Socio-territorial communities

The nature and social division of labor are closely connected with the place of life. Compactly living groups of people form socio-territorial communities.

In sociology socio-territorial communitiesare defined as social groups that have a unity of attitude towards a certain economically developed territory. Signs of such communities are stable economic, social, political, spiritual, ideological and environmental ties, which allow us to distinguish them as independent social subjects of the spatial organization of life. Revealing the social essence of various types of settlements, sociologists reveal the social conditionality of the emergence of human settlement, determine its functions and their changes during the transition from one social system to another, and find out the impact of settlement on the production activity of people, on the environment.

Two types of settlement are the focus of attention of sociologists: city ​​and village differing in the degree of concentration of production, the population, and, consequently, the difference in access to social benefits and institutions, the possibilities of personal development.

The settlement is a form of inclusion of the individual in public life, the environment of his socialization. The heterogeneity of social living conditions leads to significant social inequality. The possibilities of socialization in the countryside are limited by such an economic factor as profitability of the service sector and industry. There is no point in building an academic opera and ballet theater here, and even a hairdresser in every village will not be able to feed himself. The average number of inhabitants of one village in Russia does not exceed one hundred people. A school has to be created not in every village, but one in three or four. The quality of education in rural schools is lower than in urban schools.

Comparing urban and rural lifestyles, sociologists capture the following important social differences and inequalities:

Ø In cities, the population is predominantly engaged in industrial and mental labor with a predominance in the social structure of workers, intellectuals, employees, entrepreneurs, while peasants, a small number of intelligentsia and a large number of pensioners dominate in the structure of the village;

Ø In villages, private housing stock of low-rise buildings prevails and the role of personal subsidiary plots is significant, while in cities state-owned multi-storey housing stock and a significant distance between the place of work and housing dominate. The average Moscow resident spends about two hours a day moving from home to work and back;

Ø The city has a high population density and high formalization, anonymity of social contacts, in the countryside communication is, as a rule, personal;

Ø The city is distinguished by a significantly greater stratification, a high decile coefficient (the difference between the current incomes of 10% of the richest and 10% of the poorest). The Russian village in terms of income is more homogeneous. In 2000, the income of agricultural workers

accounted for 37% of the income level of employees in cities;

Ø The urban type of settlement creates a complex role structure, leading to a weakening of group control, deviant behavior, and crime. According to statistics, three times less crime per unit of population is committed in villages than in cities;

Ø Life expectancy in Russian villages is lower than in cities, and this gap continues to widen. The sex and age structure of the village is clearly dominated by women.

There are other differences as well. Nevertheless, the historically inevitable way of the development of civilization, the socio-territorial structure of the population is urbanization.

Urbanization - it is a process of increasing the share and role of cities in the development of society, causing changes in the social structure of society, culture and lifestyle of the population.

The village is gradually losing inhabitants, and the cities tend to enlarge. Millionaire cities are turning into megacities, becoming one of the manifestations of the planetary crisis. Man is an element of the biosphere and can develop only in a developing biosphere. Meanwhile, cities are increasingly moving people away from nature, throwing out a huge amount of gases, industrial and municipal waste, etc. Stopping the supply of electricity, water, garbage collection in the metropolis for a couple of days can lead to a colossal social catastrophe.

Sociologists identify other socio-territorial communities that require sociological attention. For example, urbanized areas and agglomerations. The urban agglomeration includes narrowly functional settlements and enterprises located within the daily pendulum migration from its center. An urbanized zone is a territory where, as a result of urbanization, the rural population gradually assimilates and begins to lead an urban lifestyle.

Topic 10. Socio-territorial structure of society

The socio-territorial structure is a significant cut of the social structure of society, which is formed on the basis of differences in the conditions of their territorial location.

The elements of the socio-territorial structure are the socio-economic types of territorial communities that actively interact with each other.

Territorial communities- these are aggregates of people characterized by a common relationship to a certain economically developed territory, a system of economic, social, political, and other ties that distinguish it as a relatively independent unit of the spatial organization of the life of the population.

Territorial communities are of three levels:

1. The highest type of community is the people;

2. The second type is nations and ethnic groups;

3. The third type - residents of the city, village, region.

City and village- historically specific socio-spatial forms of the existence of society that arose as a result of the social division of labor, i.e. the separation of handicrafts from agriculture and the concentration of exchange in the hands of a special social group.

In Russia, a city must have at least 12,000 inhabitants and at least 85 percent of the population employed outside of agriculture.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, more than ½ of the world's population has lived in urban areas.

In sociology region- this is an area, a part of the country, which differs from others by a combination of natural, social, cultural features.

Allocate 3 types of regional division:

1 type– based on economic zoning ( Northwestern, Volga-Vyatka, Central, Volga, Ural, West Siberian, East Siberian, Far East, etc.);

type 2- on the basis of administrative-territorial division - regions, territories, districts;

3 type- urban agglomeration - i.e. a compact spatial grouping of settlements united into one whole by intense socio-economic ties. An urban agglomeration of a polycentric type is called a conurbation ( Moscow, S.-P., Ruhr agglomeration in Germany). Superagglomeration, as the largest form of settlement, is called metropolis

The territorial-settlement structure of society is formed on the basis of the following type-forming features of the settlement: population size or population; socio-demographic composition; administrative status; production profile; level of social development; location of settlements in relation to transport communications and socio-political centers; a set of environmental conditions; features of local social policy.

Functions socio-territorial system are: the creation of territorial conditions for the efficient use of natural resources; ensuring normal spatial conditions of life; social control of the living space of society.

