Due to the growth of the industrial development of cities in the 20th century, the world's population gradually moved to cities.

So at the end of the 20th century, the city population on the planet became almost 50%, while at the beginning of the century the urban population was an insignificant 13% of the world's population.

At the moment, there are more than 50% of citizens on the planet, and everyone strives for life in the metropolis.

In this article, I want to consider the 10 largest agglomerations in the world, which have sheltered more than 230 million inhabitants within their borders.

The largest agglomeration city is Tokyo with a population of 37.7 million, which is equal to the population of Poland.

The total area occupied by the Tokyo agglomeration is 8677 km? and a population density of 4,340 people per km². The Tokyo agglomeration is so large because it combines 2 large cities of Tokyo and Yokohama and a number of other smaller settlements.

The second place in this list belongs to the capital of Mexico - Mexico City.

The number of inhabitants of the Mexico City agglomeration reaches 23.6 million people who get along on an area of ​​7346 km². At the same time, the population density is 3212 people per km². The Mexico City metropolitan area is located above all others on this list above sea level.

The third largest agglomeration in terms of the number of inhabitants is the city of New York, in which 23.3 million people live on an area of ​​11,264 km². The population density is 2,070 inhabitants per km². The city is the largest financial center in the world.

In fourth place is the agglomeration of the city of Seoul - the capital of South Korea. The population is 22.7 million inhabitants. The total area occupied by the agglomeration is 1943 km? and a population density of 11,680 people per km².

The fifth place in this list belongs to the agglomeration city of Mumbai (until 1995 Bombay). The number of inhabitants in the agglomeration is 21.9 million. Territory - 2,350 km? and a population density of 9,320 inhabitants per km². The city itself and the entire agglomeration are developing very rapidly.

The sixth in our list was the urban agglomeration of Sao Paulo (Brazil). The number of inhabitants living within this administrative unit is 20.8 million inhabitants. The area of ​​the agglomeration is 7944 km? and a population density of 2620 inhabitants per km².

The Philippine capital Manila ranks seventh on the list of urban agglomerations and has 20.7 million inhabitants. The agglomeration area is 4863 km? and a population density of 4256 people per km².

Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, is in 8th place on this list with a population of 19.2 million inhabitants. The area of ​​Jakarta urban agglomeration is 7,297 km? and a population density of 2,631 people per km².

The ninth place among the largest urban agglomerations in the world is the capital of Delhi. The population in this agglomeration is 18.9 million people with an area of ​​1425 km². The population density is 13,265 inhabitants per km², which puts this agglomeration in first place in terms of population density.

Lotus Temple in Delhi

Agglomeration is a key form of modern settlement, a qualitative shift in settlement, a new stage in its evolution, when a network of settlements turns into a system. In all developed countries and in most third world countries, the predominant part of the population and production is concentrated in agglomerations. Their share is especially large in the concentration of non-productive activities, higher forms of service.

Formation of agglomerations. Their development is based on the territorial concentration of people's activities. There are two most common ways of forming agglomerations: “from the city” and “from the district” (Figure 2.5).

Formation of the agglomeration "from the city". Upon reaching a certain “threshold” (which is strongly influenced by the size of the city, its economic profile, local and regional natural conditions)

a dynamically developing large city feels an increasing need for new development resources - territories, sources of water supply, infrastructure. However, within the city limits, they are exhausted or close to exhaustion. Further continuous (perimeter) expansion of the urban area is associated with negative consequences.

Therefore, the center of gravity of development is objectively moving to suburban areas. There are satellite settlements (most often on the basis of existing small settlements) of various profiles. On the one hand, everything that does not fit in the city “spills out” beyond its borders. On the other hand, much of what strives for it from the outside settles on the outskirts. Thus, the agglomeration is formed by two counter flows.

In some cases, the objects that make up the city-forming base of satellites (industrial enterprises, testing grounds, research laboratories, design bureaus, marshalling yards, warehouses, etc.) seem to sprout from the existing national economic complex of the city. In others, they arise in response to the needs of the city and the country, are created by the efforts of various sectors of the economy, being attracted by favorable development conditions in the area surrounding the city.

Development of the agglomeration “from the district” typical for resource zones, in places of development of the extractive industry, where, during the development of large deposits, a group of settlements of similar specialization usually appears. Over time, one of them, located more conveniently than others in relation to the area of ​​​​settlement and having the best conditions for development, attracts objects of non-local significance. Gradually, it becomes an organizational, economic and cultural center. All this determines its priority growth and gradual rise in the territorial group of settlements, which over time acquire the role of satellites in relation to it.

This is how the formation of the city takes place, which assumes the functions of the center of the agglomeration. A closed labor balance begins to prevail among his companions: the inhabitants of the village work mainly at an enterprise located right here in the village. Therefore, labor ties with the city-center in the formations of the type under consideration are weaker than in agglomerations developing “from the city”. With further growth and strengthening of the multifunctionality of the city center, the differences between the agglomerations of the two categories described are weakening, although there remains a significant difference in the nature of the use of the territory. In the agglomerations of industrial regions (mining industry), significant areas are occupied by dumps, warehouses, and access roads.

The formation of an agglomeration is a selective process that unfolds where favorable conditions arise for it. Therefore, agglomeration should be considered as one of the forms of settlement, which should remain diverse in the future, since the interests of various segments of the population are heterogeneous. Agglomerations differ in their predominant activities, size, and degree of maturity. At the same time, as a specific form of settlement, they have some common properties. We note those that can be called fundamental (according to G. Lappo):

Intensive and effective interaction. The agglomeration appears as an area of ​​close connections that do not require large expenditures of time and money;

· Complementarity (complementarity) of constituent elements - centers of different profiles. Cities and towns are mutually oriented towards providing services to each other, which also determines the high density of intra-agglomeration links;

· dynamism of development and functioning;

· the concentration of progressive elements of the productive forces, which are associated with the development of the new in science, technology, culture. This makes the agglomeration a “point of growth” and a factor in the development of the adjacent territory.

All of these properties determine the role of agglomeration as a focus and driver of development, a source of emergence and dissemination of innovations.

In the agglomeration, as in the city (in settlement in general), the law of self-organization operates. However, it cannot be expected that the agglomerations will live as if in a regime of automatic regulation based on this law. It is necessary to develop a concept for the development of each agglomeration and, on its basis, create a plan for the rational use of natural resources, the balanced development of all its constituent elements within an environmentally acceptable framework. This is a prerequisite for the effective use of the potential of agglomerations.

Spatial structure of agglomerations. The boundaries separating the different parts of the agglomeration (Figure 2.6) are determined primarily by the conditions of accessibility of the center. Its general border also depends on this. Differences in accessibility act as the initial condition for differentiation, which further intensifies and becomes more distinct under the influence of the intensity of connections between the satellite area and the city center, the nature of the use of the territory, the density

placement of facilities, level of transport service, etc. The differentiation of agglomerations has a mosaic, cellular character.

The basis of the territorial structure of the agglomeration is formed by its supporting frame, primarily the central city and radial (radiating from it) transport routes, as well as the main centers. Along the transport radii, settlement beams wide at the base are formed, which come to naught where the time spent on regular daily trips to the city center exceeds the expedient, from the point of view of the population, limits. With a developed multipath transport hub, the agglomeration takes the form of a star.

Between the rays of settlement, which look like either a continuous strip of continuous development, or a chain of settlements separated by open buffer zones, green wedges stretch. In town-planning schemes, they are given an important role as barriers that prevent the coalescence of the rays of settlement into a continuous built-up spot, and green wedges are introduced into the structure of the city center itself. Very often there is a similarity between the frameworks of the central city and the satellite zone. The frame indicates the direction of growth and ensures the interaction of the parts that make up the suburban area. Satellite zones (approximately circular) cover the city center and in developed agglomerations are divided into belts that differ in the nature and intensity of interaction, population density and the density of the road network and settlements. The first belt is formed by the nearest satellites. Often they represent a continuation of the city center. It has the highest population density and

densest road network. In the settlements of the nearest zone, the proportion of residents working in the central city is high. There is also a significant counter flow of pendulum migrants leaving the center city to work in satellites and mainly settling in the first belt. In developed agglomerations, the nearest satellites are similar to the peripheral areas of the city center, with which they have close transport links. They are similar to the peripheral areas of the central city in terms of functions, composition of the population and the nature of development. Attracting residents of other settlements to work, they push the boundaries of the agglomeration.

Closing satellites are located where the centripetal flows of pendulum migration lose their significance due to the limiting distance. In a number of projects, the closing satellites are given the role of priority development centers, which should somewhat weaken the labor flows directed to the city center.

Within developed agglomerations, which are dense groupings of urban settlements, localizations of increased density are formed, which are called second-order agglomerations (G. Lappo, Z. Yargina). Most often they are headed by a distinct center (distinguished by its size, development of the functional structure, centrality). There are also bipolar formations. In agglomerations of the second order, due to the increased concentration of population and production, the planning and environmental situation is complicated.

The second belt of satellites is formed in mature agglomerations. Here, the population density and the density of the road network are lower, and the proportion of suburbanites among the working population is smaller. Built-up areas are interspersed with vast open spaces that exceed them in size - agricultural and forest landscapes.

The outer zone, bordering the satellite zone, is not connected with the central city by daily labor trips of the population. Recreational ties are of the greatest importance, sharply increasing in summer. At this time, the agglomeration pushes back its outer border, marking a seasonally expanding area in which the weekly cycle of life activity closes. The agglomeration appears as a pulsating formation with periodically moving boundaries.

As the agglomerations evolve, there is a consistent, fairly slow, depending on the progress in transport, shifting outside the boundaries of the outer zone. The centers located in the peripheral zone in the planning schemes receive the role of close counterbalances to the city center.

