Industrial municipalities in economic space of traditional industrial regions: A programme for research

Behind the quality of economic space of traditional industrial regions, there are various factors at play, including the performance of municipalities, among which the impact of industrial municipalities is particularly noticeable. Most of the programmes presented in the Russian academic discourse and used to assess municipalities focus on revealing trends in their socioeconomic development. At the same time, regional economics lacks methodological approaches to assessing them in a spatial context. The research aims to develop an original method for analysing and evaluating the development of industrial municipalities in economic space of traditional industrial regions. Methodologically, the study rests on spatial and municipal economics, and the concept of functional complexity. The suggested programme for research consists of five blocks. The first four blocks include the assessment of the industrial municipalities’ participation in ensuring the saturation of regional economic space, forming region’s industrial potential and its municipal economic space, and processes of strengthening functional complexity of regional economic space. The fifth block includes the calculation and interpretation of composite indicators as well as building a typology of industrial municipalities. The practical significance of the developed programme for research is that it meets the need for the assessment of industrial municipalities as a system-forming element in the economic space of traditional industrial region.