Features of placement and growth of the cities of the Southern federal district of Russia

Abstract

The problem of the phenomenon of placement of productive forces in space at the present stage of development of economic science is a subject of systematic and active researches that is defined by the growing differentiation of a social and economic condition of the cities. The research objective is to reveal features of placement and growth of the cities in the territory of the Southern Federal District of Russia. The working hypotheses are: 1) average population of the city of the region (except for the capital of the region) correlates with distance to the next city with population of 1 million people and more; 2) population density in the region has an inverse relation from the distance to the next city with a million of inhabitants; 3) growth rate of population is indirectly connected with the volume of investment into the city budget. The comparative analysis, method of groups have formed methodological base of the research. The inspection of the declared hypotheses is carried out with use of the method of the smallest squares. At the assessment of the stability of city system the Zipf’s law is applied. For the detection of features of growth of the cities the authors used Gibrat’s law. The research object is the cities of the Southern Federal District in 2003, 2009, 2014. In the territory of the Southern Federal District two million-plus cities are located, it was revealed that the sizes of other cities at the alienation from them for 1 % decrease by 1,5 %. It was stated that the increase in the volume of the investment into city budget by 1 % promotes an increase in growth rate of population by 0,12 %. In the territory of the Southern Federal District in 2009–2014 the small cities grew quicker than large ones. The practical importance of the received results consists in the possibility of their use in activity of regional and municipal authorities, in particular, when developing programs and the strategy of social and economic development of municipalities (cities).