Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2015 number

Since the 1960s the process of urbanization in the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) has evolved from the extensive to the intensive phase. Distinctive features of the intensive phase included declining population growth rates, decreasing share of the urban population; lower scale of migrations from the rural settlements along with the increased inter-city migration. The number of administrative transformations reduced while urban population increased mainly in the largest cities. In this regard, it is relevant to study the intensive phase of demographic development of West Siberian cities within the framework of the urbanization transition theory. The objective of the paper is to reveal specific features of the demographic development of West Siberian population under conditions when social and political cataclysms were a thing of the past. In order to achieve this goal the following tasks are to be solved: to study West Siberian urban population dynamics; to analyze how migrations and natural increase affected its quantitative composition; to reveal the role of various settlements in formation of the urban settlements network. Materials of the All-Union Census and current population statistics were used as a source base. The study represents one of the first attempts to analyze West Siberian urban population dynamics in the context of Russian demographic processes applying historical-statistical and economical-geographical methods. As a result, it was concluded that in Western Siberia transition to the intensive phase of urbanization was characterized by the wave-like drop in urban population growth; considerable increase of population growth (in absolute indices) in large cities; the role of extensive factors remained significant due to the growing number and share mid-sized urban settlements.