The main socio-territorial processes are urbanization and migration.

Urbanization(from Latin - urban) is a socio-economic process, expressed in the growth of the number of cities, the urban population and the spread of the urban lifestyle to the whole society.

Historically, urbanization is closely linked with the development of capitalism and industrialization, since capitalist production contributes to the accumulation of the population in large centers.

The process of urbanization is due to: the transformation of rural settlements into urban ones due to an increase in the number of inhabitants; formation of wide suburban areas; migration from villages to cities.

The process of urbanization is closely related to the process migration, which is a set of movements made by people between countries, regions, settlements of various types. The outflow of people from a country is called emigration, and the influx of population into the country - immigration.

To characterize the population of any territorial units, the concept of "territorial community" is used. From the point of view of the territorial structure, society can be considered as a socio-territorial system, which also includes a set of territorial communities of people who are specific social groups that have special social interests and interact in a certain way with each other.

The most general definition of a territorial community is given in his textbook by the Polish sociologist J. Szczepanski. He calls territorial a community whose members are bound by ties of common relations to the territory in which they live, and by ties of relations arising from the fact of living in a common territory (See: Shchepansky Ya. Elementary concepts of sociology. - M., 1969. - P. 160). The main elements of the territorial community are the relevant groups of the population and the parts of the living space they use with their production and social infrastructures, as well as government bodies.

Territorial communities perform external and internal functions. External functions territorial community are to meet the needs of society in material goods, industrial and social services, cultural values; domestic– in ensuring normal living conditions for the relevant groups of the population.

The objective basis for the formation of a territorial community is the difference in conditions in the places of human settlement: firstly, these are the natural and geographical features of the territories; secondly, the unequal degree of favorable living conditions for people, depending on the socio-economic development of certain territories.

A prerequisite for the inclusion of an individual in a community is his connection with the territory. The permanent place of residence of people is a kind of distribution of them over one or another territorial community. The possibility of changing the community, that is, changing one's social position by changing one's place of residence, seems to be easier than changing one's belonging to a certain social group in other ways.

Territorial population groups are represented by settlement and regional types. Settler communities are formed by some kind of homogeneous settlement: either rural or urban; regional includes both of them. The differentiation of settlements is primarily due to the social division of two types of labor - industrial and agricultural, respectively, urban and rural settlements are distinguished. In the region, as a rule, both industrial and agricultural types of labor are represented. Therefore, settlement communities are characterized by the homogeneity of the population and living conditions, while regional communities are characterized by heterogeneity.

The content of the term "region" is quite ambiguous. It can designate units of various sizes, allocated on various grounds (political-territorial formations, economic regions, large parts of the country, aggregates of countries, etc.). Understanding the region depends on the approach used and the objectives of the study. From the point of view of sociology, according to A.I. Sukharev, “a region is a relatively independent, territorially delineated, natural and social phenomenon that has the ability to self-reproduce” (Sukharev A.I. Fundamentals of regional studies. - Saransk, 1996. - P. 4).

The development of any region is mainly determined by the general laws and trends of the socio-economic development of a given country at a given time, but still has relative independence. As a result of the localization of social relations, each regional territorial community has specific social interests and problems.

The main qualitatively different types of settlement communities are urban and rural. The city and the village are built-up and organized spaces inhabited by a certain number of people. These objects have a complex structure, include a variety of phenomena and processes, which leads to a variety of approaches to determining their essence.

Urban socio-territorial communities play an important role in society and the settlement system. At present, the processes of urbanization are becoming more and more aggravated. The concept of "urbanization" (from Latin urbanus - urban) is usually understood as the process of growing role of cities in the life of society.

Urbanization- a multifaceted socio-economic phenomenon, considered as a specific way of life, determined, firstly, by the material structure of the city, various urban structures; secondly, a complex of social institutions typical of the city; thirdly, a system of attitudes and stereotypes of individual behavior, models of social relations in the urban environment.

The reasons for urbanization and the development of cities in Western sociology are the growth in numbers, population density and its territorial mobility. G. Spencer and E. Durkheim thought so. Agreeing with them, R. Park, E. Burgess and others argued that population growth, its density and intense migration mobility lead to competition, form the features of the social structure of the city and urban lifestyle, become the determining factor in the division of labor between the city and the countryside. Thus, the main reason for the emergence and further development of the city is considered to be population growth, and the result is the division of labor and the emergence of urban and rural types of settlements. In domestic sociology, the main reason for the emergence of two settlement systems is the division of labor, and its consequence is the emergence and development of cities. Features of the functioning and development of urban and rural territorial communities are studied by the sociology of the city and the sociology of the countryside.

Sociology of the city seeks to establish patterns of interaction between the social structure of the city as a model of society and its subject-spatial organization. The main range of problems of the sociology of the city includes determining the place of the city in society and the settlement system, the main causes of the emergence and factors influencing the development of the city, the main subsystems of cities, the features of the urban lifestyle, ways and methods of managing the development of the city as an integral system, etc.

Western researchers have made a great contribution to the sociology of the city. The first works devoted to the sociological problems of the city appeared already at the end of the 19th century. One of them is the book by M. Weber "City", where one of the first sociological definitions of the city is formulated. The city, according to the author, is a large settlement, where "there is no mutual personal acquaintance with each other, which distinguishes a neighborly connection ... is absent" (Weber M. Gorod. - Petrograd, 1923. - P. 7). Comparing the city with the rural community, Weber pointed to the specific aspects that characterize the city: the employment of the main population in non-agricultural labor, the versatility of fishing, the presence of a market, the concentration of managerial functions, etc.