Agglomeration center. The formation of an agglomeration on the basis of a large city is a natural process of self-development of settlement. A compact city has advantages over an agglomeration, but up to certain limits. The expansion of its territory cannot be unlimited. G.A. Golts calculated that with the size of the urban area over 500 km 2 it is fundamentally impossible to ensure acceptable time spent on work trips with the help of public transport. The construction of the subway makes it possible to raise the upper limit of the size of the city's territory to 800 km 2 . Moscow has already significantly exceeded this limit.

It is known that it is possible to reach the center of the main city of the agglomeration from satellites located at transport radii with much less time than from some peripheral areas of the main city. Thus, certain economic and social reasons underlie the emergence and development of agglomerations. The city, as the center of the agglomeration, takes on additional responsibilities for servicing its environment and at the same time uses this environment to solve its own problems, which leads to significant changes in the city itself. Often such territory-intensive links of the city-forming base as test sites for various equipment manufactured by city enterprises, marshalling railway stations, warehouses, airports, etc. often move to the satellite zone. In addition to the fact that these objects require a large area, in many cases they are fire and explosion hazards, they are the most active and major pollutants of the atmosphere, soil and water.

In the satellite towns, conditions are consistently improved for familiarizing its population with the values ​​concentrated in the city-center, the benefits of culture, art, education, business activity, science, technology, and all kinds of information centers. The inhabitants of the satellite zone, who use the places of application of labor concentrated in the central city, expand the possibilities of choosing the type and place of work.

The city-center of the agglomeration, expanding and improving its obligations in relation to the satellite zone, also changes its planning structure accordingly. It is saturated with elements through which contacts with the environment are made. In the Moscow agglomeration, the following neoplasms can be identified in the planning structure of the agglomeration core (G. Lappo, Z. Yargina).

1. Combined or extremely close stops of urban (metro) and suburban (electric) transport: on the Ryazan-Kazan railway radius ("Electrozavodskaya", "Vykhino"), Riga ("Dmitrovskaya", "Tushino"), Smolensky ("Begovaya" ), Kursk (“Tekstilshchiki”), Nizhny Novgorod (“Hammer and Sickle” - “Ilyich Square”), Paveletsky (“Kolomenskaya” - “Warsawskaya”). In addition, urban and suburban transport are docked at all stations, i.e. on all eleven railway lines.

2. Industrial and research-and-production zones in the peripheral areas of the central city, as it were, are put forward to meet the streams of pendulum migrants directed towards it. In Moscow, such zones arose in the lanes adjacent to the railway radii (Chertanovo, Degunino, Biryulyovo, Ochakovo, etc.), which supplemented the already existing ones (Perovo, Tekstilshchiki, Lyublino).

3. Shopping centers - supermarkets and markets at the forecourt, sometimes at the peripheral suburban-urban transport hubs.

4. Bus stations at the end stations of the metro, from which numerous bus routes begin, connecting the city center with satellite zones.

The satellite zone and the city center are covered by a common ecological framework. City parks and forest parks serve as a continuation of green wedges coming from the suburban area along the inter-radial sectors.

One of the results of the growing interaction of the central city with its surroundings is the territorial expansion of buildings towards each other, which is usually not provided for in master plans and district planning schemes. The green belt, which should be stable and play a key role in the ecological framework, is being expanded from both the city center and its satellites.

The tradition that has developed in modern urban planning to periodically revise the boundaries of the city, expand its territory leads to the need to change the territorial organization of the region, which masks the process of agglomeration. One of the reasons for the city's active absorption of large expanses of the suburban area is the lack of land prices. This also explains the mismanagement of the urban area.

Satellite cities. In urban planning, this is the name given to specially created settlements near a large city to solve its problems, regulate the economic base, stabilize or slow down population growth. This category should also include all settlements formed in the immediate vicinity of a large city, regardless of whether they arose spontaneously or were created specially according to developed projects. Satellites created to regulate the growth of large cities - a kind of reaction to their hypertrophy - a very common category of the new city in the 20th century. The situation near the capitals made increased demands on the quality of new cities. Their design and construction contributed to the improvement of urban planning art and the development of a number of topical problems of urban planning.

A galaxy of satellite cities of London, cities of the Paris region, located on the axes of development - landmarks of the spatial growth of Greater Paris, a satellite of the Swedish capital of Wellingby and the Finnish Tapiola have become typical examples of reference cities.

It was proposed to develop a system of satellite cities of Moscow already in the first post-revolutionary years in the plans for the reconstruction of the capital by Sakulin (1918) and Shestakov (1921-1925; Figure 2.7). In the 1950s, a scheme for the location of satellite cities was also developed for the Moscow region. One option provided for the creation of a ring of nearby satellites, 34-40 km away from Moscow. In another, a distant ring was planned, at a distance of 70-80 km.

A good example of a satellite city is modern Zelenograd, one of the most attractive new cities in Russia. The population of the satellite was supposed to be formed at the expense of Muscovites who would express a desire to move to the satellite city. So that people would not feel disadvantaged, it was decided to consider Zelenograd as an administrative district of the capital.

Another example of a satellite city is the city of Dzerzhinsk. The reason for the creation of Dzerzhinsk near Nizhny Novgorod was the construction of a complex of chemical enterprises of all-Union significance.

Types of satellite cities. There are two main categories (according to G. Lappo):

a) cities oriented by their functions to meet the needs of the city-center as a cluster of population, industrial, utility and construction complexes. Such are the settlements at airports, aeration and water supply stations, building materials enterprises. This also includes centers supplying semi-finished products and auxiliary materials (textile raw materials, molding powders for the manufacture of plastic products, molding sands, etc.), etc.;

b) centers specializing in activities and industries similar to those that make up the upper tiers of the functional structure of the main city. These are the centers of fundamental scientific research (cities - science cities).

Typologically, genetically and functionally, satellite cities are very diverse. Typological schemes known from urban planning and urban studies usually do not apply to satellite cities. The main criteria for dividing into types are the nature of the relationship with the center city, as well as the development of the functional structure and position in the agglomeration.

In agglomerations, the type satellite-highly specialized center with a simple functional structure. If the main production or type of activity “overgrows” with others that are functionally related to the main one, there is satellite-specialized complex. If two (or more) geographically close satellite-specialized centers merge into one, then multifunctional conglomerate satellite. In the Moscow region, such are Kashira, which swallowed up the city of Novokashirsk (at the Kashirskaya state district power station), Dubna, to which the city of Ivankovo ​​was attached, and others.

Multifunctional satellites are formed as a result of the natural development of the city, gradually complicating and multiplying the duties it performs. The main functions of satellites:

be in close interaction with the city center;

serve his needs;

participate in solving problems;

help realize its potential.

By performing these basic functions, satellite cities naturally create, together with the center city, an integral unity - functional, planning, settlement. Satellites differ quite significantly depending on their position in the territorial structure of the agglomeration. common suburban satellites, characteristic of many developed agglomerations and especially characteristic of Moscow. One of them is the city of Lyubertsy - a direct continuation of the southeastern part of Moscow, which in the 1980s. having stepped over the Moscow Ring Road, came into direct contact with it.

According to the position in the settlement system, the following main types are distinguished: a) city-suburb; b) closing satellite; c) second-order agglomeration center; d) "satellites-satellites". Highly specialized centers usually act as a "satellite of satellites".

In some places they grow together, united in a complex multicomponent dynamic system with intensive production, transport and cultural ties. The formation of urban agglomerations is one of the stages of urbanization.

Distinguish monocentric(formed around one large core city, for example, the New York metropolitan area) and polycentric agglomerations (having several core cities, for example, clusters of cities in the Ruhr basin of Germany).

The proximity of settlements sometimes gives the so-called agglomeration effect - economic and social benefits by reducing costs from the spatial concentration of industries and other economic facilities in urban agglomerations.

Merging Criteria

The criteria for uniting territories in different countries are different. But the main generally accepted criteria for combining cities and settlements into one agglomeration are:

• direct adjoining of densely populated territories (cities, towns, settlements) to the main city (city core) without significant gaps in development;
• the area of ​​built-up (urbanized) territories in the agglomeration exceeds the area of ​​agricultural land, forests;
• mass labor, educational, household, cultural and recreational trips (pendulum migrations) - at least 10-15% of the able-bodied population living in cities and settlements of the agglomeration work in the center of the main city.

Not taken into account:

• the existing administrative-territorial division;
• direct distance itself (without taking into account other factors);
• close subordinate settlements without direct communication along transport corridors;
• nearby self-sufficient cities.

An example of established criteria for agglomeration is the definition of the term "agglomeration" adopted by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, namely:

a) agglomerations unite several municipalities with at least 20 thousand inhabitants;

b) each agglomeration has a main zone, the core of the city, which includes at least 10 thousand inhabitants;

c) each community of the agglomeration has at least 2 thousand working-age people, of which at least 1/6 are employed in the main city (or groups of main cities for a polycentric agglomeration),

d) for polycentric agglomeration, additional criteria may be:

• no gaps in the building (agricultural land, forests) more than 200 meters,
• the excess of the built-up area over the unbuilt area in the agglomeration is 10 times,
• Population growth in previous decades has been at least 10% above average.

Agglomerations in developed countries concentrate significant masses of the population. The growth of agglomerations reflects the territorial concentration of industrial production and labor resources. The spontaneous growth of agglomerations sometimes leads to the formation of a megalopolis (superglomeration or superagglomeration), the largest form of settlement.

Conurbation

Conurbation- (from lat. con - together and urbs - city),

1. An urban agglomeration of a polycentric type has as cores several cities of more or less the same size and importance in the absence of a clearly dominant one (for example, a cluster of cities in the Ruhr basin, Germany).
2. in some countries - a synonym for any urban agglomeration.

