Vol 7, No 1 (2017)

After years of reforms, Russian Railways, which is managed by the public railway, faces a situation known as an institutional trap. The assumption that the transformation of other mechanisms of the Russian economy will be performed synchronously with this key infrastructure sector proved wrong. A territorial and organizational model of railway management was replaced by an overcentralized management model according to types of activity. The Russian Railways now is a holding company, which manages railway operations through a top-down command structure from the corporate center to a primary functional railway unit. The paper analyzes the management efficiency of rail transport using a new model and considers ways out of the institutional trap. Approaches to developing structural reform of the Russian Railways are proposed.

The paper presents characteristics of Crimea’s hydro-economic situation and demonstrates the necessity of solving problems that have already accumulated in the regional economy’s water sector, as well as new ones generated by the political decision by certain Ukrainian authorities to reunify Crimea with Russia. Socioeconomic and environmental impacts of the deliberately created water resource shortage are described. Ways of reducing hydro-economic tension and related problems are analyzed. Priority measures addressing Crimea’s water supply and results of their implementation are considered, as well as regional development programs. The study has shown that the territorial redistribution of local water resources (river runoff and groundwater) can provide Crimea with drinking and public water. However, the shortage of irrigation water remains a problem, because the region does not have water resources to the extent necessary for irrigated agriculture. Large reserves for increasing water resources are related to reducing their losses (both in housing and communal services and in land reclamation) and rational water use (especially by decreasing or halting the use of clean drinking water for technical needs). We believe that a major way to decrease the water resource shortage and to meet agricultural and industrial needs is desalination of seawater. International practice has proved the efficiency of such a method.

The restoration of historical cultural landscapes, which has become increasingly widespread in developed countries, has resurrected two common approaches based on a specific set of measures applied for landscape reconstruction and preservation (area management plans) and landscape and visual impact assessment (so-called LVIA). The development of area management plans is associated with the evolving concept of a target state, in which the landscape preserves its functionality and possesses the properties of a historical reference model. Such properties are sought using geographic information systems and old map sources, in the course of reconstruction of landscape history. The implementation of LVIA requires prior structural modeling of a visual space in relation to its observers, photographs, and the revealing roles of individual components in forming landscape scenes, as well as determination of visual deformations that negatively affect the aesthetic properties of the landscape. Adverse aesthetic changes may occur as a result of both new actions in development of the area and the natural dynamics of the landscape and its “wilding” (ecorehabilitation). The design of a three-dimensional cultural landscape computer model, supplemented by step by step parameterization of potential changes, makes it possible to objectify the entire process of evaluating acceptable impact on the aesthetic properties of a landscape and to apply this model for solving conflict issues associated with the development of areas of outstanding natural beauty and historical significance.

The possibilities of innovation development, as well as the creation and promotion of an innovative model of a region’s subsoil development, have several dimensions. Regional factors and conditions have the most importance among them. Practical interest in the regional level of administration consists in analysis of controllable factors. The paper discusses the theoretical base and experience of innovation development of the most successful resource-based countries. The analysis shows that the key role in innovation development is played by the state; national innovation systems are shaped with consideration of the resource-related specifics of the economy. Government regulation aims to wholly encourage entrepreneurship and private initiative; therefore, a considerable share of investment in scientific research comes from industry. The experience of innovation developed Russian resource regions (Tomsk oblast, the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, and the Republic of Tatarstan) proves that the development of innovation sphere improved the regions’ image and conditions to attract investment and highly trained professionals. The innovation component can provide an impulse not only in the development of traditional production segments, but also in addressing socioeconomic problems of areas. A trend has emerged of taking into account regions’ resource profiles in their innovation development strategies, but there is still a lack of relations between the innovation sector and the region’s resource enterprises. The share of the resource sector in the structure of the economy is not a decisive factor (neither an obstacle) of successful innovation activity, since there are other significant factors and conditions. The regional governance level plays an important role in establishing and developing innovation processes: along with technological innovations, managerial, organizational and marketing innovations have become important; institutional transformations, political competencies, and the role of regional authorities come to the foreground; a good return can be achieved through active participation in federal initiatives to support innovation development.

