Globalization of Russian Cities : Towards a 2 Construction of Large Urban Regions 3

Abstract

This study explores how to delineate Russian cities in order to make them comparable on 8 the world scale. In doing so we introduce the concept of large urban regions (LUR) applicable to the 9 Russian urban context. This research is motivated by a principal research question: how to construct 10 a statistical urban delineation, which would allow first, to demonstrate integration of cities into 11 globalization, and second, to make global urban comparative research. Previous studies on urban 12 delineation in Russia have focused almost exclusively on functional urban areas, which have 13 substantial limitations and are not suitable for global urban comparisons. Addressing this research 14 gap, we propose a new definition of Large Urban Regions (LUR). In doing so, first, we introduce 15 the context of Russian cities (2), then we discuss existing Russian urban concepts (3), and justify a 16 need for a new urban delineation (4). Afterwards, we present a general method to delineate Large 17 Urban Regions in Russian context (5.1), and illustrate it in the two case studies of St. Petersburg 18 (polycentric region) and Samara (monocentric region) (5.2). In the last part (6), we discuss the 10 the 19 largest urban regions in Russia and describe a constructed database including all Russian LURs. 20