Formation of United Territorial Communities Based on the Principle of Urban Agglomerations

Abstract

The paper analyses factors, properties, and criteria contributing to the formation and development of the territorial community based on the principles of urban agglomerations in modern conditions on the example of cities in Luhansk oblast. In the modern world, it is no longer a question of competition between countries but actually between cities–agglomerations or metropolitan cities. In fact, they have been in Ukraine, e.g., large cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv. Currently, Ukraine has introduced three levels of the administrative-territorial system, which distinguish the following units: community, district, region. As a part of the decentralization reform in Ukraine, 490 old districts have already been liquidated and 136 new ones have been formed. There have been created 1470 united territorial communities, which should become the basis of local self-government. A criterion analysis of the territory with adjacent settlements has been conducted from the point of view of unification into a territorial community. Priority measures for the development and improvement of the united territorial community as an urban agglomeration have been proposed. Based on the criterion analysis of ‘Severodonetsk-Lysychansk-Rubizhne’ territory with adjacent settlements, we can consider the united territorial community as an urban agglomeration, and develop it as a complex system that includes not only cities and settlements around them, but also all production facilities, resettlement of inhabitants, interaction of nature and urban population as a single entity. For such agglomerations, emphasis should be placed on spatial development, in particular on traditional distribution factors, such as transport, material, labour costs.