An important role in the development of the sociology of the city was played by the Chicago school, which took shape in the 1920s and 1930s. 20th century in the USA. R. Park, L. Wirth, E. Burgess and others considered the city as a single social organism. The main subject of study was migration processes, interethnic relations, the phenomena of social disorganization of society. Wirth, for example, saw the city as a hub of connections. However, subsequent empirical studies did not confirm his conclusions about the disintegration of personal ties in a large city. Representatives of the Chicago school were criticized for exaggerating the degree of isolation and disorganization, which they considered typical for urban communities, and for viewing the city as something isolated, independent of the development of society. In general, the contribution of the Chicago school to the development of the sociology of the city is significant, and the ideas of its representatives about the close relationship between social phenomena and spatial characteristics have not lost their relevance at the present time.

Domestic sociologists consider the city as a multidimensional systemic formation, characterized by a complex combination of structural connections. They consider a systematic approach to be the main methodological principle of studying the city, which implies:

1) study of the city as an element of society and the system of settlement;

2) study of the internal structure of the city, dividing it into subsystems;

3) study of the patterns of change, development and functioning of the city as a whole.

Well-known domestic researcher G.M. Lappo defines the city as "contradictory harmony". In the city, contradictions constantly arise between form (relatively stable, inert) and content (dynamic, constantly renewing). It must force groups of the population with different interests, engaged in different types of activity, to "get along" within their boundaries. However, for all its inconsistency, the city acts as a self-regulating system.

Russian sociologists (F.S. Faizullin and others) distinguish the following features of the urban lifestyle: a significant increase in the role of social information and communication, the intensification of these processes, an increase in the dependence of human activity on the amount of information received; the opportunity to have more friends; a more noticeable split of society into formal and informal, production and non-production; greater psychological freedom from social control in everyday life.

Sociology of the village- a branch of sociology that studies the genesis, essence, functions, general patterns of development and functioning of the village as an integral socio-territorial system, developing the basic methodological principles of its study.

The rural socio-territorial community is significantly different from the urban one. Another German sociologist F. Tennis proposed to distinguish between the concepts of “community” and “society” (“Gemeinschaft” and “Gesselschaft”), considering the community as a certain type of rural community, and society as an urban one. Relations between people in the community, in his opinion, are based on emotions, attachments; rural society is self-sufficient, connected by family ties and a certain sense of community. Relations of the second kind, or social relations, are based on a rational principle; they take into account the degree of usefulness of one person for another. According to Tennis, in contrast to the community, society is dominated by a prudent mind, a purposeful rational will. The sociologist explored the ideal types of community and society. They cannot be singled out in reality in their pure form, moreover, in modern Western society, significant differences between urban and rural lifestyles no longer exist. Communities are deprived of a greater share of their self-sufficiency, since social interests on a national scale began to become important. The dichotomy of community and society in Western sociology is reproduced more often in connection with the distinction between "traditional" and "modern" society.

In Russian sociology, the features of a rural territorial community were studied by T.I. Zaslavskaya, V.I. Staroverov and others. Intuitively, everyone understands how the city differs from the village. The idea of ​​a large concentration of people, multi-storey buildings, heavy traffic is associated with the city. At the word "village" the opposite picture arises: one-story houses, silence, sparsely populated. The most common indicator for delimiting the city and the countryside is the population size: it is understood that the city is, first of all, something more. But this is only an external, visible difference. The village has its own specific functions and is distinguished by the main elements of the internal structure. Like most special facilities, the village is multifunctional. Their functions can be divided into:

specific, peculiar only to this object;

Non-specific, i.e., partially performed by other objects.

The last group of functions is divided into external, aimed at the non-rural population, and internal, aimed at rural communities.

The specific function performed by the village is to provide society with agricultural products. Non-specific external functions may include:

1) socio-spatial, which consists in a relatively uniform settlement, economic development and social control of rural areas;

2) recreational nature management, the content of which is the organization of recreation through the use of natural recreational resources;

3) demographic, ensuring the reproduction of the rural population.

Rural territorial communities have certain features in comparison with urban ones. Rural communities are smaller in terms of population, they have an increased proportion of the elderly, fewer people of working age and young people. The population of the village has always been distinguished by a higher level of natural increase due to increased birth rates, it is characterized by a high migration turnover, a net migration outflow and a tendency to reduce the total number. Due to the specifics of the development of the production sector, the professional, official and qualification composition has less diversity. The rural population is characterized by a certain conservatism of thinking, distrust of social innovations, greater stability of norms and values.

At present, the socio-territorial structure of society is becoming more complex, the traditional idea of ​​the city and the countryside is changing, their integrity is being violated, other formations are being formed (urban agglomerations, agricultural areas of non-agricultural specialization, urban-type settlements, etc.). Many researchers are inclined to believe that the socio-territorial structure should not be two-dimensional (city - village), but more complex. It was conditionally proposed to call various entities agrarian and non-agrarian spheres.

Differences between the city and the countryside still persist and appear in at least three closely related ways:

they represent different types of work;

These are quite clearly separated forms of settlements;

specific social groups are associated with these settlements.

The population of cities and villages is formed into a special kind of social communities of people, communities in the place of settlement, socio-territorial communities.

INTRODUCTION

The sociology of the city and the countryside is, in my opinion, relevant today, since only by clearly presenting the past of Russian society, its mentality, the features of life and the development of the economy in history, one can more or less correctly imagine the prospect of further development of Russia.

