Assessment of Spatial Development of Territories: A Review of Management Practices

Effective management of spatial development has become one of the key challenges facing authorities at various levels in recent years, making it critically important to carry out competent monitoring of ongoing changes. This task is particularly complex, as the socio-economic space is a difficult-to-measure entity that can be assessed in different ways. The necessity to develop the best method for identifying the characteristics of spatial development determines the significance of reviewing and critically evaluating existing approaches. The subject of this study is the toolkit for "digitizing" the spatial development of territories. The aim of the work is to identify the parameters for assessing the socio-economic space based on addressing the managerial approaches applied in Russian practice. Special attention is given in the article to analyzing the key provisions of the development strategies of Russian regions, which address issues of spatial transformations. The theoretical and methodological foundation of the research is a set of scientific concepts in the field of regional economics and public administration. The study employs general scientific methods of synthesis, comparative analysis, and scientific abstraction. The conducted research has demonstrated a wide range of diverse methods for assessing the spatial development of territories. A significant contribution of the author is the identification of the approaches used by developers of strategic planning documents to determine the properties of the socio-economic space. It was found that the characteristics evaluated by them include: the degree of homogeneity and the level of connectivity of the space, its structural features, as well as the quality of its individual components. The conclusion was made about the correlation between the approaches to assessing spatial development used in the scientific field and in management practice. At the same time, a specific factor for practice-oriented selection of assessment parameters is the consideration of the chosen strategic vector for the development of the territorial system. The obtained results may be useful for authorities at various levels responsible for managing spatial transformations of territorial systems.