society due to the growth of urban and reduction of rural population and the process of transition from rural to urban lifestyle; urbanism is defined as the achieved level of the development of cities and urban environment as a whole, which reflects the impact of the state of urban environment on people's lives and the relationship between people and urban territories. The terms "urbanism" and "urbanization" are used to denote the parameters characterizing, respectively, the state of the research object at a certain point in time and the change in its state over time. The level of urbanism and the trends of urbanization in the world, in individual countries and regions of the world, in Ukraine and its regions is diagnosed by the indicator of the share of urban population in the total population of the territories and by the results of the analysis of trends in its dynamics. It is concluded that the processes of the formation of a smart economy and a smart society are related to the processes of urbanization, since cities are important centers of concentration of resources, technologies, innovations and infrastructure; at the same time, urbanization should be considered in the context of sustainable development, which involves the preservation of natural resources and environmental protection, in order to ensure balanced socio-economic development of urban areas.