Within the framework of the case-study for Academgorodok, we consider the issues of how a local community of an academic type functions. Having analyzed the people's opinion on the changing living environment and development prospects for Academgorodok, we could conclude that principle characteristics of this local community remained valid, and thus they had to be taken into account if some external intervention were to be made.
The paper analyses the public opinion on how Academgorodok near Novosibirsk might develop, and what role the Technology Park could play in promoting its development. We discuss the most urgent problems to be resolved for better development of Academgorodok; how informed the residents are about the community development projects and their opinion on these projects; and people's expectations for the Technology Park Project, as well as their understandings of what should be done to promote the development of Academgorodok and to maintain its specialness.
The paper considers what powers the regional legislative and executive authorities have to attract and to implement investment projects, and how the investment activity in regions may be regulated. We analyze the changes made in the federal and regional law concerning the improvements in attracting investments into regions; the investment dynamics in the regions of the Eastern Siberia Oil-and-gas Complex over 2000-2007, and the ways of how regions could participate in the implementation of such projects.
We analyze the innovation potential in Russian regions applying the comparative integral assessments calculated by a method of principal components. We show that only eleven Russian regions, where main Russian potential is concentrated, can fruitfully build and promote elements of "a new economy" based on the technologies of the sixth, fifth and advanced fourth generation. Thus, we state that a new public technological strategy aimed at the creation of an advanced national technological base is advisable, and such strategy should be declared as a national project of high priority.
The paper considers the methods and mechanisms for rehabilitation of the industrial regions, which had suffered structural transformations, and for building the institutional capacities and socio-economic conditions required to overcome consequences of such structural transformation.
We analyze the principle forms of how public authorities and business can coordinate their activity in shaping and implementing the complex socio-economic projects for municipal units. We formulated a number of basic approaches to such cooperation based on the principles of equal partnership and the balance of interests in decision-making that would promote higher quality of municipal projects and their economic and social efficiency.
The paper presents a case-study for the Novosibirsk Oblast devoted to the principles and approaches to the spatial policy carried out in the units of the Russian Federation, and the institutional capacities aimed at better using of competitive advantages of municipal units within the framework of such spatial polices. The spatial policy serves as an instrument to coordinate the interests of different municipal units such as towns, cities or districts. We also discuss the problems of coordinating the interests of Novosibirsk City and its suburban municipal units concerning the land usage and the spatial development.
Applying a semistructured alternative assessment technique, the paper studies the issue of how to define the consequence of the construction of bridge crossings in a megapolis according to their priorities of construction. The author analyzes the scenarios of growing traffic flows between the part of the city connected by bridges; potential concepts of a general megapolis plan, and how such plans can incorporate the planning bridge crossings.
The author presents a technique to assess the cost of medical services paid by municipalities of Sakha Republic (Yakutiya). The technique differs from others in the approaches to the calculation of the medical service costs paid by municipalities. The author defines the indicators of such costs by taking into account prices, people's age composition, regional coefficients and others. Such indicators could be useful for the municipal fiscal planning purposes as well as for the medium-term planning of a regional mandatory medical insurance fund. Should the technique be applied, it will be possible to introduce a method of one-source financing as well as to ensure output-oriented budgeting.
The author analyses the hydroeconomic situation in the Russian regions, which is characterized by aggravating economic and ecologic problems in most parts of the country, and shows the high-priority measures required to improve water delivery. The author also discusses the problems of the interregional (trans-border) water use which affect, to varying degrees, the population and the economy of most regions, and also finds the reasons for why the problem of distribution and use of water flows of the trans-border rivers happened to be so tense.