The range of problems of urban and rural sociology includes:

1. determining their place in society and the settlement system;

2. the main reasons for the appearance and factors affecting their functioning and development;

3. social structure of the population;

4. features of urban and rural lifestyles;

5. connection with the environment;

6. urban and rural management and the problems of reviving the traditions of self-government;

7. social factors and consequences of population migration (city - village, village - city), etc.

The work was written on the basis of newspapers and magazines: "Social and Political Journal", "Knowledge is Power", "Free Thought", "Sotsis".

SOCIOLOGY OF SETTLEMENT.

To understand the state of Russian society and the prospects for its development, an analysis of the sociology of settlement is of great importance. The main thing in the sociological theory of settlement is the identification of the social community of the essence of various types of settlement.

This approach means:

1. disclosure of the social conditionality of the emergence of settlement, its functioning and development;

2. definition of its functions, role in society;

3. establishing changes in this role in connection with the transition from one formation to another;

4. clarification of the impact of settlement, as well as the social, industrial activities of people on the environment.

The sociology of settlement is a field of sociological knowledge that studies the genesis (origin, the process of formation), the essence and general patterns of development and functioning of the city and village as integral systems.

The genesis of settlement in the form of a city and a village is a long historical process during which the organization of space acquires a socially conditioned character. The concept of "settlement" reflects the entire socially determined spatial complex of living conditions for people, as well as disproportions in their territorial distribution, which determine the social differences between social groups and strata. Settlement acts as a result, reflecting in a filmed form the social structure of society.

“Resettlement is the placement of people determined by the mode of production in an appropriately formed system of living conditions deployed in space and time in the aggregate of their material and spiritual components aimed at meeting the basic needs of a person.”

Settlement is a complex and lengthy process that reflects the state of a particular era and, along with new social relations, implies a sufficient level of development of production forces.

In the conditions of a primitive society, the nomadic way of life was the first form of human existence, this is mainly due to natural and geographical factors. Primitive society did not know the differentiation of settlement, because the very community of people was formed on a tribal, tribal basis. Settlement took place on a dispersed basis, since consanguineous groups of people lived in caves scattered in the developed territory. Social principles in public life experienced their origin, separation from the natural. Territorial differences were in the natural conditions of life and activities of people and did not have a social connotation, because. were due to nature. The process of formation of settlements is especially intensified when the crisis of the hunting-gathering economy occurs and the transition to agriculture is carried out, which tied people to a certain place. The qualitatively homogeneous economic activity of the primitive communal system reproduced forms of settlement adequate to it. Relative originality was introduced by the density or sparseness of the territory according to its population by individual tribes. In general, due to the lack of a basis for the formation of separate social groups of the population in primitive society, for a long time there was the same type of settlement in the form of autonomous settlements close to traditional rural ones. Further economic development gave the settlements the character of a system, subordinating to their interests its main elements (settlements), integrally polarized in the form of traditional dismemberment - "city - village".

In the period of antiquity, the city and the village were not yet distinguished as independent settlements. Antiquity was characterized by a kind of symbiosis "city - village", which was ubiquitous, including territories with cities - centers. Cities were a group of settlements close to the rural, village type.

During the formation of the slave system, the organization of space gradually acquires a stable character. Undeveloped cities and villages give way to socially differentiated settlement. At this time, the formation of the first urban organisms, or, as they are more accurately called, proto-cities, takes place. In the evolution of settlement, the crystallization of urban and rural functions and the emergence of opposites between town and country become noticeable. This was largely due to the division of labor, which led to the separation of industrial and commercial labor from agricultural labor and thus to the separation of the city from the countryside. Since then, the conditions and place of human life are determined by his social position and economic opportunities.

Thus, "city" and "village" in the aggregate of settlements act rather as collective concepts, mainly covering the variety of existing forms of settlement and expressing the differences between settlements. The historical development of a city (village) cannot be a continuous process of evolution. There are many similarities between the ancient polis, medieval and modern cities, but the layering of epochs in the process of settlement development is observed only in inherited material and spatial material forms and architectural solutions, and not in their socio-economic content.

The differences between the city and the countryside of different eras lies in political, socio-economic, recreational, aesthetic and other functions. Behind the spatial transformations in the settlement network lie changes in its structure and functional organization, which is determined by the socio-political changes in society.

SOCIOLOGY OF THE CITY.

The sociology of the city, in my opinion, should be considered open to science and practice, like all sociology, from the period when man became the subject of the historical process, i.e. since the period of bourgeois revolutions. Until then, we have the right to talk about the history of the city, about modest local attempts to solve the social problems of its inhabitants. Until the 19th century inclusive, cities were created and emerged as symbols of power, as centers of trade, as port cities (both in ancient times and in the Middle Ages). And with the advent of the era of capitalism, cities were created for a long time as a result of industrialization, as centers for the development of natural resources. And only on the threshold of the 20th century did the concepts of the French architect T. Garnier and the English urbanist E. Howard appear, in which ideas were expressed about the division of cities into an industrial and residential zone, as well as a recreation, service and recreation zone. It is with this that the sociology of the city, urban agglomerations and all settlements that claim this name begins.

A special place is occupied by the city as a socio-territorial entity, where the interests of society, labor collectives, institutions, organizations and the interests of the person himself as a resident are most closely intertwined. The 20th century can, in a certain sense, be called the century of the mass emergence of cities. The process of urbanization covered all countries, especially industrialized ones, which led to the fact that the majority of the population was concentrated in urban settlements. At the same time, not only the concentration of industry became city-forming factors. But also science, recreation, processing of raw materials, including agricultural, etc.

