ИСТИНА

Murmansk region is the part of Arctic zone of Russian Federation; and is one of the most heavily industrialized. Among other Arctic territories of Russia, region holds the first place by number of single-industry cities. At present 1/3 of region’s urban population live and work in single-industry cities and set up the greatest industrial potential for socioeconomic development of this area. The most part of regions’ single-industry cities has a mining profile allocating several “industry big-player” companies. Along with its resource role Murmansk region is also perceived by the government as the model territory for the current socio-economic and more innovative way of development. Moreover it plays an international role as well by being the part of the Barents Euro-Arctic region. Even though there are a lot of positive changes in the state regulatory system and mechanisms such as development of regional and municipal territories with special financial regimes for investment projects, there are also some uncertainties and factors which deepen the disparity of socio-economic development within region. One of the ways to overcome this can be spatial development of territory. The most dramatic trend of the past 10 years in Murmansk region is depopulation which leads to the compression of socioeconomic and demographic space of the region. Nevertheless, such a compression can force the consolidation of social and economic resources which will be discussed during the conference.