Urban–Rural Migration as Part of Sustainable Territorial Development

Abstract

The paper presents the positive and negative effects of human migration from rural areas to urban areas and vice versa. It also considers two types of migration between rural and urban areas: officially registered and circular migration. The authors attend to the population flow between urban and rural settlements that is active annually in both directions. Simultaneously, the flow from the country to the city is typically more expressed and leads to the depersonalization of the Russian countryside. Nevertheless, direct and reverse flows contribute to the increasing sustainability of urban and rural areas’ development. However, the development of the latter at present, according to the authors, is possible only by actively forming the socio-economic infrastructure in rural areas and preserving possibilities of the rural population to live in single-family houses on individual land property. A further consumer attitude towards rural areas and the human capital formed there reduces the potential for sustainable development of the countryside and the long-term prospects of urban settlement. The authors also consider that migration from rural areas positively affects the urban labor market in terms of reducing the need for migrants from foreign countries.