The most significant conurbations (polycentric agglomerations) were formed in Europe - the Ruhr in Germany (according to various estimates, depending on the composition of the included cities, from 5 to 11.5 million inhabitants), Randstad Holland in the Netherlands (about 7 million).

Largest agglomerations

The world's largest agglomeration is led by Tokyo, which has 38 million inhabitants. According to the UN in 2010, there were about 449 agglomerations on Earth with more than 1 million inhabitants, including 4 - more than 20 million, 8 - more than 15 million, 25 - more than 10 million, 61 - more than 5 million. 6 states have more than 10 millionaire agglomerations: China (95), USA (44), India (43), Brazil (21), Russia (16), Mexico (12) .

According to some estimates, there are up to 22 millionaire agglomerations in Russia, including 7 with non-millionaire cities. The Moscow agglomeration, the largest in Russia, has, according to various estimates, from 15 to 17 million and is in 9-16 place in the world. Another (St. Petersburg) Russian agglomeration has from 5.2 to 6.2 million people, three (

Development of urban agglomerations. One of the most characteristic features of the modern distribution of productive forces and settlement is the development throughout the world of large cities and the emergence around them of gigantic, rapidly expanding clusters of populated areas.

An urban agglomeration is understood as a group of closely spaced cities, towns and other populated areas with close labor, cultural, community and industrial ties. Of particular importance among these ties are commuting labor and cultural trips, which implies an increasing development of various types of passenger transport within agglomerations.

The growth of agglomerations is a qualitatively new process that develops like an avalanche.

There is no single terminology for these population clusters. Along with the term "urban agglomeration", the terms "local settlement systems", "areas of large cities", "group settlement systems", "areas of interconnected settlement", "constellations of cities", "metropolitan areas", "standard metropolitan areas", " metropolitan areas”, “field cities”, “conurbations” (the latter most often to refer to multi-core, “polycentric” agglomerations formed around not one, but several large cities).

As can be seen from this list, the search for terms to reflect the very complex phenomenon under consideration, which is also studied by many sciences, turned out to be very difficult. The most common term "urban agglomeration" (from lat."agglomerare" - to attach, add) is not entirely successful. In industrial production technology, agglomeration means "the formation of large pieces (agglomeration) from fine ore and dusty materials by sintering." In the economic literature, the term "agglomeration" characterizes the territorial combination, the concentration of industrial enterprises in one place. To a certain extent, this process is also characteristic of clusters of populated areas, which are “sintered”, forming formations of various shapes and structures. However, one of the ideas for regulating agglomerations is precisely to prevent the "sintering" of populated areas, while maintaining undeveloped spaces. Therefore, in a number of studies and projects, instead of the term “urban agglomerations”, the term “group systems of populated areas” was used, although this term is less concise, lacks an indication of the driving factor in the development of the system, allows for inconsistencies and is not widely used in the scientific literature.

The development of urban agglomerations is characterized by: the growth of gigantic urban clusters, including non-stop growing and spreading cores, involving ever new territories into their orbit, the concentration of large masses of the population in them; the rapid development of the suburbs and the gradual (although not always clearly traced) redistribution of the population between the city centers and suburban areas; involvement of the rural population in non-agricultural labor, especially in urban areas; pendulum migrations and systematic movements of people within the agglomeration to work, to places of study, cultural and community services and recreation, acquiring an unprecedented scale (in Poland, to assess the scale of the phenomenon associated with commuting labor trips to big cities from small towns and rural areas, At one time, even the term "bus revolution" was used).

Various criteria for identifying urban agglomerations have been proposed: urban population density and building continuity; the presence of a large city center (as a rule, with a population of at least 100 thousand people); intensity and distance of labor and cultural trips; share of non-agricultural workers; share of workers outside the place of residence; the number of urban satellite settlements and the intensity of their connections with the city center; the number of telephone conversations with the center; industrial relations; communications on social and technical infrastructure (unified engineering systems of water supply, power supply, sewerage, transport, etc.). In some cases, a combination of signs is taken as a criterion, in others they are guided by one of them (for example, the boundaries of agglomerations are distinguished by 1.5- or 2-hour isochrones of labor movements from the city center). A number of authors come to the conclusion about the impossibility of coincidence of the boundaries identified on the basis of various system-forming factors, and explore the combination (“interlacing”) of systems that form around the main core. Features in the approaches cause differences in the delimitation (definition of boundaries) of agglomerations: they distinguish “borders in the narrow sense of the word”, “in the broad sense of the word”, “planning boundaries”, etc.

With large differences in approaches and methods, the essence of the phenomenon of the development of urban agglomerations, as indicated above, has been sufficiently clarified. The formation of highly concentrated clumps of interconnected settlement reflects the process of growth and concentration of productive forces, increasing the contrast of settlement, and the concentration of many types of activity in the areas most effective for their development. The autonomous city does not correspond to the scale and intensity of this process, which requires a wider territorial base. Consequently, the urban agglomeration - a system of geographically close and economically interconnected settlements, united by stable labor, cultural, domestic and industrial ties, a common social and technical infrastructure - is a qualitatively new form of settlement, it arises as the successor of the city in its compact (autonomous, point) form, a special product of modern urbanization.

The boundaries of the urban agglomeration are mobile in time due to changes in the most important parameter of the agglomeration - the distance of daily movements from the place of residence to the places of employment; within the framework of the spatial self-organization of these movements, their range grows in proportion to the increase in the speed of means of transport, and the time costs increase insignificantly.

Since the development of the agglomeration is associated with the exhaustion of the city’s possibilities for locating production and the need for its development on a wider territorial base, the legal boundaries of the city and the presence of several administrative entities in the agglomeration (5, 10 or 15, as is assumed in various approaches to identifying the agglomeration and determining its boundaries) are of little importance for determining the agglomeration; moreover, the mosaic of administrative boundaries hinders the planning and management of the agglomeration (including the study of pendulum movements). Not a city, but an urban agglomeration, at this stage in the development of settlement forms, should become the main link in the country's settlement system, the main unit of statistical accounting, planning, design and management.

For the analysis of new spatial forms of settlement, the concept of the supporting frame of the territory is of great importance - a combination of large cities, focuses of the economic, political and cultural life of the country (region), and highways connecting them. This concept is deeply disclosed in the works of G.M. Lappo.

According to UN experts, the number of urban agglomerations in the world is many hundreds and they are home to 1.3 billion people, or 56.4% of the world's urban population. In 2015, the urban population is expected to exceed 2.2 billion, representing 52.6% of the projected global urban population (Table 4.1). In the 30 largest agglomerations with a population of over 10 million people, 478.8 million people, or 11.6% of the world's urban population, will be concentrated in each (Table 4.2). Most of these largest agglomerations will be located in developing countries.

Thus, in 1950, out of the 30 largest agglomerations, 20 were located in Europe, North America, and Japan, and only 10 were in developing countries. In 1990, the ratio changes: out of 30 agglomerations, only 9 are located in developed countries, and 21 - in developing ones. Milan, Berlin, Philadelphia, St. Petersburg, Detroit, Naples, Manchester, Birmingham, Frankfurt, Boston, Hamburg leave the list of the largest agglomerations; this list is supplemented by Seoul, Jakarta, Delhi, Manila, Karachi, Lagos, Istanbul, Lima, Tehran, Bangkok, Dhaka.

It is assumed that in 2015 only 5 agglomerations from developed countries (Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Osaka, Paris) will remain among the 30 largest agglomerations; London, Moscow will leave this group. 25 agglomerations will be located in developing countries. Phenomenal growth is forecast for Bombay (27.4 million), Lagos (24.4 million), Shanghai (23.4 million), Jakarta (21.2 million), Sao Paulo (20.8 million), Karachi (20 .6 million), Beijing (19.4 million), Dhaka (19.0 million), Mexico City (18.8 million). Only in 11th place in this list will be New York (17.6 million). It is possible that some of the forecasts will not come true: for example, Mexico City was recently predicted to grow to 30 million inhabitants, which was not confirmed. However, the main trend is clear.

We note the relatively slow growth of cities in developed countries, which is associated with the changed demographic situation in these countries and the already achieved very high level of urbanization.

Further evolution of the forms of settlement under the influence of the processes of development and concentration of production leads to convergence and coalescence of agglomerations, the formation of megalopolises - urbanized zones of the supraglomeration level, including vast territories. The Athens Ekistics Center suggested that at the beginning of the 21st century. their number will be more than 160 and 45-50% of the world's population will be concentrated in them.

The largest megalopolises are formed in the United States along the Atlantic coast between Boston and Washington ("Boswash"), in the Great Lakes region between Chicago and Pittsburgh ("Chipitts"), in California between San Diego and San Francisco ("San-San") , in Western Europe in England (London - Liverpool) and along the Rhine (RandNumber and population of urban agglomerations of the world in 1950-2015 (estimates, forecasts)

Table 4.1

Index				The developed countries			developing
10 million people or more
: Number of agglomerations
Population, million people
% of urban population
5-10 million people
Number of agglomerations
Population, million people
% from the urban population
1-5 million people
Number of agglomerations
Population, million people
% of urban population
0.5-1 million people
Number of agglomerations
Population, million people
% of urban population
Less than 0.5 million people
Population, million people
% of urban population

Source: World Urbanization Prospects. 1995.

Stadt - Ruhr - Rhine - Main), along the east coast of Japan between Tokyo and Osaka ("Tokaido"), etc. The main sizes of these megalopolises, according to approximate calculations, are given in Table. 4.3.

