RETHINKING APPROACHES TO URBAN PLANNING: THE CONCEPT OF A “HARMONIOUS CITY”

The relevance of choosing city concepts as objects of research from the point of view of strategic, territorial and spatial planning is explained by the complexity of achieving effective city planning and choosing the only suitable of the existing development concepts: «smart city», «sustainable city», «slow city», «eco-city», «pedestrian city», etc., including their hybrid options. The purpose of the work is to substantiate and develop the concept of a «harmonious city» based on the analysis of existing urban planning concepts and the corresponding development indices. The hypothesis of the study is the assumption that if you adhere to the strategy of a harmonious city, analyzing the indices of city harmony, you can achieve higher results in the implementation of urban planning. The methods of synthesis and analysis, a systems approach, comparative analysis, and statistical analysis were used as research methods in the article. One of the significant results of the study is the system of factors for planning a harmonious city proposed by the author (economy, ecology, infrastructure, innovation, social sphere, culture, digitalization), based on which it is possible to assess the extent to which the planned indicators in the city strategy or master plan correspond to the principles of a particular city concept, and to predict the strengthening of the factors necessary for harmonizing development. The proposed dynamic matrix of factors for developing a harmonious city will allow for a comprehensive assessment of city strategies and other planning documents for compliance with the main development factors, identifying existing problems and promising areas. The author proposes calculating the «harmonious city» index in different time periods, which will allow assessing the level of harmonious development of cities in Russia. To calculate the index within each factor, a set of indicators and assessment indicators has been developed, an algorithm and stages of calculating the index have been proposed. The study has theoretical and practical significance for regional and municipal authorities, and can also be useful for urban scientists, developers of strategies and master plans, researchers in the field of urban planning concepts, etc.