This process is no exception for our country, in which the process of urban planning proceeded on a huge scale. During the years of Soviet power (until 1989) 1481 cities were formed. A characteristic feature of the current period is their steady enlargement: in Russia, 57 cities have a population of more than 500 thousand people, including 23 - more than 1 million inhabitants. The acuteness of the social development of cities at the present stage is primarily due to the fact that at present the majority (71%) of the country's population lives in them.

The problems and range of research in urban sociology is currently the subject of extensive discussion in the sociological literature. The theoretical foundations of non-Marxist urban sociology are laid down in the works of M. Weber (analysis of the city in the context of the historical development of society, its economic system, culture and political institutions), Tennis (contraposition of urban and rural forms of public life) and Simmel (highlighting some of the characteristic features of urban culture) . Currently, the spatial analysis of the city is used to study the social segregation of various social strata and ethnic groups in cities.

A city is a territorially concentrated form of resettlement of people who are mainly engaged in non-agricultural labor. The city is characterized by a variety of labor and non-productive activities of the population, social and professional heterogeneity, and a specific way of life.

Urban culture is characterized by: the predominance of anonymous, businesslike, short-term, partial and superficial contacts in interpersonal communication; a decrease in the importance of territorial communities; attenuation of neighboring bonds; the diminishing role of the family; variety of cultural stereotypes; the instability of the social status of the city dweller, the increase in his social mobility; weakening the influence of traditions in regulating the behavior of the individual.

The urban way of life in our country is conditioned and characterized by: the employment of the population mainly by industrial forms of labor and the resulting social and professional structure; relatively high spatial, professional and social mobility; a wide choice of types of work and leisure; a significant distance between housing and places of work; the predominance of state and cooperative housing stock over private; changing the role of personal subsidiary farming (horticultural plot), turning it from a source of livelihood into one of the forms of health-improving recreation; a large amount of information necessary for a person, which leads to psychological overload and requires new ways of organizing recreation; a significant degree of ethnic integration and socio-ethnic diversity in family and friendship ties; high density of human contact.

In connection with the development of the urban way of life, there are two kinds of problems. Some of them are related to the study and formation of mechanisms for creating new models of social relations in production and beyond, with the development of forms and norms of social and cultural consumption and the creation of mechanisms for the succession of various norms of culture and social relations. Others are focused on the redistribution of existing and the release of additional resources to accelerate the development of these processes. The most important is the problem of mutual linkage of the city's jobs and the professional qualities of the working population, on the one hand, and the real inconsistencies between its requirements and expectations for jobs and the existing structure of the city's jobs, on the other.

The extensive path of industrial development, reproducing the same far from the most efficient structure of jobs on an ever-expanding scale, thereby stimulates a regular influx of labor from outside, which leads to excessive urban growth. This problem is most acute in small and medium-sized cities, especially with one dominant industry. The bottom line is that the monofunctionality of the city predetermines the predominant demand for the labor force of any one gender. For example, Ivanovo is the center of the textile industry, where predominantly female labor is used. As a result, in the formation of the city's population, there is a bias towards females, as a result of which the process of population reproduction is disrupted, divorces become more frequent, and so on. In addition, the monofunctionality of the city makes it almost impossible to choose an activity, nullifies the conditions for changing jobs, which in turn leads to an increase in migration of the population, and especially young people.

An increasing influence on the development of culture, politics and the entire way of life of mankind is exerted by the phenomenon of not only the growth of the world's population, but also the concentration of people in separate large agglomerations. Large cities are growing rapidly, absorbing the surrounding villages, merge with each other, forming megacities. In our country, there are a number of large and super-large agglomerations: Moscow, Ural, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, which are fundamentally new social problems caused by the residence of a huge number of people in a limited area. The very functioning of cities and agglomerations has both general and specific problems.

For all of them, the adaptation of visitors, the social and environment, the development of modern housing, the rational organization of people's daily lives have become of paramount importance.

But there are also specific problems. In large cities, this is the streamlining of social infrastructure, bringing production and cultural and domestic needs into line, in small cities - the effective use of labor resources, improvement, the creation of a modern complex of amenities, housing and public services. Many acute questions arise in new cities. The experience of designing, building and operating Naberezhnye Chelny, Divnogorsk, cities of the Tyumen North suggests that the lack of necessary conditions for the rational organization of the daily life of the population leads to people's dissatisfaction with their place of work and residence and, as a result, to migration. The solution to this problem may be to provide young Siberian cities with stable qualified personnel.

The transition to new high technologies does not just lead to population shifts. Migration first from villages to workers' settlements, then from settlements to cities, and from cities to megacities is typical for most regions of the planet. Villages, and even more so farms, are disappearing, this is due to the peculiarities of people's life and work. They are replaced by megacities with their problems and advantages, which include the following: in large cities it is more profitable to do business, organize production, trade, create educational complexes, etc.

Summing up, we can say with confidence that it is necessary to deal with the problem of cities today, and it is necessary to deal not only from the position of a municipal administrator, but from the position of science, for which the concentration of the population is a natural phenomenon that does not arise due to someone's evil will and which became a natural consequence of the development of civilization, and hence the evolution of man.

SOCIOLOGY OF THE VILLAGE.

Like a city, a village as an object of sociology is a historically developed internally differentiated socio-territorial subsystem. It is characterized by a special unity of the artificial material environment, natural and geographical conditions dominating it, and a dispersed type of socio-spatial organization of people.