A number of studies recognize the formation in Western Europe of a "deltapolis" with a population of 80 million people in the adjacent territories of Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France with a total area of ​​230 thousand km2. The megalopolises of San Rio (Sao Paulo - Rio de Janeiro), Vizagmahanagar (deltas of the Ganges - Brahmaputra), Jaban (Jakarta - Bandung), Pektian (Beijing - Tianjin), Shanghai - Nanjing - Changzhou, Lagos -

Thirty largest agglomerations of the world in 1950-2015

					2015 (forecast)
J Urban agglomeration
Esssn (Ruhr)
Buenos Aires
Calcutta
Los Angeles
Philadelphia
Petersburg
Rio de Janeiro
Manchester
Sao Paulo
Tianjin
Birmingham
Frankfurt am Main
Jakarta

Hyderabad

Notes:

• 1) ?-* the agglomeration was not included in the list of 30 largest agglomerations for this year.
• 2) Moscow was mistakenly not included in the forecast list of agglomerations for 2015 (the city's population already in 2002 exceeded 10.4 million people).

Source: Wbrld Urbanization Prospects. 1995.

The largest megacities of the world

Table 4.3

Source: Kostinsky, 1977; the table contains information corrected by the author according to modern data.

Ibadan, Guangzhou - Shanzheng - Xianggang (Hong Kong), Cairo - Alexandria, La Plata area, etc.

In the USSR and Russia, in design development and scientific research, the number of urban agglomerations and their differences were determined repeatedly. Let us present the latest published data on the research of V.V. Vladimirova and N.I. Naimark (Table 4.4).

The formation of urbanized zones and zones of the supraglomeration level in Central Russia (Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod), the North-West (Petersburg), the Urals, the Volga region, Western Siberia (Kuzbass), the South, etc., was also repeatedly predicted. The listed zones and regions, according to the calculations of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, cover an area of ​​over 1 million km 2 with a population of over 100 million people; they account for 5% of the territory of Russia and other CIS countries (21% of the territory of the European part of Russia and the CIS) and 39% of its population (57% of the population of the European part of Russia and the CIS).

The development of large cities all over the world and the emergence around them of gigantic, rapidly expanding clusters of populated areas caused confusion some time ago. F.K. Osborne, then chairman of the British Town and Country Planning Association, wrote: “... the irony of the historical development of cities is that some of the most noble attempts to eliminate their shortcomings, which arose originally from disorderly growth, are not really able to prevent cities grow even more erratically... Despite the huge difference in economic and social structures, the same growth trend is observed in many other cities of the Far and Middle East, North and South Africa, the Soviet Union, Canada, South America - indeed, all over the world! (Osborne, 1962).

J. Warwayne, one of the leading American urban researchers, painted the following picture of the unrestrained spontaneous growth of the agglomeration: “... The attack on the surrounding territory begins from the center of the city. It spreads here, as in other places, like a glacier - senselessly and inexorably... This element creeps like a glacier, moving along all the radial roads. 20 rural settlements that existed in our area were captured one by one. They have merged into a single suburban mass that has neither a definite form nor a clear internal structure. The integrity of the former settlements, each of which was a special social unit, has now been crushed like an iron ... All these people live in the same environment: not in cities, not in villages, but in the wilderness. But this wildness is not whole or orderlyThe largest and largest agglomerations of Russia

Name agglomerations	Area of ​​the agglomeration, thousand square meters km	Urban population, thousand people
			In the city center	agglomerations
Moscow
St. Petersburg
Novosibirsk
Nizhny Novgorod
Yekaterinburg
Samara
Chelyabinsk
Perm
Ufa
Kazanskaya
Rostov
Volgogradskaya
Krasnoyarsk
Saratov
Voronezh
Togliatti
Ulyanovsk
Izhevsk
Vladivostok
Krasnodar
Irkutsk
Yaroslavskaya
Khabarovsk
Novokuznetskaya
Barnaul
Orenburg
Penza
Tula
Ryazan
Naberezhno-Chelninskaya

Kemerovo
Astrakhan
Tyumenskaya
Kirovskaya

Source: V. V. Vladimirov, N. I. Naimark, 2003. Population as of 01.01.1997.

valuable nature, but a standardized and disordered civilization" (Wherwayne, 1965).

Now it is quite clearly realized that the avalanche-like process of development of agglomerated forms of settlement, the formation of growing clusters of populated areas, forming a new urbanized environment over vast expanses, is objective in nature, corresponds to the trends in the concentration of productive forces and forms of communication. At the same time, new tendencies and peculiarities of this process are revealed.

As already noted, an analysis of the shifts that have taken place in recent decades in developed countries shows a slowdown in the growth rates of the largest urban cores and an accelerated population growth in suburbanized zones, and then in non-agglomeration, non-metropolitan areas. Despite some local features, this phenomenon is typical for all countries with a high level of urbanization, both in Europe and in North America.

Sociological surveys conducted by American and European researchers have shown that the trends of suburbanization and intensive growth of non-metropolitan areas are quite stable. The main reasons that encourage the population to leave large urban centers are known: the environmental crisis, the intensive development of individual transport (a high level of motorization in the presence of a developed network of convenient high-speed highways), improving the level of living conditions in small towns and rural areas. The economic climate of small towns is also changing. With the growth of automation, which made it possible to manage with fewer low-skilled production personnel, it became possible to build new industrial facilities in small and medium-sized cities and even in rural areas. In non-agglomeration areas, the cost of living is lower; here, for example, it is cheaper to buy a house with a plot.

It is essential that the most important in assessments and forecasts is the division not into urban and rural population, but into the metropolitan (in the zone of influence of cities - SMSA) and non-metropolitan (the rest of the country). According to American sources (Kharitonov, 1983), "a sharp dichotomy: the countryside and the city, which have been part of the American scene for so long, are now disappearing"; instead, they prefer to talk about the "rural-urban continuum" (the interpenetration of places of settlement, places of application of labor, lifestyle and value ideas of urban and former rural residents). During the post-war years in the United States, the non-metropolitan population has changed slightly - from 62 to 59 million people, while the farming population has decreased from 30 to 8 million; the metropolitan population increased from 70 to 158 million people; this latter, concentrated in 279 SMSAs (in 1940 - 168), on 14.6% of the country's territory, now accounts for 73% of its population (in 1940 - 52.8%).

With a general trend towards a decrease in the population of cities, the territorial size of the city continues to grow constantly. According to some estimates, the area of ​​inhabited areas is increasing about 4 times faster than the population is growing. The expansion of urban areas is due to an increase in the area of ​​​​apartments (new apartments not only occupy large areas, but also require a qualitative improvement in amenities, and, consequently, areas for engineering communications), the growth of industrial enterprises, transport systems, etc. Territories of single-family buildings around large cities are growing rapidly, occupying agricultural territories and protected natural landscape zones, forming vast expanses of "field cities", which causes serious concern for specialists, since this growth to a certain extent goes against one of the fundamental principles of modern urban planning - the principle of maximum energy saving in the city-planning organism. Nevertheless, the development trend of single-family houses remains predominant, and in some cases is increasing. In the US urban housing stock, single-family homes account for 63% (in city centers - 51%, in the suburbs - 75%).

Territorial expansion of development (even with limited population growth) is associated with the ongoing, despite rising costs, motorization of cities. The rise in gasoline prices did not lead to the development of public transport, which was expected. Americans are apparently trying to save not on the trips themselves, but on the transition to more compact and economical car models. Similar trends (with an even greater desire for economical car models) are taking place in Western Europe.

Let us note some other features characteristic of the United States and developed countries. R. Estall (1977) emphasized that white Americans were attracted to the suburbs of large cities not only by the ideals of rural life preserved since the time of the founding fathers of the United States (according to Jefferson, only “those who cultivate the land are virtuous”), more favorable natural conditions, more low taxes, but also the ability to avoid sending children to integrated schools, which had to be done in the inner cities after the decision of the Federal Court in 1951 to desegregate schools. As a result, in one decade - 1950-1960. - the white population in the peripheral zones of cities increased by 80% (with an increase in the entire US population by 18.5%). By 1980, the share of central cities in the total population of the SMSA, according to data cited by V.M. Kharitonov (1983), decreased to 40%. The main stimulus for the move was the desire to maintain prestige, "preserve and increase the purity of his address", settling in a "pure white" wealthy suburb. According to W. Bunge, “residents move farther from the center not because they are snobs, but because they have no other choice. They have to keep a good address to keep a good job."

W. Bunge, summing up the processes of segregation of the American city, singled out within its boundaries an “outer city of abundance” (a suburbanized zone), an “inner city of death” (Negro, Puerto Rican and other ghettos) and an “intermediate city of need”.

Of course, driving through the suburbs of American cities, past dozens of miles of well-groomed cottages - usually private houses and condominiums (past "one-story America", which has grown since the time of I. Ilf and E. Petrov and has become, as a rule, "two or three-story" ), - it is impossible not to feel the wealth of this country, which provided its growing middle class with a high standard of living - a guarantee of political and social stability. At the same time, it is enough to live in the American environment for a short time to understand that life in these cozy cottages only at first glance seems cloudless and calm: the inhabitants of these outwardly prosperous houses do not leave anxiety about getting and keeping a job, the need to pay a loan for a house on time , car, medical insurance, etc.

In European, Latin American, Asian cities, the differentiation of the city’s territory is more mosaic in nature, it is often mirrored in North America: working outskirts, cans, favelas surround a privileged center, in which some quarters are especially distinguished by the high cost of land, high amenities and are increasingly populated by representatives of the propertied classes ; however, in the cities of the United States, selected blocks of Manhattan in New York, the Loop in Chicago, the centers of Los Angeles, Philadelphia and others are being built up with multi-unit high-rise residential buildings with an extremely high cost of apartments, in which the wealthy establishment, carefully guarded and fenced off from unwanted contacts, settles.

