POST-SOVIET TRANSFORMATION OF THE INDUSTRIAL REGION SETTLEMENT SYSTEM – THE CASE OF ZAPORIZHIA REGION

Abstract

The settlement system of the industrial region has undergone tangible changes as a result of the combined effect of post-Soviet transformations. The most significant changes are the growth of population concentration in a smaller amount of comparatively competitive urban settlements, in fact, the squeezing of space, on the one hand, and the long-term runaway of the countryside, which began even in the Soviet period, on the other.

This study focuses on the impact of the population on the transformation of the structure of the network of urban and rural settlements within the regional settlement system of the industrial type. The structural transformations of the Zaporizhia regional settlement system are analyzed based on the construction of the matrices of the transition rates of urban and rural settlements by categories of the population.

In the Zaporizhzhia oblast, is observed an increase in the proportion of urban population and, since 1990, a gradual decrease in the urban population. Significant polarization of the urban population of the region is characteristic of the center of the regional settlement system – Zaporizhia. In most urban settlements of the Zaporizhia oblast, in the post-Soviet period, the population declined by a third due to de-industrialization and an increase in their periphery. The most stable are Energodar (center for nuclear energy) and Kyrylivka (resort center). At the same time, several settlements have lost the formal signs of urban settlements (Zaliznichne, Kamiane and Ternuvate).

The transformation of rural settlement is characterized by the reduction of the village settlement net- work and by the decrease in the amount of rural population in the region. The decrease in the density of rural population is observed in the south-easterly direction from the regional center. Relatively more stable density of rural population is around cities of oblast significance. Regarding the redistribution by categories of population, over the period of 1989-2001, the amount of settlements with a population of up to 100 people and from 501 to 1000 persons increased.

Thus, the example of the Zaporizhia region shows the predominance of the negative consequences of the post-Soviet transformations of the settlement systems of the industrial regions.