The village differs from the city in a lower degree of socio-economic development, a well-known lag in the level of well-being of people, their way of life, which accordingly affects the social structure and lifestyle of the population. It is characterized by a relative (compared with the city) small number of types of labor activity, greater social and professional homogeneity. The village is a relatively stable independent system, which is a socio-spatial subsystem of society. Its main components are identical to the city and at the same time dichotomous to it; together with the city historically forms the integrity of the social and territorial structure of society.

The main differences between the rural way of life and the urban one are less developed labor in social reproduction, its lag in mechanization and power supply, relatively weak differentiation in the field of labor application, less variety of jobs and weak opportunities for their choice, subordination of labor to the rhythms and cycles of nature, uneven labor employment, more difficult working conditions, etc.

The rural way of life is also characterized by the necessity and laboriousness of work in the household and subsidiary farms; a small variety of leisure activities; poor labor mobility; great fusion of work and life. Interpersonal relations in the countryside are also specific. Here, socially and nationally homogeneous families predominate, there is no anonymity of communication, and social roles are poorly formalized. Strong social control of the community over people's behavior, traditions, customs, and local authorities are of great importance. The rhythm of life in the countryside is predominantly less stressful compared to the city, a person experiences less psychological stress, uses simpler forms of communication.

In many ways, the functions of a city and a village are similar, but each type of settlement has its own specific functions. Among the most important functions of the village include spatial communication. Nowadays, interest in this feature is escalating. It must be known from the point of view of identifying further opportunities for the development of the country's territory and assessing the role of rural settlements in solving the food problem. Creation of a reliable infrastructure (network of railways, roads, construction of airfields and runways, etc.) is of paramount importance when deciding to switch agriculture to a farmer's path of development.

The next important aspect, closely related to this function, is the problem of satisfying spiritual needs, “satisfying” the informational hunger of the villagers. This refers not only to the consumption of mass media - television, radio, newspapers. The question is much broader. The fact is that the activity of consumption and production of spiritual values ​​has sharply increased on the basis of a new, higher educational level of the population and new spiritual needs.

For the past 100 years, the village has been performing a donor function. More resources are drawn from the village than are given in return. The reason is the steady migration from the countryside to the city. The cost of education, education, and professional training was largely borne by the village, and the income from the realization of the labor potential of people who left for the city went to the latter.

The city has always attracted the population of villages, farms, villages, small towns. Thus, from the mid-1920s to the mid-1980s, the urban population increased by 80 million people. In modern large cities of Russia, the share of migrants is 2/3 of the urban population. Thus, the problem of providing labor force to cities was solved. But it was solved by "pulling" resources, the best labor force from the village.

Since the 1990s, the migration flow has increased from city to village, city to village. This is due to the deterioration of the life of the population in cities, especially non-working pensioners, a significant rise in the cost of travel by rail, road transport and other reasons. So, by 1994 St. Petersburg "lost" more than 200 thousand of its inhabitants and for the first time in the last 15 years their number was less than 5 million people. This trend has not touched Moscow, which is home to more than 11 million people.

In recent years, the influx of migrants to the village has increased from the regions of the Far North, from Murmansk to Anadyr, as well as from neighboring countries and hot spots in Russia.

The village is getting older and older. The proportion of able-bodied people born in the village does not exceed 20%. Half of the migrants who came to the village are pensioners who are not sufficiently trained and are not capable of productive intensive work.

The relations that develop in rural areas in modern Russia are quite specific. The central subjects of Russian peasant societies were and remain, on the one hand, large collective farms and, on the other, family peasant households. Now there is a selection of various possibilities and rules for the socio-economic survival of the peasantry. Collective farms and joint-stock companies often act in relation to the peasant as the most cruel exploiter of his labor. This is manifested, in particular, in the form of non-payment of wages.

In the struggle of subjects from among the current peasantry, the initiative remains with the court, the farmer, they are more resolute and quick-witted. The connection between the collective farm, joint-stock companies, and the peasant household is becoming ever weaker and more one-sided: the court strives to take as much as possible and give as little as possible to the collective farm or joint-stock company. The peasants themselves feel psychological discomfort from a double life: for themselves and for the collective farm.

Another specific feature of the economic, social and other relations taking shape in rural areas is the course not towards strengthening the production base and improving the economic mechanism for stimulating the development of production, but towards a hasty change in the forms of ownership and organization of farms.

The number of villages, as mentioned above, invariably becomes smaller and smaller. And this is not surprising, since in 1998 Russia's agriculture suffered losses more than in 1997, by 10 billion rubles. 92% of all joint-stock companies, collective and state farms, as well as farms are unprofitable.

There are several reasons. Chief among them is the government's policy in relation to this most important sphere of the national economy. In all countries of the world that occupy leading positions in the field of agricultural production, this industry is subsidized (the size of subsidies is from 30 to 60% of the total volume of production). 2.2% of the annual GDP is allocated to the Russian agriculture. In addition, residents of farms, villages, villages suffer great losses from impassability, from the lack of cars, mechanisms for processing agricultural products, etc.

So, in our time, it is not the “elimination of the village” that is important, but its social arrangement, the qualitative transformation of rural settlement, the establishment of closer, more intense social ties between urban and rural settlements, etc.

CONCLUSION.

Summing up the above, I would like to emphasize the importance of considering this problem, because despite its relevance, it does not attract the due interest of scientists, theoreticians and practitioners.

The problem of urban growth and the problems arising from it must be solved not from the position of local officials, but from the position of science. It is necessary to develop a plan for the design and creation of new cities rationally, since at present, oddly enough, old cities are more comfortable for living.