The latest trends that have manifested themselves in the course of urbanization processes in the world require deep reflection and correct scientific assessment. It is very important to "disintegrate" foreign experience into those aspects that are global in nature, and those that are associated with the characteristics of these countries. In general terms, the judgments about stopping the urbanization process, the transition to "counter-urbanization", expressed by a number of scientists, are apparently one-sided. Urbanization does not stop, it is experiencing a new qualitative leap, acquiring other forms of spatial expression, involving more and more new areas in the sphere of urban life, blurring clear boundaries between urban and rural settlement. An analysis of the development of the most economically developed and urbanized countries of the world shows that the urbanization process here went through three stages, passing one into another and at certain stages existing in parallel: “classical” urbanization, characteristic of the 1950s and partly 1960s; suburbanization, which manifested itself in the 1960s and continued into the 1970s; exurbanization - spatial expansion of urbanization into non-metropolitan areas (1970-1990s); reurbanization, which has been observed since about the beginning of the 1970s. in industrialized countries, the process of returning central functions to the core of agglomerations and reviving the centers of large cities.

It is also indicative that in the United States, with a general reduction in the growth rate of large SMSAs, in the southern regions, where urbanization began later and where there are still no super-large agglomerations such as New York, new urbanized areas - SMSAs with a population of 1-3 million people - continue to attract the population and are growing at a high rate.

In the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, urbanization continues to develop according to an extensive type: the urban population is increasing, large cities are growing rapidly (primarily capitals and their agglomerations).

The existing large urban agglomerations are the most important areas in which progressive industries, administrative, economic, scientific and design organizations, unique institutions of culture and art, and the most qualified personnel are concentrated.

Advantages and disadvantages of population concentration in the largest urban agglomerations. Although the concept and definition of an urban agglomeration and urbanized areas of the supra-glomeration level are ambiguous, the nature of these phenomena, as already noted, is quite clear: the concentration of various types of activity reaches such a high degree that the framework of an autonomous city becomes insufficient for it and complex systems of coalescing settlements arise in which millions and tens of millions of people are concentrated. However, the analysis of the essence, hierarchy, structure, types of these systems, which gave rise to an extensive literature, has left many more fundamental and applied problems unresolved.

The widespread and unstoppable growth of large cities and agglomerations makes us think about the internal patterns and causes of this phenomenon, identify the shortcomings of this form of settlement and evaluate its true merits.

The major disadvantages of large cities and, to a certain extent, large urban agglomerations are well known. These include:

1. Unusual complication of transport problems. The streets of big cities turned out to be canals not adapted for the passage of modern transport. Motorization of cities is growing rapidly. The saturation of large cities with road transport continues to increase, while the speed of movement of all types of individual and public transport decreases inversely. A paradoxical contradiction has arisen between the technical capabilities of modern transport facilities and its actual speed in cities, usually not exceeding 15-20 km/h.

With the growth of cities and the distance of places of settlement from places of application of labor, the time spent on work trips increases. According to one of the surveys, residents of Sretenka in Moscow (city center) spend 2 times less time traveling to their place of work than residents of the South-Western district. These time costs increase even more for residents of remote areas (for example, in Moscow - Medvedkov, Beskudnikov, Belyaevo-Bogorodsky, etc.). The factor of growing "transport fatigue" is typical for all large cities.

In large cities, "pendulum migrations" - daily trips of people to work from suburban areas to the city - the center of the agglomeration, have become especially widespread. About 700,000 people come to Moscow every day to work. According to some estimates, the total number of people participating daily in the cities of Russia and the CIS in "pendulum migration" is tens of millions of people - a whole "country on wheels".

The total investment in transport in large cities is about twice as high as in medium-sized ones. When these cities are saturated with motor transport, huge expenses are required for super-complex interchanges at several levels, high-speed highways with multi-lane traffic. In very large cities, public transport facilities that provide large passenger flows, such as the subway, cost about 10 times more than the use of ordinary types of public transport (bus, tram). Meanwhile, almost all cities with a population of over 1 million people need a subway. In Russia, following the Moscow and St. Petersburg metros, metros have been built, are being built or are being designed in Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Omsk, Kazan, Krasnoyarsk, etc.

2. Increase in the cost of engineering equipment. Extraordinarily sprawling large cities and agglomerations face a growing shortage of water resources, huge difficulties in discharging wastewater, and great complications in the development of new territories for development.

To supply large cities with water, it is necessary to build complex water supply systems and long sewerage collectors, to invest significant funds in the engineering preparation of territories unfavorable for development. The cost of 1 hectare of engineering equipment in a large city is about twice as high as the average, and in the largest cities this difference is even higher.

To supply water to the Moscow agglomeration, it was necessary to regulate the river. Moscow, the construction of the Volga-Moscow canal and a number of other water facilities. According to some calculations, in the future it will be necessary to build large hydraulic systems for the transfer of fresh water from remote sources to the Moscow regions.

3. Air pollution. In large cities, there is extremely strong air pollution. Of course, the air basin is also polluted in many small towns where there are industrial enterprises. But in large cities, industrial enterprises surround housing estates from almost all sides; with their intensive saturation with road transport, an almost continuous background of pollution is created.

Along with air pollution, urban residents have a new enemy - noise. Noise intensity over 80-100 decibels exceeds the permissible limits. However, in cities, especially in the area of ​​heavy traffic, and even more so near airfields, the noise background is often much higher.

• 4. Removing the population of large cities from nature. The more large cities grow, the further away nature goes from them. Green areas - the "lungs" of cities - are receding further and further under the pressure of residential and industrial development. Meanwhile, this is one of the most unfavorable factors that significantly worsen the living conditions of people in large cities. The communication of people with nature is very important, although all aspects of its psycho- and physiological effects on humans have not yet been fully studied.
• 5. Big cities "suck" productive forces from small and medium-sized cities. In French urban planning and geographical literature, a special term "French desert" appeared, denoting the diversion of all the vital forces of the country to the Paris agglomeration, around which small towns in the provinces eke out a miserable existence.

However, the paradoxical discrepancy between the persistent desire of governments, scientists and urban planners to limit the growth of large cities and their actual growth could not take place if cities did not develop due to objective laws, did not have advantages as a form of human settlement.

The effect of the concentration in one place of a large number of people, who together create a huge economic, scientific and intellectual potential, is enormous and ultimately stimulates the growth of these cities.

Large cities have resources for the growth of productive forces that are quickly put into action. They have the most favorable conditions for the cooperation of industry, the development of science and higher education, for the implementation of administrative, organizational and distribution functions, they attract people with an unusually wide range of services that can be placed at their disposal, a high level of cultural life.

How, in the development of large cities and urban agglomerations, can their advantages be used and their disadvantages leveled out? What is the importance for solving this problem, which is of global importance and requires the efforts of many sciences (and society as a whole), systemic approaches? We will try to answer these questions further.

Here we will only think about the questions: how fair is the often expressed opinion that the transport and environmental problems of large cities have become acute, preventing their further development? Are the big cities of the 21st century really less convenient for people's lives than the cities of the past? Historical sources testify that the problems of transport, noise, environmental pollution existed in the past. Let's give some examples. In Rome, traffic was so congested in the streets that Julius Caesar was forced to pass a special law in the Senate, allowing various types of carts to move only at the time of the day allotted for them. Decimus Julius Juvenal at the beginning of the 2nd century. AD complained that in Rome it was impossible to sleep day or night. Nicolas Boileau at the end of the 17th century. wrote about Paris: "You can get enough sleep in this city only for a lot of money." A.S. Pushkin wrote about St. Petersburg: "But in the city there is noise, dust, and the sound of carriages."

Environmental pollution in old and ancient cities was also very strong. Paleomedical studies of Egyptian mummies showed that the lungs of the Egyptians were clogged with tiny particles of sand and soot from oil lamps. It is possible that the pollution in Egypt 3300 years ago was greater than in its modern cities. In the medieval cities of Europe, the streets were dirty and the air often smelly. In the XIV century. the chancellor of Emperor Charles IV reported that in Nuremberg, the largest and most comfortable German city at that time, “such a mass of dirt formed on the streets that it became unsafe for horsemen to ride.” According to the description of N.M. Karamzin, on the streets of Paris, “the French miraculously know how to walk through the mud without getting dirty, masterfully jump from stone to stone and hide in benches from galloping carriages ...” M.A. Laugier in 1755, when the ceremonial ensembles of the Louvre, Tuileries and Versailles had already been completed, wrote that “disorder is nowhere more acutely felt and nowhere more shocking than in Paris. The central district of this capital has hardly changed for three hundred years: we still find there the same number of narrow winding streets with garbage and the smell of sewage, in which meetings with carriages create difficulties every minute ... ".

In Elizabethan London, it was forbidden to light fireplaces with coal, and one person was executed for violating this prohibition: this is probably an example of the greatest determination and cruelty in the struggle for the protection of the urban environment in history.

We have cited this evidence to show that the severity of transport and environmental problems is associated not so much with the growth in the size of cities, but with the social, economic and technical means that society has to overcome them; the modern largest cities are cleaner, more convenient, more comfortable than the cities of the Middle Ages, although they are much larger in size and are affected by incomparably more powerful sources of pollution; there is no doubt that mankind in the future will be able to find means of solving the transport and environmental problems of such cities. Moreover, it seems to be a reasonable point of view that it is precisely the high concentration of productive forces in one place that will allow solving these problems most effectively, since with such a concentration the largest capital investments for these purposes will become economically and technically feasible.

Of course, here we do not touch on other very important aspects of comparing the efficiency and disadvantages of large cities.

The dialectic and contradictory nature of the problem of the development of the largest cities for a long time stimulated in this area a sharp, unceasing struggle of views, a clash of opposing concepts, a genuine “drama of ideas,” to use the expression traditionally used in research on the history of science.

For example, the literature on the growth of large cities and agglomerations in the West has recently been dominated by sharply anti-urban tendencies. The growth of cities was characterized in the following alarming terms: “cities go beyond their borders”, “cities break into the territories of neighboring administrative units”, “sprawling cities”, “an avalanche that mercilessly sweeps away everything in its path”, “a glacier that crushes everything under themselves”, “octopus”, “cancerous form of urban formations”, “metastases of the capitals bite into the suburbs”, “threat to the nation”, “national disaster”, etc.

