IMPROVEMENT OF THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF SINGLE-INDUSTRY REGIONS IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

In this paper, the author has made a comprehensive analysis of a number of Russian studies devoted to single-industry towns, categorizing them according to their contribution to theoretical knowledge as well as their methods and methodology. Common features in these papers have been identified, including those establishing the criteria for classifying a city as a single-industry one and estimating the number of such cities in the Russian Federation in terms of their socio-economic status. Methods for assessing the socio-economic development of single-industry towns and directions for their development are proposed. Having summarized existing theoretical and methodological approaches set out in the various papers reviewed, the author (1) proposes the adoption of the novel concept of a “single-industry region”; (2) identifies the criteria for assigning such a designation; (3) calculates the number of such single-industry regions in the Russian Federation; (4) suggests allocation of grants from the federal budget to the respective RF Subjects for improving the socio-economic situation in their single-industry towns; (5) classifies single-industry regions into (a) “balanced socio-economic development”, (b) “an unbalanced and backward economic development”, (c) “an unbalanced and backward social development” and finally (d) “deprived regions that are unbalanced and have very low levels of socio-economic development”. The author has developed a model for improving the socio-economic development of single-industry regions, whose focus is on a balanced approach to project planning for the socioeconomic development of mono-cities and the efficient allocation of budgetary funds, providing mechanisms for regular and detailed monitoring of the socioeconomic development of mono-cities and allowing the effectiveness of the allocation of budgetary funds to be systematically monitored by introducing a system of grantification aimed at improving the socioeconomic development in mono-cities. The scientific and practical results of the research will allow the development of theoretical and methodological approaches to improving the socioeconomic development of single-industry towns, facilitating the introduction of the new term “single-industry region” into the academic lexicon.


Introduction
In the Russian Federation, single-industry cities have received close attention from scientists, executive and legislative authorities. In particular, the President of the Russian Federation referred to "mono-cities" as being one of the main topics for the strategic development of the Russian Federation to 2018 and onwards to 2025. 1  -strategic management of mono-cities -8 works; -labor potential and labor market in single-industry towns -7; -socio-economic problems of single-industry towns -3; -ensuring sustainable economic development of single-industry towns -3; -system of resettlement and production of the region -2; -sociological analysis of single-industry towns -2.
The research was carried out concerning the cities of the "mining" profile from Mid-Urals, Chita, Murmansk and Leningrad Regions, as well as the mono-cities of Naberezhnye Chelny, Norilsk, Zhukovsky, and Yurga.
Theories concerning the nature of mono-cities have been developed by reference to the objective historical character of urban mono-specialization (I. D. Turgel, L. I. Kryuchina); the identification of state regulation of the industrial sector of mono-cities (I. Yu. Zagoruiko, D. G. Vendelev, R. I. Vasian); the systems of indicators used to determine the financial provision for sustainable development of a single-industry municipal entity (R. A. Kulyan, K. E. Trusova); and the state of the city-forming coal mining enterprises in single-industry cities (A. A. Lemyaskin) Comments made by I. D. Turgel, who analyzes the socio-economic development of mono-cities), and I. Yu. Zagoruiko, who discusses reforms made to the industrial sector of the economy of mono-cities and the remarks about risk of depression and decline in single industry towns made by N. T. Oboymova, the comments of R. A. Kulyan about financial forecasting in single-industry towns made by R. A. Kulyan and the discussion of projects and programs for the structural reorganization of the monocity economy made by Markov I .A. are all of great significance to this area of research.
Certain legal document list a number of criteria that are to be used when designating any particular settlement as a "mono-city"; these documents also set out the mechanisms for financing them from the federal and regional budgets and from development institutions.
Nonetheless, the author believes that in spite of significant results that have often been achieved through such programs, several aspects of research into single-industry cities have not received sufficient analysis. In particular, the fact that many single-industry cities may themselves be located within a single territory requires that researchers should adopt the novel concept of a "single-industry region", that having discrete criteria for classifying such regions in the Russian Federation. This concept should form a new model for socio-economic development of single-industry regions.

Single-industry city and single-industry region: Theoretical aspects of analysis
A review of scientific approaches to describing the content of the concept of a "mono-city" is presented in Table 1. Table 1 The content of the concept of a "mono-city" Source Content of the concept of a "mono-city" Animitsa E. G., Sbrodova N. V., Zvorygin S. G.
A mono-city is a mono-centric city in relation to the prevailing sphere of employment, this being the main sphere of economic activity of the able-bodied population. A mono-city is one that is characterized as follows: having a significant dependence on the revenue of one (or several) large enterprises: having a low diversification in types of employment of the city (with homogeneous professional staff), and having a high degree of dependence of the city development on the policy of the owner of the city-forming enterprise. It follows that the city and the enterprise function and develop inseparably, and the enterprise provides living conditions in the city bearing a significant social burden [1].

Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation
A mono-city is a settlement (or city district), the organizations and residents of which are unable to compensate for their own risks of external economic environment which prevents the sustainable development of this settlement, usually having a town-forming enterprise employing at least 25% of the able-bodied population of this locality [2].
Essential characteristics of the single-industry city are: closeness of local authorities to citizens, which increases the responsibility of city leaders; integrity, density, «foreseeability» of the urban community, which make it possible to take into account interests and interrelations within the city as much as possible; having the possibility of establishing more confidential and open relations between the heads of the city-forming enterprises and the local administration; having a prevailing mentality of persons living in mono-cities which means they are less indifferent to the other members living therein and local problems than those persons living in larger cities, and therefore it is often easier in mono-cities to solve problems «all together» and on their own; representing some kind of integrity for its inhabitants; and urban society is one that is actively looking for ways and means to adapt to new living conditions [3].
The key parameters for the classification of single-industry towns are: it represents a complex structure in which both the city and the city-forming enterprise are inseparable; it has a high level of dependence of the revenue of the city budget on the activities of one or more of these enterprises; there is a homogeneous professional composition of the employment of the city's population; it is one where the problems of each such specific city should be considered sepa- The single-industry city is a relatively isolated community with a high population density and is one that is part of a macrosystem being a special type of social organization characterized by unity between the city and its city-forming enterprise. It is the mono-centric nature of the economy of a mono-city that is associated with the performance of a certain socially significant function in the macrosystem [5]. Scientists in the Centre for Telecommunications Development The English terms «mill town» and «factory town» are close to the Russian term «monocity», which terms are used, as a rule, for naming settlements developing around one or several plants and factories. Settlements such as «mill towns» refer to cities formed around cotton factories or factories for the production of other textiles in England and in the northeast of the United States in the nineteenth century. The term «factory town» is more modern and is still used to refer to cities that have formed around industrial enterprises. An equivalent to Russian mono-cities are «company towns» (being «cities founded by one company»). In company towns, the owner of the city-forming enterprise usually owns almost all of the real estate and social infrastructure of the city. Thus, the life of a city literally depends on one company [6]. Boiko E. N.
A mono-city is a city whose development is predetermined by the operation of a large (city-forming) enterprise (or a group of related enterprises), oriented primarily to the external sales market, which produces more than half of the city's industrial output and it is the place of employment for the main share of the able-bodied population [7]. Neklyudova T. A.
The main feature of single-industry towns is their dependence on the state and the development of its main enterprise (or its chain of technologically related enterprises), which is the city-forming factor and determines the socio-economic development of this locality [8]. Lipsitsa I. V.
A mono-city is a municipal formation on the basis of a town-forming enterprise [9].
Signs of a single-industry city are: having low diversification of types of activities and employment; having special climatic conditions, in most cases difficult for living and farming; lacking the developed infrastructure that ensures the connection of the city with the world [10]. Kokh I. A.
A single-industry city should be considered only in «population -territory -production» system [11]. An analysis of the varying approaches to the concept of "mono-cities" shows, however, that they agree on one thing -the importance of the continuity of the development of a single-industry town and the main town-forming enterprise (enterprise complex). There are differences between the approaches made to such an inseparable connection (for example, the connection between the presence of the city-forming enterprise and the low diversification of the types of activity and the sphere of employment). Among this group of studies, some of them emphasize the integral system of the character of the mono-city with its adaptive capabilities.
The author suggests that researchers use the new concept of a higher order -a "single-industry region", a concept that means and applies to "a territory that has more than one city districts or municipal districts, the socio-economic development of which depends systematically on the financial and economic condition of the city-forming enterprise(s)".
Within the framework of the draft model law of the Russian Federation "On the Development of Single-Industry Territories in ... (name of the subject of the Russian Federation)" 2 , developed by the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation, two formal criteria were proposed for classifying settlements as "mono-cities": 1) the presence in the mono-city of an enterprise (or several enterprises operating in the framework of a single production and technological process), which employs more than 25% of the economically active population; 2) the volume of production in the mono-city of a single enterprise or a single group of enterprises should not be less than 50% of the total volume of industrial production in this settlement.
It is clear that the official criteria have been formulated on the basis of those problems that the Government of the Russian Federation considers to be the most relevant: namely, the fact that there tends to be homogeneous professional composition of the population and a single type of economic activity in a single-industry territory.
A number of scholars have identified the qualitative and quantitative criteria to be used when classifying a city as a single-industry territory.
