The monograph deals with a highly relevant subject in today’s Russia - development of cities. The subject, however, is of importance not only for Russia. In this historic period the role of cities in regional, national, and even global economic development has been growing significantly all over the world. The authors, therefore, took the liberty of adding to the book’s title a rather provocative assertion about universal process of “economic urbanization”.
In preparing the book the authors consolidated, systematized and updated the findings and conclusions from the 2015-2017’ analysis of various subsystems relating to economic development of cities, including housing and urban development, carried out under the HSE’s Basic Research Programme:
• “Urban Development Regulation as an Instrument of Housing Policy” (2015);
• “Urban Economy as a Factor of Growth of Russia’s Economy” (2016);
• “Developing a System of Analytical Economic Indicators for Cities and Agglomerations in the Russian Federation” (2017).
In preparation of some sections of the book, with an authorization from JSC “DOM.RF”, the results of the study “The Analysis of Housing Sector in Major Urban Agglomerations in Russia”, carried out by IUE as commissioned by the Foundation “Integrated Housing Development Institution” (JSC “DOM.RF”) in 2018, were also used.
The authors express their particular gratitude to Eugeny Yasin, Academic Supervisor of HSE for scientific guidance within the HSE’s Basic Research Programme. The IUE’s experts – R. Popov, E. Igumenov, E. Goncharova, M. Mikhailov, K. Kuznetzov – actively contributed to the research; their works were used in preparing the monograph. The authors express their deep appreciation to all of them.
Of course, analysis of economic urbanization, in all its aspects and relevant factors, is a vast area. The authors are well aware of the fact that the efforts, which have resulted in this book, are only the beginning of the long road ahead, and, therefore, all urbanist-researchers are welcome to join us in this work, to criticize and argue, come up with new ideas.
