HOUSE-LIFE IMPROVEMENT SERVICES AS A SIGN OF URBANIZATION LEVEL (ON THE EXAMPLE OF KHERSON REGION)

Abstract

So called “incomplete urbanization” exists in many weakly urbanized regions of Ukraine, especially in the post-Soviet period. First of all it is about small-size urban settlements which often demonstrate “conservation” of rural characteristics. A number of characteristics, according to which urbanization is rated from a qualitative point of view, allows the specialists to determine the housing conditions and community infrastructure as the important criteria for real life modernization in a particular territory. The purpose of this article is to assess the
so-called “amenity” urbanization of the administrative divisions of Kherson region based on an analysis of the ratio of urban and rural housing stock (it means urban and rural development) as well as indicators of the population’s availability to communal infrastructure. Mathematical and statistical, comparative geographical, cartographic methods were used in the research; the authors proposed a methodical scheme for assessing “amenity” urbanization. The analysis made it possible to draw conclusions about “unfinished urbanization” of the urban environment in most of the administrative divisions of the Kherson region. It substantially corrects today’s assessment of the level of urbanization by the share of the urban population in the direction of its significant decrease.