Spatial development of municipalities within the Trans-Siberian Economic Corridor
N.V. VOROBYEV1, A.N. VOROBYEV1, N.A. IPPOLITOVA1,2
1V.B. Sochava Institute of Geography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Irkutsk, Russia
2Irkutsk State University, Irkutsk, Russia
Keywords: Siberian Federal District, regional centers, periphery, concentration, central-peripheral gradient, Trans-Siberian Railway
Abstract
The article identifies trends and features of the spatial development of the Trans-Siberian Economic Corridor within the Siberian Federal District (the territories of Omsk, Novosibirsk, and Kemerovo oblasts, Krasnoyarsk krai, and Irkutsk oblast). The economic corridor is considered as a set of municipalities at the levels of an urban district and a municipal area, formed along the Trans-Siberian multimodal transport route, the core of which is the railway. The study was conducted using statistical, cartographic, and comparative-geographical methods. Based on statistical and cartographic sources, several types of municipalities were identified in the Trans-Siberian Corridor, namely: regional centers, suburban municipalities (within urban agglomerations), and peripheral municipalities. Rural settlement zones and main urbanized areas in places of maximum population concentration were identified. Thus, the demographic potential of the Trans-Siberian Economic Corridor constitutes more than half of the population of the corresponding regions. By the industrial output, the region’s municipalities were ranked, and industrial specialization was revealed. The mutual influence of the development level, industrial specialization, the distribution of productive forces and the demographic situation and the transformation of settlement patterns were assessed. The geographical aspects of spatial development are expressed in the strengthening of two partially overlapping gradients of population and production concentration, namely: trunk-peripheral and central-peripheral ones. Agglomeration effects were found to predominate over trunk effects. The agglomeration effects are particularly pronounced in the example of the concentration of housing construction in regional centers and their suburban areas. This study, limited to the territories of the Siberian Federal District, provides an understanding of the spatial development of the most populated, economically diversified part of the Trans-Siberian Economic Corridor. Territorial expansion of the research will make it possible to update the geographical picture of the spatial development of the entire Trans-Siberian Economic Corridor.
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