F.L. Wright, one of America's leading disurban architects, wrote: “Just as a tumor becomes malignant, the city, as a deadly formation, has become a threat to the future of mankind. Our largest cities, these vampires, must die."

However, later, according to P. Hall, among a significant part of Western specialists, there was a significant "evolution of the state of mind from the apocalyptic to the pragmatic." The meaning of this evolution is to systematize urgent problems and look for solutions instead of "condemning" big cities and limiting their growth. Hall believes that this "evolution of concepts" is one of the significant transformations in the social history of our era, which the historian of the 21st century will note. Obviously, a significant role in this evolution was played by the low effectiveness of measures to limit the growth of large cities, which has been fully manifested in recent decades in various countries (Hall, 1967).

The considerations expressed by W. Alonso (USA) are characteristic: “The widespread belief, shared by many experts, about the irrationality of the growth of large cities has no convincing grounds ... Usually they prove that such a concentration is excessive for economic reasons, it is believed that upon reaching of a certain city size, further construction is associated with increased per capita costs, especially for infrastructure investment. However, there is no agreement on what this threshold is; besides, there is no good reason that the costs really increase with the size of the city.” The policy of limiting the growth of large cities, according to U. Alonso, is not based on a clear understanding of the underlying premises based on facts. “Are big cities really less efficient than small ones?” In the United States, local government spending in cities of over 1 million increases from $120 to $200 compared to cities of over 50,000, but median household income rises by $1,100, or, in terms of per capita, by four times the growth in public spending (even without taking into account the wide range and quality of services in large cities); the author also refers to similar data for Germany. Policies that seek to direct development away from urban areas "could be detrimental to a country's economic growth." Alonso takes a negative view of the modern view that "economic centers should be distributed like garlic heads in ham." In his opinion, the more effective way is "to encourage the geographical concentration of capital investments", which allows "to prevent the spreading of investments across the country like butter on a piece of bread" and stimulates the most efficient development of production in the country as a whole.

K. Tange, one of the largest modern urbanists, exploring the nature of a city with a population of 10 million, the significance of its existence and the need for its growth, notes that “XX century. came to the formation of cities with a population of more than 10 million people in various parts of the globe. This development seems to be a quite natural consequence of the fact that cities have become essential to the vital functions of modern human society. Tokyo, New York, London, Paris, Moscow - cities with a population exceeding now or in the near future 10 million people. They are often referred to as overpopulated. However, before deciding whether they are really overpopulated, one should consider the reasons for their development, the significance of modern cities and the true nature of their functions” (Tange, 1978). Tracing the relative increase in the share of non-productive functions (government, finance, control over production and consumption, etc.) in the largest world capitals, Tange believes that it is the need for diverse connections between these functions that stimulates the further growth of capitals and their transformation into complex systems that control the destinies of the entire nations that generate ideas and connect with the rest of the world.

Brightly and unconventionally, academician N.M. Moiseev: the emergence of megalopolises is a natural phenomenon, the result of the self-organization of society, just as anthills arise due to the self-organization of the living world. The growth of megalopolises is determined by objective laws - the need for continuous scientific and technological progress and the desire to minimize labor costs, communications, and the movement of people. Continuous support for the pace of development of scientific and technological progress and the maintenance of infrastructure that ensure the exchange of information and communication of people are necessary for the functioning of the megalopolis, otherwise its degradation is inevitable, the most terrible disease that threatens the city. Megalopolis, continues N.M. Moiseev, a necessary element of the world of TNCs, the world of transnational corporations, in which 37 thousand corporations produce 48% of the gross national product, control 80% of the capital and 95% of the know-how trade of the modern world. Megalopolises provide the highest productivity, concentration of intellectual efforts (the exchange of information between people leads to the effect of collective intelligence: as Bernard Shaw said, if I give you an apple and you give me an apple, then each of us has one apple left, but if I I give you an idea, then each of us will have two ideas). The market, which provides selection, creation of new and destruction of old organizational and production structures, is like a river that bursts out of the mountains, forming many whirlwinds, whirlpools that disappear and provide material for new whirlwinds and whirlpools. It is impossible to control each of them (the complexity of the control device grows exponentially along with the complexity of the control device), but it is possible to regulate the banks, preventing their breakthroughs and terrible disasters associated with flooding of the surroundings. Megalopolises will grow, this meets the needs of human development, they will occupy an increasing territory, but the limitation of their anti-environmental properties, the definition of features, boundaries that cannot be crossed are of fundamental importance (Moiseev, 1996).

The polemics reproduced, which could easily be multiplied, illustrate the unrelenting debate on a wide range of urbanization and urban growth issues that is embracing an ever-wider range of participants as the global nature of these problems in human development is better understood.

We emphasize that studies of the problems of urbanization are not only associated with the search for answers to the most complex theoretical problems, but also require very urgent constructive solutions.

Projects for the development of urban agglomerations. It should be noted the diversity of concepts for the development of the planning structure of large urban agglomerations developed in our country and abroad. The most important of them are the following:

• 1. Belt zoning - the creation of a green belt around the main city, limiting the growth of urban development. Outside the green belt, a ring of satellite cities with their own city-forming base is being designed. This concept was consistently formulated in the district planning of Greater London, and then repeated in a number of large projects developed for Tokyo, Paris, etc.
• 2. Sectoral development - the expansion of the city along radial directions converging to it, as envisaged in the "finger-shaped plan" of Greater Copenhagen, or the development of chains of satellite cities along these directions, as envisaged in the "2000 plan" Greater Washington, the original layout of Greater Hamburg. At the same time, green wedges remain in the sectors between the radial directions of development.
• 3. Parallel city - the creation of a large city next to the main one in order to recreate the same conditions in a parallel city

Sectoral development (along the railways converging to the city)

Belt development

(creation of a ring of satellite cities)

Parallel city (options A and B)

Directed development along a specially chosen axis (river)

Rice. 25.

"public environment"; first proposed in one of the projects of the Paris agglomeration, which proposed the creation of a "parallel Paris" with a population of 2 million people; the project caused a series of imitations - projects of "parallel" Lyon, Marseille, Tokyo, etc.

4. Directed development along one or several specially chosen axes. This concept is most clearly formulated in the mentioned project for the development of the Paris region, which provided for the development of the Paris agglomeration along the "national axis" of France - the river. Seine.

An analysis of various planning strategies shows that the concept of development along the main axis, combined with sectoral development, has been particularly widely used: in the development projects of the agglomerations of Paris (axis along the Seine River), London (seven “growth corridors” with an emphasis on directions towards La Mansha, including in connection with the construction of a tunnel under the strait), Copenhagen (southwest direction), Warsaw (development along the axis of the Vistula River towards Modlin), Hamburg (development along the Elbe River), Hanoi (along the Hongha River ), Stockholm (western direction). In cases where natural conditions and the shape of the transport network (Budapest) or the absence of a clearly defined axis (Washington) do not justify the application of this concept, the sectoral development option becomes predominant.

In our country, the concept of development along selected axes has been recognized in some developments in Moscow (southern, southeast, northwest directions), St. Petersburg (south, southwest, northwest directions), Nizhny Novgorod (axes along the Oka rivers and Volga), Novosibirsk (latitudinal and Ob directions), etc. However, one should take into account the wide variety of geographical and planning conditions of the largest agglomerations and not strive for the template use of one or another concept: there is no standard scheme suitable for use in any conditions.

Let us consider in more detail the unique experience of designing and building Moscow and the Moscow agglomeration. The very first project proposals for the development of Moscow B.V. Sakulina (1918) and S.S. Shestakov (1923), I.V. Zholtovsky, A.V. Shchusev (1921 - 1925) proceeded from the progressive idea of ​​joint consideration of it in the system of settlement, somewhat beyond the boundaries of the modern Moscow region. Around Moscow, rings of satellite cities were designed, which were partially used by existing cities and towns. Broader in concept was the idea of ​​developing large industrial centers directly around Moscow and in the regions of Central Russia, capable of intercepting the centripetal processes of concentration of industrial functions in Moscow, which were rapidly growing as the country industrialized. This idea, which was further implemented in the location of large industrial enterprises in the regional centers of Central Russia (in Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh, Tula, Yaroslavl, Kalinin, Ryazan, Vladimir, Ivanov, Bryansk, etc.), as well as in the immediate vicinity of Moscow (Noginsk , Elektrostal, Podolsk, Chekhov, Kolomna, Stupino, etc.), proved to be very fruitful, and the development of these centers significantly influenced the regulation of Moscow's growth.

In the process of development of the capital, efforts to contain the growth of its population by voluntarily set limits (5 million people in the General Plan of 1935, 7.5 million people in the General Plan of 1971) were not confirmed, although these efforts were accompanied by strict measures to limit registration in Moscow, it was declared refusal to build enterprises, workshops and even buildings (!) in the city that are not related to the needs of the existing population of the city. Numerous attempts were not made to impose on Moscow artificial schemes that were unusual for its historically developed planning situation (“parabola” by N.A. Ladovsky, Le Corbusier’s rigid lattice structures and VOPR’s brigades, E. May’s group city, etc.).

The general plan of 1935 proceeded from the preservation of the foundations of the historically established city, but with its radical re-planning by resolutely streamlining the network of city streets and squares. The most important conditions for this redevelopment are the correct placement of residential buildings, industry, transport and storage facilities, watering the city, decompacting and organizing residential areas with the creation of normal living conditions for the population. An important aspect of it was the creation of a forest park protective belt around Moscow, fixing its borders. Along with the positive aspects, this project allowed for too harsh an invasion of the historical environment of the city, which led to large and partly irreparable losses. The territories planned for the city (60 thousand hectares against 28.5 thousand hectares within the old boundaries of the city) soon turned out to be insufficient for the growth of Moscow, which overturned its intended limits. The closest satellites of Moscow quickly developed in the forest park zone.

