Keywords

JEL Classification

1 Methods

The region’s sustainable development (STB) is characterized by the state of productive capacity (PED) and economic activity (EA) of municipal districts on its territory. For assessing sustainable development we need indicators that can be formed on basis of the evolutionary and genetic theory of production factors [1–3]. According to the theory, the six basic production factors—labor (A), engineering and technology (T), natural resources (M), institutional (Ins), organizational (O) and informational (Inf)—determine the endogenous “core” of the social and economic system development. Based on this knowledge, the productive capacity potential and social and economic system activity may be represented in six-dimensional form characterized by the set of complex sustainable development indicators. This suggested approach allows to take into account the six types of the region’s sustainability: sustainability of labor force (STBA), sustainability of production (STBT), sustainability of natural environment (STBM), sustainability of institutions (STBINS), sustainability of organizations (STBO); sustainability of informational environment (STBINF). Each type of the region’s sustainable development (STBi) can be described with the function of productive capacity potential (PEDi) and economic activity (EAi) development, i.e. STBi = F(PEDi; EAi).

The methodological approach to creating the model of the region’s sustainable development suggested by the authors enabled to form a new system of aggregated indicators characterizing conditions, resources and factors of sustainable development for municipal districts. The value of conditional municipal gross product (Q) was taken as basic indicator to assess the region’s productive capacity potential, and the number of enterprises and organizations showing concentration of economic activity (O) in the region was taken for assessing the region’s economic activity.

Basing on estimate statistical indicator—the value of conditional municipal gross product (Q)—we can calculate and assess the dynamics of relative indicators characterizing labor potential PEDA =  F (Q/A; A/Q); engineering and technology potential PEDT =  F (Q/T; T/Q); natural resources potential PEDT =  F(Q/M; M/Q); institutional potential PEDINS =  F (Q/Ins; Ins/Q); organizational potential PEDO = F (Q/O; O/Q) informational potential PEDINF =  F (Q/Inf). Further, taking into account the basic estimate statistical indicator—the number of organizations and enterprises (O)—we can calculate the relative indicators of economic activity: labor activity EAA =  F (O/A; A/O); production activity EAT =  F (O/T; T/O); activity of using natural resources EAM =  F(O/M; M/O); institutional activity (lawmaking, law violation, etc.) EAINS =  F (O/Ins; Ins/O); organizational activity (i.e. activity of existing organizations) EAO =  F (O/Ou; Ou/O); informational activity (i.e. need of organizations in informational and communicational technologies and services) EAINF =  F (O/Inf; Inf/O).

To compare the results of the calculated six factor indicators of sustainable development taken according to different scales, you need to find the relative non-dimensional index Mi for each municipal district, which shows the degree of approximation of the absolute sustainability indicator Qi to the maximum Qmax and minimum Qmin indicators [4]. The received normalized index values for productive capacity, economic activity and sustainable development of municipal districts are classified within the range from 0 to 1. Thus, the sustainable development of municipal districts may be characterized by the value of these six aggregated indexes: labor sustainability index (M1); production sustainability index (M2); natural environment sustainability index (M3); institutional environment sustainability index (M4); organizational environment sustainability index (M5); informational environment sustainability index (M6). Integral indicator of municipal districts’ sustainable development can be calculated as a simple average of the values of these six aggregated indexes M1, …, M6.

The indicators of productive capacity and economic activity in the region are the initial data for assessing sustainable development in municipal districts on the territory of Volgograd region [5–8] (Table 16.1).

Table 16.1 Initial indicators for assessing the sustainable development of municipal districts
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Twelve aggregated indexes Кi of productive capacity and economic activity factor components were calculated, together with their integral indexes as a simple average of aggregated indexes [9, 10].

To assess the spatial variability and asymmetry of factor components of productive capacity and economic activity in municipal districts we used the following statistical characteristics: average value, middle line, mean square deviation, asymmetry ratio, degree of excess, variation coefficient.

To determine the relative uniformity zones (clusters) of productive capacity and economic activity in nearby municipal districts, the verification of local variations of productive capacity and economic potential aggregated indexes was performed using Voronoi clustering method. The technological platform for the study was the ARCGIS system with its spatial analysis tools [11, 12].

2 Introduction

Methodological principles for assessing sustainable development of a region and municipal districts based on various index systems can be found in a number of published works [13–17]. However, the authors of this study suggest their own conception, according to which sustainable development of the regional social and economic system is a function of at least two of its system characteristics, one of which is the region’s productive capacity potential, and the other is its economic activity, i.e. STB = F (PED; EA).

According to the authors, the productive capacity and economic activity are characterized by their spatial variability, assessment of which enables to conclude existence of sustainable development of municipal social and economic systems on the regional territory. The region’s sustainable social and economic development is the result of balanced inter-municipal relations, on the one hand, and external unbalanced interaction of the region with its macro community, on the other hand. Imbalance of inter-municipal relations destroys unity of the regional social and economic system, causes leveling of opportunities for regional development in external environment, and becomes a cause of the region’s social and economic development decrease. An obvious condition for the region’s sustainable development is its compliance with the general law of distribution of the municipal productive capacity and economic activity spatial variability that displays dynamic balance of inter-municipal relations. On the contrary, spatial variability of productive capacity and economic activity different from the general law of distribution is the result of presence of one or several external dominating factors breaking balance within regional channels of material, labor, informational and other resources in the region. The latter can be characterized by existence of serious spatial asymmetry of the municipal productive capacity and economic activity. However, you may not see any spatial interference of productive capacity and economic activity areas in municipal districts.

