Trends in Urban Studies in Russia: Topics in Light of the Current State of the Arts of Geography

Since 2022, the journal Regional Research of Russia publishes special thematic issues devoted to current topics of social geography, regional economics and sociology. The presented issue is the fourth in a row and the sixth if we also count two issues with extensive special sections, one of which was devoted to the problems of development of the Siberian macroregion, the other—to climate policy in Russia. The articles in this issue reflect the results of original scientific researches presented at the large-scale International Scientific Conference “The City and Its Environment: Modern Challenges and Promising Development Paths,” which was held in the spring of 2024 in Moscow at the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences as part of the IV Geourbanistic Readings. These articles, as well as the reports at the conference, clearly show that Russian studies of current processes of interaction between cities and suburbs, centers and periphery, transformation of cities and the formation of new urban structures, the development of urban agglomeration and pendulum migrations, as well as rural–urban migrations, fit completely into the international context. In this sense, the studies are characterized by two features. First is the using the most advanced methodological approaches. Second is to reveal the specifics of processes in Russia similar to others countries both at the national and regional level.