The General Plan of 1971 provided for the expansion of the city to the borders of the Moscow Ring Road (87.5 thousand hectares), the creation of eight planning zones with a population of 0.6 to 1 million people with their own zonal centers, the star-shaped development of the main city center from the historical core to the centers planning zones, the addition of radial

Rice. 26.1.

Rice. 26.2.

Rice. 26.3.

Rice. 26.4.

Rice. 26.5.

Development of satellite cities along the "construction axes" (railways)

Rice. 26.6.

Rice. 26.8.

Rice. 26.7. The project of the directed development of Paris along the "national axis * of France - the Seine River towards Rouen - with the creation of satellite cities

Rice. 26 (1-8). Concepts of the planning structure of cities and urban agglomerations

a new rectangular concentric system of highways, with powerful chordal highways crossing the city. The population of the city was taken for an estimated period of 7.5 million people. However, by the second half of the 1980s. the population of the city exceeded the estimated one by 1 million people; there was a shortage of residential areas, which required the expansion of the urban area to 106 thousand hectares (with a very complex and difficult to explain configuration of the new city boundaries); the idea of ​​building eight new zonal centers did not materialize - the very idea of ​​“breaking* the city into eight more or less isolated zones of labor gravity was not confirmed; the "prominences" of the city center were probably overstretched; the idea of ​​creating chord directions has not been implemented; no concept was proposed aimed at preventing further intrusion into the historical environment of the center.

The versions of the master plan for Moscow and the Moscow Region that have been developed in recent years are based on a number of progressive ideas: a comprehensive solution to the problems of development of Moscow and the Moscow Region within the framework of the Moscow Capital Region; development in Moscow mainly of metropolitan functions with the transfer of some of them to the cities of the Moscow region; renewal of the center of Moscow with the revival of its historical appearance and the concentration here of mainly socio-cultural functions, as well as business functions of the highest level (the highest legislative, governmental and public institutions of the RSFSR); the withdrawal from the center of industrial enterprises that still remain here, as well as offices and warehouses that are out of place in the center of the capital; creation of a new business center Moscow-City; improvement of transport systems, reconstruction of numerous industrial zones of the city with the withdrawal of inefficiently used territories for housing construction and landscaping; extensive ecological construction with the formation of forest parks and green areas along rivers, large-scale measures to improve the environmental situation, etc.

With all the successes achieved, the design of Moscow and the Moscow agglomeration systematically met with both objective difficulties (the huge scale of the facility, the intensity of the concentration of metropolitan functions, the special conditions of the metropolitan environment, the fragmentation of the spheres of action of various bodies of industry management of the country and the region, the inertia of the planning structure), and with difficulties subjective nature (voluntarism in substantiating the estimated population, the development of rigid planning schemes, insufficient understanding of the deep connection between the processes of city growth and the renewal of its functional structure, etc.).

The problems of development of the largest agglomerations of Russia can be shown by the example of the largest of them - Moscow. The following issues should be highlighted here:

• in the Moscow agglomeration, agglomeration processes are most intensive; according to some estimates, 19 second-order agglomerations adjoin the Moscow agglomeration itself (agglomeration processes are developing less intensively, but also clearly developing near other million-strong cities);
• the need for a conjugated analysis and project solution of the problems of Moscow and the Moscow region within the framework of the Moscow metropolitan region is obvious. Similar is the need for joint consideration within the broad boundaries of St. Petersburg and the gravitating regions of the Leningrad Region. The same applies to all agglomerations of the largest cities, which often include other large cities (Saratov-Engels, Volgograd-Volzhsky, Irkutsk-Angarsk-Shelekhov, Vladivostok-Nakhodka, Samara-Novokuibyshevsk-Chapaev, etc.);
• about 60% of new housing construction in the Moscow region is concentrated in a 10-kilometer zone around Moscow and more than 90% - in a 30-kilometer zone from Moscow. Thus, Moscow is spreading like an “oil slick” with the seizure of the territories of the forest-park protective belt (LPZP) for development, which in many documents is deprived of this important name in terms of semantic meaning and is shamefully called the central zone of the Moscow region. Taking into account the great ecological and planning importance of forest park protective belts around cities, it is important to preserve them and prevent cities from sprawling according to the “oil spot” principle;
• historical sites and recreational areas around cities should be preserved in every possible way, considering them as long-term reference objects in all design schemes for the development of urban agglomerations;
• When designing areas of large cities, transport and engineering infrastructure should be of paramount importance. Infrastructure facilities (especially transport) should also be considered as basic, long-term, in many cases determining the planning decision of large city areas;
• to an even greater extent, environmental factors are of decisive importance in the design of areas of large cities: the ecological framework of the designed areas should have a dominant influence on design decisions;
• Taking into account the above considerations, the interconnected and rational development of cities in the area of ​​​​the largest city (there are 75 cities in the Moscow metropolitan region, in other regions, of course, less), taking into account the large number of rural settlements, is a very difficult planning task, and therefore the timely development of master plans these areas (district plans, integrated territorial planning schemes) are mandatory.

It seems important to pay attention again to the insufficient reliability of data on the current population of the largest cities and their agglomerations, and even more so on the predicted values ​​of their demographic development. In addition to the well-known limited accuracy of all demographic forecasts based on the analysis of current trends (we repeat that it was noted in the scientific literature that their retrospective review over a long period often reveals a “cemetery of demographic forecasts”), one should take into account the strong attractiveness of large urban agglomerations, especially in conditions of some liberalization of migration legislation in the country (and a significant number of Russian-speaking migrants from the CIS countries, in respect of whom, as one can hope, migration policy will be more liberal as the economic situation in the country improves, contributing to their return to their historical homeland).

In addition, it is important to emphasize that in urban population forecasts, errors in the direction of overestimating the projected population are less dangerous than in the direction of underestimating it: in the latter case, there is an inevitable shortage of reserve territories for development, overlapping of industrial and family territories, and the wrong choice of engineering and transport routes. communications.

For all these reasons, in the urban planning of the largest cities and agglomerations, it seems necessary to provide for significant reserves in the calculations of the population (at least 10–20% of that determined in demographic forecasts), and especially in the allocation of territories and routes for various functional purposes.

So, for example, when developing the Master Plan for the Moscow Region, with a prospective population, according to demographic forecasts, of 6.3 million people, this value should be provided for at least 7.0-8.0 million people.

Spatial structure of urban agglomerations. It is very important to uncover the general patterns of formation of the spatial structure of urban agglomerations in order to learn how to manage their development knowing them. At the same time, the choice of fundamental concepts for the spatial development of agglomerations based on the study of actually identified trends and the substantiation of hypotheses that correspond to their social, geographical and planning features is of paramount importance.

As follows from the analysis of statistical sources and a large number of projects, in urban agglomerations, with significant features of their planning structure and administrative division, fundamentally different zones can be identified (to a certain extent coinciding in single-scale agglomerations), which allows us to consider these zones as typical and functionally regular formations. . Let's consider these zones on the example of the largest metropolitan agglomerations and regions of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Paris, London, New York (see Table 4.5).

1. The historical core of the city is a very small area in which the most architecturally and historically outstanding buildings, administrative, cultural and business centers of the agglomeration are concentrated. These are the historical center of Moscow within the Garden Ring; the historical center of St. Petersburg within the conditional boundaries connecting the main railway stations and central metro stations; "Sacred Oval", "Beautiful Paris" - both banks of the Seine from Notre Dame to Charles de Gaulle Square and from Montmartre to

Montparnasse; the central core of London, including the City, Westminster and the West End; the southern part of New York County, which occupies the territory of the island of Manhattan. The historical centers of European capitals are characterized by very dense buildings that have developed over many centuries; radial-annular layout inherited from the historical past or close to it; the gradual displacement of residential development by buildings of government or business importance; wide development of cultural and entertainment, commercial institutions, hotels, museums, etc. The daytime population sharply exceeds the nighttime one. The permanent population is continuously decreasing (in Moscow in 1959-1980 - from 931 to 200 thousand people, in Paris in 1954-1984 - from 1026 to 600 thousand, in London in 1951-1981 - from 246 up to 200 thousand people). Downtown New York is characterized by exceptionally dense high-rise buildings; the number of jobs in the Central Business District (the southern part of the island of Manhattan south of Central Park) - 2.5 million, which is five times more than the night population; total resident population in 1970-1990 decreased.

2. The central zone of the city includes, in addition to the historical core, the intensively built-up area closest to it, which was formed in European capitals mainly until the middle of the 19th century. (in the pre-railroad era) and later covered by a ring of railways, stations, industrial and warehouse areas. In the following decades, this zone was significantly transformed, but to a large extent it still retains the old layout, there are many valuable structures here.