For example, N. S. Ivashina and N. A. Ulyakina in "Development of Single-Industry Cities in Russian Regions: Problems and Prospects" [12] set out the following qualitative criteria: -the presence of a city-forming enterprise that determines practically all economic and social processes; -a significant dependence of the government revenues on the activities of one (or several) large enterprises; -a low diversification of employment in the city (homogeneous professional staff); -being located a considerable distance from other larger cities; -lacking developed infrastructure that ensures the connection of the city with the outside world; -being a place where organizations or residents of the settlement are unable to compensate for their own risks of external economic environment.
V. N. Leskin and A. N. Shvetsov [13] denote the following criteria: -the functioning of one or several similar enterprises belonging to the same industry or serving one narrow segment of the industrial market; -the presence of a chain of technologically connected enterprises operating in one final market; -having a significant dependence of the government revenues on the activities of one or several large enterprises; -having a low diversification of employment. These qualitative criteria are in many respects similar to the problems of single-industry territories established by many other scientists.
The author has summarized a number of official and scientific papers, which list the criteria for classifying the city as a single-industry and determining their number, and she has observed that over the last few years, the government and researchers, scientists and experts have changed the listed number of single-industry towns from 150 to 500. For example, the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation during the years 2009 to 2011 at first excluded about 40 cities and then added them back into the list almost the same number of such cities (there were 335 designated as mono-cities in 2009 and 333 were so designated in December 2011).
In addition, different organizations have identified criteria that differ from those established by the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation in 2009. Thus, the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation identified 335 such cities; the Independent Institute of Social Policy named 150-160 such cities; the Expert Institute (Moscow) listed 467 cities and 332 townships and the "Cities of Russia" indicated that there were at least 500 such cities and 1200 urban settlements including approximately 400 small towns.
In this regard, it remains an urgent matter to clarify the actual number of single-industry territories in the Russian Federation.
Taking into account the novel concept of a "single-industry region", the author proposes that the following criteria should be used when classifying a territory as a single-industry region: 1. The presence of urban districts (or municipal districts) in the entity in which there is an enterprise or several enterprises operating in the framework of a single production and technological process, whose share accounts for more than 50% of the industrial output of the urban district (municipal district); 2. The presence of urban districts (or municipal districts) in the entity in which there is an enterprise or several enterprises operating within the framework of a single production and technological process, in which more than 25% of the economically active population of the urban district (or municipal district) is employed.
V. S. Bochko and V. P. Bukin draw a distinction between the following groups of single-industry cities [14]: 1) "Sustainable donors". Territories belonging to this group have been leaders in socio-economic indicators for a number of years and locomotives for the economic development of the whole region; in addition, they have provided financial support to other underdeveloped and depressed municipal entities.
2) "Territories with wave-cycle depression". Territories belonging to this group have industrial and economic patterns whereby the level of slowdown in economic growth in individual periods is then replaced by an upswing, but in spite of this, significant positive changes in socio-economic development are not achieved. At the same time, when the production growth spurts, the living standard of the population rises, the subsidy of the local budget decreases, retail trade turnover increases, so on.
3) "A territory with long-term depression" Territories belonging to this group suffer not only long-term downturns in production and reductions in their standard of living, but also experience sluggish operation of industrial production. Very weak attempts are made to improve the existing production capacities, and the local administration is usually not able to mobilize the population for the development of new small businesses, so that the social sphere is gradually curtailed, and unemployment rate fluctuates greatly and this results in a large-scale departure of the able-bodied population to other regions. 4) "Territories with severe depression". Territories having long term severely depression in economic acitivity and this leads both to loss of productive forces in the territory and to having fewer qualified workers who, because of the long-term lack of of work, gradually lose their skills and knowledge.
By virtue of the Government of the Russian Federation decision dated April 16, 2015, No. 668-r, 3 the following grouping of single-industry municipal entities in the Russian Federation was approved: -those "with the most difficult social and economic situation (including in interrelation with the problems of the functioning of city-forming organizations)"; -those "with the risks of worsening of the socio-economic situation"; and -those characterized by " a stable socio-economic situation." Proceeding from the reasoning presented above, the author proposes to introduce the following grouping of "single-industry regions": 1. Single-industry regions with solid socio-economic development of their single-industry cities. The regions of this group are characterized by a concerted increase in labor productivity and incomes of the population in single-industry towns, and there is a slight advance in labor productivity growth over wage growth in single-industry towns.
2. Single-industry regions with an imbalance between their socio-economic development and backward economic growth of their single-industry towns. This group includes regions, in which the increase in the average incomes of workers in the single-industry towns exceeds the growth rates of the labor productivity.
3. Single-industry regions with an imbalance between their socio-economic development and the social sphere of their single-industry towns. This group includes regions in which the rate of increase in the average incomes of workers in the mono-cities is much lower than the growth rates of labor productivity.
4. Single-industry regions with severe declines in both their socio-economic development and in their economic growth. This group includes areas in which there is a severe decline in labor productivity and a large decrease in the income level of the population in single-industry towns.