Use of spatial approach together with GIS involvement additionally enables to visualize the ranging results of municipal districts according to the level of their sustainable development and introduce the revealed spatial regularities on the regional territory in a form of a themed index map [9].

Considering all data mentioned above, the purpose of the research is to implement the region’s productive capacity and economic activity index system into ARCGIS, which will enable to perform ranging of municipal districts according to their level of sustainable development, find out spatial trends.

3 Results

GIS-created index maps visualize the spatial distribution of productive capacity and economic activity of municipal districts on the territory of Volgograd region in 2016 (Fig. 16.1).

Fig. 16.1
figure 1

Integral indexes of productive capacity and economic activity in municipal districts of Volgograd region

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Serious spatial variability of productive capacity in municipal districts was detected, which explains existence of processes cardinally differentiating it on the regional territory (Table 16.2).

Table 16.2 Variability of productive capacity factor components in municipal districts of Volgograd region
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Variability of productive capacity in municipal districts of Volgograd region is changeable enough, having three main axes of rather high level of productive capacity in the region’s north, south and center. The greatest spatial variability and asymmetry of productive capacity in municipal districts exist in its labor, production, organizational and informational components (variability ratio over 1.0).

Variability of economic activity in municipal districts is also a serious variable with significant spatial asymmetry represented by one axis of economic activity in the region’s south (Table 16.3).

Table 16.3 Statistical characteristics of economic activity factor component variability in municipal districts of Volgograd region
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The greatest spatial variability and asymmetry of economic activity in municipal districts exists for the production and informational components (variability ratio 1.0 and over). The state of economic activity in municipal districts should be described as more balanced within the region, compared to their productive capacity conditions.

Spatial analysis of local variability using Voronoi maps enabled to find out clustering characteristics of municipal districts on the region’s territory (Fig. 16.2).

Fig. 16.2
figure 2

Local spikes of productive capacity and economic activity values in municipal districts of Volgograd region (received using Voronoi clustering statistical method)

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The found contrast in spatial distribution of municipal district clusters according to the indicators of their productive capacity and economic activity proves the assumption of their possible spatial incompliance. We may suppose that economic activity in municipal entities compensates lack of their productive capacity providing the region’s sustainable development increase.

The index map created in GIS characterizes the specifics of spatial distribution of sustainable development indicator values in municipal districts of Volgograd region in 2016 (Fig. 16.3).

Fig. 16.3
figure 3

Sustainable development assessment for municipal districts of Volgograd region

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As the result of analysis performed in the study, we could find out that maximum spatial variability and asymmetry of sustainable development indicators in municipal districts are typical for the labor, production, organizational and informational components of sustainable development (Table 16.4).

Table 16.4 Statistical characteristics of variability of sustainable development factor components (STB) in municipal districts of Volgograd region
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Performed integral assessment of municipal districts’ sustainable development allowed to find those characterized by the highest values of their sustainability factor indicators (Table 16.5).

Table 16.5 Integral assessment of sustainable development in municipal districts of Volgograd region
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The state of sustainable development in municipal districts can be evaluated according to the 5-grade scale using the following value ranges of integral grade (I):

  1. (1)

    very low level of sustainable development (0 <= I < 0.21);

  2. (2)

    sustainable development below average (0.21 <= I < 0.4);

  3. (3)

    middle level of sustainable development (0.41 <= I < 0.6);

  4. (4)

    sustainable development above average (0.61 <= I < 0.8);

  5. (5)

    high level of sustainable development (0.81 <= I < 1).

The level of sustainable development in municipal districts of Volgograd region was evaluated as below average (I = 0.33). However, municipal districts of rather high level of sustainable development were detected in the region’s southern, northern and central parts. The spatial analysis of sustainable development local variability using Voronoi’s statistical methods partly supports the result. We can assume that the state of sustainable development in municipal districts of Volgograd region is provided by the labor, natural resources, institutional and organizational factors determining their competitive advantage in the region.

4 Conclusion

The performed study brought up the following results:

  • methodology of assessing sustainable development of municipal districts was formulated enabling to differentiate municipalities in GIS according to the value of selected sustainable development indicators for its six components: labor, production, natural resources, institutional, organizational and informational;

  • it was discovered that compliance with the general law of spatial variability distribution of productive capacity and economic activity factor components in municipal districts represents the state of sustainable development in the region due to the dynamic balance of intermunicipal relations;

  • detecting clusters of municipal districts similar to each other in their sustainable development indicator values enables to determine potential readiness of municipal districts to the active intermunicipal cooperation and sustainable economic development;

  • the methodology of sustainable development of the region was suggested based on measuring the variability of the region’s productive capacity and economic activity factor components using bar chart analysis. The level of sustainable development can be assessed according to the 5-grade interval sustainability scale;

  • the effectiveness of creating themed GIS maps providing high-quality imaging of spatial regularities in distribution of productive capacity, economic activity and sustainable development of municipal districts based on example of Volgograd region.

In conclusion we would like to emphasize that integration of evolutionary and genetic approach together with spatial approach to assessing the sustainable development of municipal districts discovers additional opportunities in solving the tasks of managing sustainable social and economic development of the region.