Rice. 27. New York agglomeration: territorial structure with

Territorial structure of the largest metropolitan agglomerations

Table 4.5

	Structural zones		St. Petersburg
	Historical core of the city	Center within the boundaries of the Garden Ring (18.7 km 2; 0.2 million inhabitants)	Center within the boundaries of the main stations and the center, metro stations (20 km 2; 0.6 million inhabitants)	"Sacred oval * from Notre Dame to pl. De Gaulle (20 km2; 0.6 million inhabitants)	City, Westminster, West End (26 km 2; 0.2 million inhabitants)	The southern part of New York County - Manhattan Island, south of Center, Park (25 km 2; 0.5 million inhabitants)	Urban areas ("ku") Chiyoda, Chuo, Minato around the imperial palace (42 km 2; 0.3 million inhabitants)
	Central zone of the city	Central zone within the boundaries of the Okruzhnaya railway (80 km 2; 1.9 million inhabitants)	The central zone between the Neva and Obvodnye Canal, Vasilyevsky Island, Petrogradskaya Storona, etc. (50 km2; 1.2 million inhabitants)	Dep. Paris within the boundaries of the old fortress walls (105 km 2; 2.2 million inhabitants)	b. County of London - City and 12 districts of the inner ring of the "old suburbs" (311 km 2; 2.5 million inhabitants)	1 New York County - Manhattan Island (57 km 2; 1.4 million inhabitants)	Urban areas ("ku") Chiyoda, Chuo, Minato, Shinju-ku, Shibuya, Bunkyo, Daito (97 km2; 1.25 million inhabitants)
	City proper	Moscow is mainly within the boundaries of the Moscow Ring Road (Su60 km 2; 8.6 million inhabitants)	St. Petersburg within the administrative boundaries (606 km 2; 4.4 million inhabitants)	Parisian "agglomeration within narrow boundaries * - dep. Paris and 3 dep. First belt (460 km 2; 5.1 million inhabitants)	Greater London* City, 12 arrondissement ext. and 20 districts ext. Rings of "old suburbs" (1580 km 2; 6.7 million inhabitants)	New York city proper - New York City (781 km 2; 7.1 million inhabitants)	Tokyo proper - 23 "ku* (621 km 2; 8 million inhabitants)

	"Big city" (the core of the agglomeration, the urbanized zone of the agglomeration, the city with the first inner belt of the suburban zone)	Moscow with LPZP (2600 km 2; 9.9 million inhabitants)	Petersburg with settlements subordinate to the city (1300 km 2; 5 million inhabitants)	Parisian "agglomeration in wide borders * - dep. Paris, 3 dep. First belt, suburbanized zone of the 4th dep. second belt (1870 km 2; 8.2 million inhabitants)	"Greater London" with the first inner metropolitan belt (5400 km 2; 9.8 million inhabitants)	Greater New York - the urban area of ​​New York (7272 km 2; 15.6 million inhabitants)	Greater Tokyo (Tokyo Prefecture) - 23 "ku"; Area Tema, islands (2187 km 2; 11.8 million inhabitants)
	Agglomeration (city with a suburban area)	Moscow with a suburban area (13,400 km 2; 12.7 million inhabitants)	Petersburg with a suburban area (14,100 km 2; 5.6 million inhabitants)	Paris region - Ile-de-France region - 8 dep. (12 012 km 2; 10 million inhabitants)	London metropolitan area (And 400 km 2; 12.1 million inhabitants)	Agglomeration of New York: 2) SKA - why sgich. consolidated range (12,494 km 2; 16.1 million inhabitants); b) RMA (14400 km 2; 16.6 million inhabitants)	The Keihna agglomeration (Tokyo - Yokohama) - the prefectures of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitoma, Chiba (13,584 km2; 32.7 million inhabitants)
	Metropolitan	Moscow and Moscow region (47,000 km2; 15.4 million inhabitants)	Petersburg and Leningrad region. (85,900 km 2; 6.6 million inhabitants)	Paris region - 20 dep. (90,000 km 2; 15 million inhabitants)	South-East of Great Britain (27,400 km 2; 16.8 million inhabitants	New York area. District planning associations (33,254 km2; 19.2 million inhabitants)	Capital Region (8 prefectures - Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitoma, Chiba, Gunma, Ibaraki, Totnye, Yama us and (36,914 km 2; The specificity of the definition of the concept of "city" depends, of course, on the position from which the problem is considered. In its most general form, a city is a large settlement, the overwhelming majority of whose inhabitants are employed outside of agriculture: in industry, trade, the service sector, science, and culture. The following characteristic features of modern cities can be distinguished: economic - employment of the population outside agriculture; ekistic - the concentration of a significant population in a relatively small area and, consequently, a high population density (up to several tens of thousands of inhabitants per 1 km2 of the city); demographic - the formation of specific urban characteristics and its structure; architectural - the formation of a characteristic urban architectural and planning environment; sociological - the formation of an urban lifestyle; legal - cities, as a rule, - administrative centers of the adjacent territory. The degree of favorable development of the city in one direction or another is determined by it. Sociologists propose to look for the specific features of the city in the structure of its “social space”, “in the urban lifestyle”, which, first of all, is expressed in a higher degree of mobility of urban residents and in an increase in the number of contacts between them, considered as a measure of potential human interactions. The following characteristics of the urban lifestyle can be found in the literature: increased mobility of the population; freedom to choose one's environment, as well as the ability to easily isolate oneself from it; regulated working hours and the possibility of planning free time; family disintegration; a decrease in the average size of a family and households. In the system of the geographical division of labor, each city is, first of all, a place of complex concentration of functions involved in this division of labor. From this follows the economic definition of the city as a place of complex concentration of socio-economic functions. From the standpoint of population studies, a city is a place of life activity (in the broadest sense) of concentrated masses of the population, which are distinguished by specific socio-demographic characteristics and factors of population development. In our opinion, the most correct economic structure and functional profile of cities can be quantitatively characterized by identifying the city-forming contingent of city workers, i.e. that part of the workers who are employed in the city-forming branches of the city's economy, in enterprises and institutions of importance beyond the scope of this paragraph (industry, external, warehouses and bases of procurement and supply organizations, administrative institutions, research institutes and educational institutions, construction organizations, rural, other institutions of non-urban significance). Currently, the concept of "city" is significantly transformed. Being a form of settlement of people on the territory, the city has long been associated in our minds not only with a place where non-agricultural activities are concentrated (industry, trade, transport, etc.), but also with a place where people accumulate, dwellings are concentrated, roads cross. The concept of "city" is inextricably linked with the idea of ​​some kind of center - functional, populated, residential. It can be noted that the performance of various functions of such a center is no less typical for cities than their industrial role. In this sense, cities as centers have long been, as it were, in the focus of the territorial structure of settlement, but at the same time remained only separate, albeit focal points on the map. The essence of the new modifications introduced into the development of cities is that the city as a point form of settlement is being replaced by urban agglomerations. Production, labor, cultural ties between the city and its surroundings at a certain, sufficiently high level of development of productive forces become so close that neither the city nor the settlements adjacent to it can exist without each other. This process of merging, coalescence is so fast and intense that some scholars propose to replace the concept of "city" as obsolete. Cities have a variety of economic and superstructural functions, the content of which has changed significantly in different historical epochs. In this regard, the very concept of "city" has historically changed. In the definitions of the city of the late XIX and early XX centuries. preference was given to trade, while industry was given a smaller role. In pre-revolutionary Russia, the definition of a city corresponded to the administrative-territorial and class structure of the Russian Empire. The name "city" originally meant a fortified settlement, a fenced area, and the territory of the city was limited to the boundaries of the fortress. Gradually, the city "acquires" the population living outside it, but in the immediate vicinity of the walls of the fortress. Over time, these settlements turn into parts of the city (in Russia, these are "suburbs" or "posadas" with craftsmen and merchants). Moreover, the term "city" itself takes on two meanings: a city as a fortress and a city as a populated place, i.e. fortress with its surrounding forefront. Until the beginning of the 20th century. the term "agglomeration" was used to define territorial clusters of industrial enterprises, and A. Weber (1903) introduced it to denote the process of a large concentration of the population in cities. As large cities grew and more and more urban and rural settlements poured into their sphere of influence, this term began to be used to refer to new territorial entities. The main features of such formations: close economic ties in the combination and cooperation of industrial enterprises between the production and consumption of industrial and products (indicators of the tightness of these ties are much more powerful cargo flows within the agglomeration compared to external cargo flows); labor (part of those working at enterprises and institutions of one settlement live in other settlements, i.e. within the agglomeration there is an interconnected relationship and there are daily pendulums between the main city and settlements of the suburban zone, as well as between these settlements); cultural and recreational (institutions or places of rest of one or several settlements partially serve the inhabitants of other settlements, there are daily or weekly pendulum migrations for cultural and household or purposes); close administrative-political and organizational-economic (causing daily business trips between the settlements of the agglomeration - for production, service and public work). All of these characteristic features determine the specifics of the development of the agglomeration as a diversified, multifunctional center of national importance with specialization in the most progressive sectors of the national economy. Thus, the agglomeration should be considered simultaneously as a subsystem of the general system of production location and as a subsystem of the general system of the country's settlement. The economic prerequisite for the rapid development of agglomerations is the advantages inherent in this form of location of production and settlement, namely: a high degree of concentration and diversification of production, which determines its maximum efficiency; concentration of qualified personnel, close connection of production with science and training centers; the most efficient use of production and social systems. There is also a form of settlement in which the role of "leader" is played not by one, but by two or a group of cities; some authors use the term "conurbation" in this case. Other authors use the terms "agglomeration" and "conurbation" as equivalent. The difference lies in the fact that the agglomeration took shape when a large city “attached” its surrounding territories, while conurbation took shape when several cities, often of equal economic and population density, merged. In the case of such an understanding, sex and centric highly developed systems of urban settlements should be attributed to conurbations. But usually such systems are transformed into monocentric (with one center), in which case the distinction between conurbation and agglomeration is erased. The stages of population dynamics in agglomerations are as follows: the population of the core is increasing, while the outer (suburban) zone is decreasing due to migration to the core; in general, the population of the agglomeration is growing; the core is growing strongly, the outer zone is also growing, strong concentration throughout the agglomeration; the core continues to grow and the highest concentration in the suburban area, the agglomeration continues to grow; the population of the core begins to decline, but in the suburban area it increases, the agglomeration as a whole is growing; the population of the core is declining, growth continues in the suburban area, but the population in the agglomeration is declining (this stage is now characteristic of the series); both the population of the core and its population in the outer zone are decreasing, the population of the agglomeration is decreasing. RELATED ARTICLES Feedback site `s map About the site