Institutional Problems of Spatial Development Strategization

The Spatial Development Strategy of the Russian Federation adopted in 2019 for the period up to 2025 not only remains in the “field of view” of economic theorists and practitioners of public administration, but also in many ways continues to embody the complexity and inconsistency of the strategic planning system in the country. Of course, we have to admit that many of the initial assumptions of the development of this Strategy did not work out quite well. Thus, to date, it has not been possible to adopt the Concept of State Regional Policy, which has been repeatedly proposed in different versions, and on this basis to carry out a meaningful and targeted differentiation of the concepts of “regional” and “spatial” development. Contrary to the logic of the preparation of strategic planning documents, fixed already in the initial version of Federal law No.172, Spatial development strategy was developed and approved in the absence of a “basic” document defining the strategic objectives of the socio-economic development of the country for the future. The actual lack of a deep scientific and public expertise of this Strategy also played a negative role. Formally, there were a lot of different discussions; one draft document was replaced by another over and over again, but the comments and suggestions received were left without due attention, and these discussions did not give a positive result. As a result, it turned out that some variants of the Strategy were discussed, and a completely different one was adopted. As a result, there were more gaps in this Strategy than significant advances. Most of these gaps are still clearly visible today and, of course, need serious elaboration.