SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE VITALITY OF TERRITORIES AS A PART OF A COMPREHENSIVE DIAGNOSTICS OF THE IMMUNITY OF THE PERIPHERY OF THE AGRARIAN-INDUSTRIAL REGION

The article discusses the results of a special sociological survey of the population of the peripheral territories of the Stavropol Territory on the prospects for the viability of settlements. Organizational and methodological provisions for conducting this kind of research have been developed within the framework of the methodology of a system‑diagnostic approach to the study of peripheral localities as structural elements of the regional economic space. They include a list of questions, recommendations on the formation and distribution of questionnaires, the use of online tools for obtaining sociological opinions. As a result of processing the questionnaires, representative sociological assessments of the viability and vitality of the peripheral municipalities were obtained. In particular, ideas on the priority of the factors of preservation of settlements were collected, personal motives for settled population and its consolidation in the periphery were identified, local livelihoods were identified, personal prospects for the future of respondents and their children within the borders of the peripheral settlements were assessed. In addition, the key institutional and infrastructural needs of the population of the periphery were revealed, as well as an assessment was received by respondents of potential areas of spatial and economic transformations in the field of local communities. It is concluded that the population as the main economic agents of the peripheral territories prefers the option of “soft” spatial and economic transformations and does not want radical changes in the economic space of their territories of residence. The information collected, processed and interpreted from the standpoint of systemic diagnostics can be used by regional authorities and local self‑government in the formation of conceptual provisions of the regional socio‑economic policy for development of the territories as elements of a spatial‑economic system of the center‑peripheral type. The methodology for the study of prospects for the viability of peripheral territories described in the article, implemented on the example of the Stavropol Territory, can be used in all regions of the agrarian‑industrial type.

agro‑industrial region, peripheral economy, economic space, vitality, immunity, system diagnostics, comprehensive research, peripherals, population, spatial transformations, province.

Kazakov M. Yu. Sociological aspects of the vitality of territories as a part of a comprehensive diagnostics of the immunity of the periphery of the agrarian-industrial region. Business. Education. Law, 2019, no. 4, pp. 139–143. DOI: 10.25683/VOLBI.2019.49.423.