Polycentric Suburban Zone of a Monocentric Agglomeration
Settlement Pattern Structure in the Moscow Environment
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21218734 |
|---|---|
| Authors | R A Babkin (Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, corresponding author), A N Bereznyatsky (Central Economics and Mathematics Institute, corresponding author), A G Makhrova (Lomonosov Moscow State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 37-49 |
| Publication date | 2026-03-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Regional Research of Russia (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2079-9713 • E-ISSN: 2079-9705 |
| Publisher | Pleiades Publishing Ltd (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1134/s2079970525600970 |
| OpenAlex | W7161253434 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 8 |
The post-Soviet transformation has demonstrated that it is settlement pattern, rather than the distribution of productive forces, that have the greatest impact on the sustainability and socioeconomic development of a territory. Against this backdrop, the evolution of Moscow Oblast, associated with the increasing complexity of socioeconomic ties, increasing spatial contrasts, and expanding dacha suburbanization, requires changes in traditional approaches to studying the capital’s agglomeration and the development of fundamentally new tools for analyzing its internal structure. The author’s methodology, based on clustering commuter flows in the capital region based on mobile operator data for 2022–2023, allowed for the organic combination of belt, sector-radial, and local-agglomeration approaches to analyzing the suburban zone of the Moscow agglomeration, which were previously applied separately. Using the Leiden algorithm, 22 existing settlement pattern clusters were identified and 60 different local structures within them were identified: small agglomerations and autonomous centers. This detailed decomposition allowed us to shed light on the internal structure of the lower tier of the settlement system, which has been underestimated by contemporary Russian geourban studies. The proposed approach helped move beyond the traditional center–periphery view of the Moscow agglomeration, focusing on socioeconomic ties within the suburban zone. The article shows that the apparent homogeneity of the suburban zone conceals a wide variety of local settlement pattern structures formed within it. A pronounced dualism has been revealed among the subcenters existing here, combining Moscow-centrism and autonomy. Despite the fact that most local structures are oriented towards the capital in their external relations, stable commuter flows have developed within and between local structures. This makes them valuable elements of the settlement system, the development of which forms the potential for the polycentric development of the capital agglomeration as a whole
Human settlement · Natural (archaeology) · Settlement (finance) · Urban Structure · Construction Management and Sustainability · Regional Socio-Economic Development Trends · Urbanization and City Planning
| Highly cited | No |
|---|