THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF THE POSTINDUSTRIAL CITY

Abstract

Modern trends in society stimulate urban studies, because it is in the cities today that most of the world’s population lives. It is the cities, in all the variety of their forms, that have been and remain the stronghold of civilization. Everything that happens in the city, any transformation, even the smallest scale, leads to changes in the urban society and vice versa. Moreover, all these changes have affected the city not only at the economic, but also at the social and mental levels, especially at the level of urban identity.

Authoritative philosophers, sociologists, economists, social geographers and other specialists argue that modern society has gone through two stages of its development: the agrarian and industrial stages, has moved to the post-industrial stage of its development. The interconnection of society and territory, which does not require additional proof, confirms that, together with the society of post-industrial transformations, other constituents of society, including cities, are undergoing. Considering the city as a complex socio-geosystem that is synergistic, its post-industrial transformations are at the same time the consequence and cause of the post-industrial development vector.

Every modern large developed city tends to post-industrial development in one way or another. This process is quite complex and needs theoretical justification. Since the concept of postindustrial society is quite new, there are still gaps in the interpretation of some concepts, in this case, of “postindustrial city”. In the simplest sense, a postindustrial city is a city of postindustrial society. However, each city is unique in its development, and these features themselves can help to define the concept of “post-industrial city” in more detail. Therefore, given the competitiveness of modern geographical studies, identifying the features of post-industrial development of a particular city makes it possible to theorize the entire category of post-industrial cities.

This study is based on the socio-geographical vision of post-industrial development of Ukrainian cities. The choice of socio-geographical approach to the study of this problem is due to its complexity, because the development of the city in post-industrial conditions is complex.