The paper analyzes regional features of Russian population dynamics in the post-Soviet period (1990–2014). This period is divided into three time intervals that are homogeneous in mean Russian population dynamics (1990–1998, 1999–2006, and 2007–2014). The typology of regional dynamics is based on a comparison of regional trends with the average Russian trends. Sets of indicators of dynamics in each federal subject are shown by combinations of “+” (increase) and “–” (decrease) for three time intervals; on the basis of these combinations, seven types of regional population dynamics are identified. We have analyzed the geographical features of the distribution of each type. The results of this typology and its comparison with our typology of regional population dynamics in the second half of the 20th century (1959–2002) confirmed the hypothesis of the inertia of long-term trends in population dynamics when current changes are decisively affected by the sign of the trend of previous periods (increase or decrease). We have typologized regions by the ratio of components of dynamics for the most specific, in terms of dynamics, time intervals between 1990 and 2014 to identify the contribution of demographic and migration processes. It was found that long-term trends in population dynamics are the most sustainable for polar types, namely, a constant increase and constant decrease of the population. Zones of constant increase and constant decrease in population in Russia were identified and characterized by analyzing combinations of population dynamics components. It is noted that the influence of economic factors transforms the impact of climate on population dynamics.

In conditions of intense spatial transformation of the Moscow agglomeration (MA) driven by housing construction and migration from Russian regions, study of how these processes are interrelated has become an urgent task. In the article a new model of spatial equilibrium in MA is developed. Model includes three blocks: (1) a spatial equilibrium model for the labor and housing markets in the MA; (2) a model of dynamic equilibrium between migration and housing construction in the MA; (3) a model of housing construction distribution by zones of the MA. In block 1, for three zones of the MA (the central business district, urban zone, and zone of new construction) the equilibrium values of population, employment, and wages are determined with allowance for commuting. In block 2, equilibrium is determined between the migration level and housing construction in the MA, which replicates the gap in real incomes between the MA and other Russian regions. Deviation from equilibrium leads to an adjustment of incentives for migration and a change in its level restores equilibrium. In block 3, it is shown that the behavior of developers owing to land price adjustment determines the location of construction by the MA zones. Despite the generic nature of the model, it is able to reproduce a number of trends in the spatial evolution of the MA, including the transition from an extensive stage of development with sprawling construction and hyperdensity of the center to an intense stage with in-depth development of the main “body” of the city. The model stresses how tightly related the processes in the largest agglomeration of the country and the national settlement system are. The model shows how the political and economic processes, via changes in rent and agglomeration economies, change incentives for work, living, and housing construction in different zones of the agglomeration and determine the fate of urban territories. The model also describes the influence of the internal structure of the MA on interregional migration. By increasing construction, especially of affordable housing in greenfield projects at the periphery of the agglomeration, the city implicitly accepts a decision to increase migration affecting Russia’s national settlement system.

The Program for Reindustrialization of the Economy of Novosibirsk Oblast up to 2025 was prepared by a team of researchers at the Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IEIE SB RAS) on the assignment of the Oblast Administration. The article outlines the key features of the program and its architecture; the reindustrialization potential of the oblast economy is represented as nine integrated flagship projects reflecting key competencies of regional science and technology. Directions in the formation of the innovation and engineering belt based on the Novosibirsk Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences and academic research are presented. Special emphasis is placed on the strategic initiative for establishing a Siberian scientific cluster, which can become the country’s largest territory of priority innovative development. It is concluded that the Program for Reindustrialization of the Economy of Novosibirsk Oblast should be an essential element of strategic planning for the region and can be seen as an important federal pilot project, the implementation of which could serve for practical refinement in elements of interaction between government, business, and science to activate innovative directions of regional development. Public participation in the development of the program has revealed its great integration potential.