Peripherization of the old-developed Russian regions

Abstract

The article is a review of the book Old-Developed Regions in the Sociogeographic Space of Russia: History and Contemporaneity prepared by a team of authors under the scientific editorship of T.G. Nefedova and A.V. Starikov (Moscow: Association of Scientific Publications KMK, 2021. 379 p.). The book is the result of the long-term research project “Development of the old-developed areas under the social-economic polarization and shrinkage of the developed space in European Russia” supported by the Russian Science Foundation in 2019-2021. The authors of the book note that it is time to abandon unrealistic declarations about the further development of all regions of the country, and to start rethinking the significance of the old-developed Russian regions and the possibilities of their re-development on the basis of their accumulated cultural heritage and human capital. The research focuses on two macro-regions of the Russian Federation - Central Russia and the Urals. The study is multiscale and interdisciplinary, it combines a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods of social sciences. Despite the statement that there is a further polarization and shrinkage of the developed Russian spaces, the authors find many confirmations of the possibilities of self-organization and sustainable development in the old-developed regions for the benefit of the whole country.