In addition, it is necessary to prevent the "impoverishment" of villages, their aging. It is advisable to change the policy of the state in relation to villages, farms, agriculture in general.

The problem of population migration should not be overlooked either. Previously, the reasons for migration were highlighted. Based on them, it is possible to find a solution to this problem, which, in my opinion, is to create a favorable ecological climate, i.e. carrying out comprehensive measures to protect the environment. It would not be superfluous to create a sufficient number of jobs. It is necessary that people have a sufficient number of choices of various professions. In addition, wages and pensions must correspond to the level of prices. This will lead to a decrease in migration both from the city to the countryside and vice versa. In addition, the "aging" of the villages will finally end.

It is necessary to create closer ties between the city and the countryside in order, at least in this way, to improve the agricultural economy.

It may be worth introducing a number of new benefits in order to attract young people to villages, farms, villages, since at present it is considered extremely unprestigious to live and work there.

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All the versatile and multifaceted activities of people, which constitute the content of social processes, are carried out on the scale of certain territorial communities, which, in this regard, are important conditions and forms of social life.

Socio-territorial communities can be defined as a set of people who have the same type of attitude towards a certain economically developed territory. The main essential features of such a community are stable economic, political, social, spiritual and moral ties and relationships that distinguish it as a fairly independent system of spatial organization of people's life. Socio-territorial communities existed and exist in different historical conditions. Their appearance meant an important stage, a qualitative leap in the history of mankind. This was once pointed out by F. Engels, who noted that “the old society, based on tribal relations, explodes as a result of a collision of newly formed social classes; in its place is a new society organized into a state, the lowest links of which are no longer tribal, but territorial associations. In other words, it is the territorial communities that are the fundamental links of any state.

Specific properties of territorial communities determined by: economic conditions, primarily the historical division of labor; social-class, professional and national structure of the population; environmental conditions that have an important impact on the nature of labor activity, organization of life and many other aspects of people's lifestyle.

In principle, each territorial community bears certain common features characteristic of the social organism as a whole.

In the general set of territorial formations, the primary territorial community is the initial one, which has the properties of integrity and indivisibility according to the functional criterion, and all components cannot independently perform specific functions that are inherent in this socio-territorial community.

Such an initial territorial community is region.

There are important differences between socio-territorial communities: according to the level of development of productive forces, population density, the nature of economic activity based on one form of ownership or another, according to the way of life and the mode of social reproduction.

Social reproduction - it is the process of evolution of the system of social connections and relations, social structure, social institutions and organizations, values, norms and behavioral standards.

The basis of social reproduction is the social reproduction of the population living in a certain territory. The latter includes demographic, ethnic (national), cultural, spiritual and legal, professional components. In their totality, they provide not only the physical reproduction of people, but also the reproduction of certain social qualities necessary for the participation of the population in social life.

Social reproduction does not have the character of "simple repetition", i.e., both quantitatively and qualitatively, at different historical stages of the development of society, it is worn out. Therefore, the term "expanded" or "narrowed" social reproduction should reflect these circumstances in its content.

In the reformed Russia in the 90s. 20th century in regions with a predominantly Russian population, there was a clear decline in the birth rate and an increase in the death rate of the population. In almost all Russian regions at the same time, the marginalization of the population increased, social apathy and various forms became widespread. In general, the differences in the socio-economic development of the regions have become more tangible. The increase in the scale of migration, the complicated situation in a number of regions and districts of the country, also had an effect.

Territorial gradation of Russian society is reflected within certain limits in its administrative-territorial division into republics, territories, regions, an autonomous region, autonomous regions, cities of federal significance, large, medium, small cities, urban-type settlements, villages, auls, farms, etc.

Along with the functions of social reproduction, some of the socio-territorial formations perform socio-political functions, being subjects of the Federation. The latter have developed historically and in the conditions of the new democratic Russia are a kind of legacy of the Soviet past.

In the most general terms, the modern Russian state is a combination of a federal organization (the main feature) and elements of a confederation, as well as a unitary state, i.e. "an organizational structure that reflects the scale of the country, its diversity, and the Soviet legacy." According to the Constitution of Russia, the federation initially consisted of 89 subjects, including 21 republics, 49 regions, 6 territories, 10 autonomous districts, an autonomous region and two federal cities - Moscow and St. Petersburg. Since the spring of 2000, all these diverse administrative-territorial units have been united into 7 federal districts. This innovation is intended to help strengthen the centralized state power; it makes the US more specific to Russian federalism. Talking about its features, A. G. Zdravomyslov notes the following points:

• the impossibility of directly borrowing the experience of federal construction from other states and peoples;
• the absence of a historical tradition of federative relations both in the pre-Soviet and Soviet periods;
• the presence of a much greater variety of regions than in other federal states of the world;
• complication of federative relations with national-ethnic aspects, which are an important problem of modern political reality.

“The current stage in the development of Russian federalism,” the sociologist emphasizes, “is connected with the current constitution, which, on the one hand, proclaims the Russian Federation as a Federal State, and on the other hand, contains certain deviations from this principle.” These “digressions” legitimize, in particular, the different statuses of the regions. Moreover, making up the Russian Federation in the aggregate, the regions (its subjects), having different status, have a different impact on the socio-political processes in the country, on the functioning of the state power itself.

The regions represented by national republics, in accordance with the Constitution, are sovereign states that have their own constitutions, their own legislation, their own state paraphernalia, while all the rest, being also subjects of the Federation, do not have such a status.