The results of the assessment of the number of single-industry municipalities
Based on the method of comparative analysis of data submitted to the Government of the Russian Federation from April 16, 2015, No. 668-r 4 , the author has calculated and lists in Table 2

Number of single-industry municipalities in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation
Given that there are currently 85 separate territories designated as single-industry towns in the Russian Federation, the author has determined that 61 territories in the Russian Federation are "single-industry regions" this being 72% of the total number of constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
Based on the results of the table above, 94 single-industry municipalities of the Russian Federation have the most difficult social and economic situation, 154 have a strong risk a sharp deterioration in their socio-economic situation (according to two criteria: making up 77.7% of the total number of single-industry municipal entities of the Russian Federation).
Hence, the formation of new mechanisms and sources for improving the social and economic development of single-industry cities is becoming topical.

Prospects for the development of single-industry regions
Nowadays, great attention is focused on increasing the efficiency of using budget funds. This The author proposes a new model for improving the socio-economic development of single-industry regions (Fig. 1) which model is aimed at improving the efficiency of using budget funds.
The model for socio-economic development of single-industry regions in future will require integrated project planning for the socio-economic development of a mono-cities and ensuring the effective expenditure of budgetary funds by using different mechanisms for regular monitoring of the socio-economic development of single-industry towns.
When designing programs aimed at improving the socio-economic development of a single-industry city, various innovative ways can be used: to encourage new areas of industry specialization, to support the modernization of existing technologies and promoting the diversification of economic activities.
Examples of different ways of the development of single-industry cities described in foreign literature:  [22] have recommended the use of general indicators when assessing and characterizing the territorial education, the standard of living and the overall level of economic development; -A. A. Andreeva has proposed a methodology for assessing the socio-economic development of municipalities in order to analyze indicators of the quality of human development [23]; -L. N. Linikeitseva has suggested that in order to assess the socio-economic development of the territories, it would be best to use an integrated (i.e. a multi-factorial) assessment technique including the formation of a system of partial indicators, the calculation of normalized (standardized) values of these indicators, determination of the weight coefficients of particular socio-economic development indicators, and the corresponding weight of the coefficient of socio-economic development, being arranged in ascending or descending order depending on the formulas chosen for the calculation [24].
In addition, studies of socio-economic development can be conducted in different ways. In particular, I. V. Skopina and O. V. Skopin offer general methodological approaches to conducting economic research: -the comprehensive approach assumes that the object being studied should be examined as an integral set of its constituent subsystems, with its separate elements, properties and relationships within the object being identified along with the relationship between the objects and the external environment; -the situational approach provides for a simultaneous study of the current situation and conducting research based on the use of predominantly typical research procedures; -the dialectical approach is realized by using methods of certain kind of research. These methods are realized by means of separating and combining the whole and a part, the main part and the secondary part, of the essential aspects as well as a random selection, including statics and dynamics and looking at the abstract and concrete results -the reflective approach is based on an analysis of the system and way of processing objective information about the internal and external environment of the studied object in the required volume; -the process approach involves considering the implementation of the research and general management in the form of a process -this being a continuous series of interrelated actions to achieve the research objectives [25]. E. V. Ufimtseva has suggested the following basic methodological principles be used when analyzing and forecasting urban infrastructure development: -sectoral approach -the identification of the state of a specific subsystem of the industrial infrastructure and the determination of the appropriateness of the direction of its progress in accordance with the requirements of the market economy; -territorial approach -the study of the localization of economic branches in space and infrastructure elements in the territory for the purposes of developing optimization proposals; -strategically-oriented approach -the separation of industries and infrastructure elements of the territory as the main (forming) infrastructures, which are "growth points" that correspond to the basic directions of the socio-economic development of the territory [26].
The proposed model allows for an increase in efficiency of spending budget funds by introducing a system of grants for improving the socio-economic development in single-industry towns.

Results of the study
Summarizing the existing theoretical and methodological positions, the author: 1. Has offered the concept of a "single-industry region"; 2. Has defined the criteria for classifying a territory as a "single-industry region"; 3. Has revealed the number of municipal districts in the Russian Federation; 4. Has developed a new model for improving the socio-economic development of single-industry regions; 5. Has proposed the use of grants to be awarded to single-industry regions in the Russian Federation from the Government of the Russian Federation for improving the social and economic situation in single-industry towns.
The proposals of the author will allow researchers to develop theoretical and methodological approaches for improving the systemic socio-economic development of single-industry towns and for the introduction of a new direction of analytical research of "single-industry regions."