Total Territorial Capital as a Framework for Assessing Urban Agglomeration Development in Russia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17059/ekon.reg.2026-2-6Keywords:
urban agglomerations, total capital of the territory, methods for assessing socio-economic processes, socio-economic effects of agglomeration development, inter-municipal effects, center-periphery differentiation, capital approach to assessing developmentAbstract
Urban agglomerations in Russia concentrate population and economic activity, yet a unified approach to assessing their socio-economic dynamics remains undeveloped, due to complex inter-municipal interactions and limitations in municipal statistics. This study develops and tests a methodological approach for assessing the socio-economic potential and outcomes of urban development through an integral indicator of total territorial capital. Current approaches, including coefficient-index, sectoral, and integrated methods, are reviewed and found to offer limited analytical capacity for assessing agglomeration resource base dynamics over the medium and long term. In response, total territorial capital is proposed as a system of five interrelated types: produced, human, financial, natural, and innovative capital. The approach was tested on data from the Barnaul agglomeration for 2011–2024 at constant 2024 prices. Cost calculations cover produced, human, natural, and financial capital, while the innovative component is identified as a direction for further methodological development. Over the study period, total capital grew at an average of 1.18 % per year, reaching 1,762.2 billion roubles in 2024, with human capital dominant at 1,151.7 billion roubles and concentrated in the core. The analysis reveals stable core-periphery differences: human, financial, and produced capital are relatively more concentrated in the core, while natural capital plays a growing role in some peripheral municipalities. The proposed approach is applicable for monitoring strategic planning documents and informing inter-municipal priorities, complementing flow and local indicators with an assessment of resource base dynamics. Key limitations are related to data gaps and reliance on proxy indicators; future work will focus on assessing the contribution of individual projects to capital change.
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