The nature of relations between the federal center and the regions is determined not only by the Basic Law of the country, but also by local legislation and the system of agreements on the division of power and jurisdiction. The optimal solution to this problem ensures both the integrity of the federal state and the sufficient independence of the subjects of the Federation in resolving issues that fall within their competence. The effectiveness of the functioning of the entire state depends on how the subjects of jurisdiction are delimited between the federal center and the subjects of the Federation.

“The first steps in the formation of genuine federalism, in particular, the redistribution of power functions from the center to the region,” notes A. A. Zhirikov, “are perceived by many as a sign of the weakening of the state, infringement of its sovereignty, and even as a threat to territorial integrity. There are very serious grounds for such fears - in the course of political restructuring, many politicians built their careers precisely on the separatist slogans of fighting the federal government. And this could not but affect the very principle of the formation of democratic federalism and the political stability of society.

Due to certain features of the development of post-Soviet Russia, the delimitation of the subjects of jurisdiction and powers between the Federation and its subjects went in two ways: constitutional and contractual. The conclusion of the Federal Treaty in March 1992 marked the beginning of the process of development of precisely contractual relations. The adoption of the Constitution of the Russian Federation not only did not stop this process, but also gave it a new impetus.

International experience shows a possible triple approach (three ways) to distinguish between subjects that are jointly administered by the Federation and its subjects. The first is that the Constitution enumerates all issues subject to the joint jurisdiction of the Federation and its subjects. Then, for each of these issues, the range of problems that are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federation is determined in detail. The second approach (method) consists in listing the issues on which the Federation determines the general principles of legislation, and the subjects of the Federation issue laws specifying these principles. The third approach (method) consists in the widespread practice when, on issues that are in the joint jurisdiction of the Federation and its subjects, the legislative bodies of the subjects of the Federation are given the right to adopt laws only if there is no federal law on this issue.

Thus, the legal form of resolving all issues relating to the delimitation of jurisdiction between the Federation and its subjects is essentially the same. It is the Constitution of the Federation, not the treaty. And this practice, which has become widespread, is natural, since the treaty is suitable only for regulating relations between subjects equal in status, namely: for regulating relations between subjects of civil or international law.

In analyzing the place and role of contractual relations in the Russian Federation, one should proceed from the fact that in Russia there was a constitutional federation, not a contractual one. The existing practice of agreements indicates that agreements are concluded not between the Russian Federation as a whole and its subjects, but between state authorities - federal and regional, and at the same time exclusively on the issues of delimitation of their powers. Therefore, the role of treaties is auxiliary, and they are rather a temporary forced measure designed to smooth out the contradictions between the federal center and the subjects of the Federation.

Preserving the integrity of the country without infringing on the interests of the territories is the most difficult dual task for the modern Russian state. Its solution is connected with the formation of a new model of federalism, which makes it possible to implement the conceptual principles of self-determination of peoples on the basis of the equality of all subjects of the Federation and all rational communities in each region of Russia. The optimal model of Russian federalism is designed to prevent unitarism that infringes on the interests of the subjects of the Federation, on the one hand, and the transformation of Russia into a conglomerate of loosely interconnected territorial communities, on the other.

One of the most difficult problems of interaction between the federal center and the subjects of the Federation was the correlation of federal and local laws, the discrepancy between the latter and the failure to comply with federal laws at the local level.

The power elites of the subjects of the Federation were guided in their activities mainly by local interests, caring little about the interests of the state as a whole.

We can agree with the characterization formed on the basis of the current Constitution of the Russian Federation, the state system given to it by well-known political scientists L. Shevtsova and I. Klyamkin: “Firstly, it does not record the agreement of various political forces regarding the principles of social structure,” they note, “ and the victory of one of them in the absence of such consent is fixed. Being aware of this and wanting to avoid further confrontations, the winning side is forced to constantly and unsuccessfully seek consolidating procedures that supplement the Constitution, which only reveals the instability and fragility of the Russian constitutional order. Secondly, the monarchical powers offered to the head by the Basic Law cannot be rehabilitated in any consistent way in modern Russia. The concentration of power in the center, its multisubjectivity at the federal level could only be paid for by making concessions to the regions and granting them the right to choose local authorities themselves, which is typical only for countries with developed and deeply rooted democratic traditions. In Russia, this leads to the fact that the regional authorities very often go beyond the limits of the constitutional field, and the president, endowed with monarchical powers, does not have the power resources to prevent this. Thus, the presidential mono-subjectivity, designed to be the guarantor of the Constitution and ensure its observance, is unable to do this, revealing and clearly demonstrating the surrogacy (and most likely temporary) of the entire post-Soviet Russian statehood.

Going beyond the constitutional field poses the greatest danger to the fate of the Russian Federation. Its neutralization involves changes, primarily in the

Constitution, the adoption of appropriate federal laws that exclude such a threat.

The lack of proper control over the actions of regional authorities has led to a serious deterioration in the overall socio-economic situation in the country. Things got to the point that significant financial resources sent from the federal budget in the form of transfers and public investments did not reach the intended recipient, and taxes that should have gone to the federal budget were often delayed within the boundaries of the regions.

This situation created the prerequisites for the strengthening of separatist and centrist tendencies. There was an urgent need to take special measures to preserve the unity and integrity of the country, strengthen the Russian Federation and prevent its transformation into a confederation. Among these measures is the introduction of the institute of federal interference in legal and political practice, which allows the federal government to remove representatives of regional authorities from government if they violate the Constitution and other laws of the country. (By the way, a similar rule exists in the constitutions of other countries. Thus, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany will give the lower house of parliament (Budenstag) the right to dissolve the legislative assemblies of the lands (landtags) in cases strictly defined by law.)