Urban agglomerations of Russian regions: development through the lens of their economic specialization

In the modern world, one of the most progressive forms of spatial organization, which has the highest concentration of population and economic activity, is an urban agglomeration. Determining the specialization of their economy is a topical issue for regional scientific research. This is due not only to a high concentration of socio-economic activity at the level of these territorial units and the ongoing processes of economic transformations, but also to the choice of those types of economic activity (specializations) that will serve as sources of further development of not only agglomerations, but also the region as a whole. This conditioned the choice of the research objective determining the economic specialization of urban agglomerations (a list of specializing types of economic activity and their complementarity/ intercomplementarity between the core city of the agglomeration and its satellite zone) with a population of less than 500 thousand people, forming around a number of large cities of the Russian Federation (Vologda, Kaluga, Surgut, Khanty-Mansiysk). To achieve the objective, the theoretical aspects of spatial development were studied from the point of view of territorial specialization. The existing approaches to assessing the economic specialization of agglomerations are reviewed and the author's own methodological approach is substantiated; the analysis of spatial dynamics was carried out by assessing the specialization of agglomerations at the mesoand micro levels (based on the use of data on municipalities and data aggregated for specific enterprises of the agglomeration; possible areas for the implementation of projects in the production sector were identified, taking into account complementary (mutually complementary) types of economic activity between the core of the agglomeration and the satellite zone. The information basis of the study consisted of statistical data from Rosstat, data from annual financial statements of enterprises for 2021-2023, collected from the List-Org and Kontur.Fokus databases. The methods of sampling, parsing, analysis and generalization were used. As a result, it was proven that the structure of the economy of the «core» is more complex than that of the satellite zone. In addition, it was found that the Khanty-Mansiysk (as well as the Surgut) agglomeration are highly specialized. At the same time, the most diverse specialization of manufacturing industries is characteristic of the core city of Vologda and Surgut. The research materials may be useful for government bodies in developing strategies, determining development priorities, as well as for representatives of business entities in choosing the location of an enterprise.