Olga N. Russova, Тatyana S. Smak, Ivan A. Tarasov. Assessment of the Comfort… 201 UDC: [316.422.42+316.653](470.11)(045) DOI: 10.37482/issn2221-2698.2020.41.236 Assessment of the Comfort of the Urban Environment as a Factor in the Social Well-Being of Citizens of the Arkhangelsk Oblast © Olga N. RUSSOVA, Cand. Sci. (Philos.), Associated Professor E-mail: [email protected] Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov, Arkhangelsk, Russia © Тatyana S. SMAK, Cand. Sci. (Sociol.), Sociologist-Analyst E-mail: [email protected] Public Opinion Research Center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Arkhangelsk, Russia © Ivan A. TARASOV, Project Manager E-mail: [email protected] Regional charity NGO “Arkhangelsk centre of social technologies “Garant”, Arkhangelsk, Russia Abstract. Since 2016, Russia has been implementing the priority federal program “Formation of a Comfort- able Urban Environment”. During this period, significant funds have been spent and hundreds of improve- ment projects implemented in the urban environment in both large and small cities across the country. How did these improvements affect the subjective assessment of the urban environment among citizens? Are the residents involved in the development of these projects, or are they indifferent to these topics? Is there a difference in assessing the quality of the urban environment by the citizens between small and me- dium cities, company towns and multifunctional metropolitan areas? The article is a partial analysis of a comprehensive study’s data, “The Formation of a Comfortable Urban Environment in the Arkhangelsk Ob- last”. The survey was conducted among residents of 5 cities of the Arkhangelsk oblast (n = 793). The meth- odology for assessing social well-being is used. The cities studied are varied in the typology of size and the dominant form of employment. The results of the study demonstrate the interest of residents in imple- mentation projects. Assessment of the current urban environment is recorded as moderately unsatisfied. Moreover, there is no fundamental difference in assessments of the urban environment’s current condi- tions in the opinions of residents of small and single-industry towns and citizens of a large, regional center city. Keywords: city, urban environment, social well-being, urban environment quality index, urban transfor- mation, types of cities. Introduction Modern cities are centers of development, accumulating technology, finance, infrastruc- ture, and qualified personnel. One of the factors in attracting these resources is a high-quality ur- ban environment. Comfort of living is one of the most significant factors in ensuring the competi- tiveness of settlements, regions and the country as a whole. The urban environment is not only landscapes, but also the qualitative state of its natural and man-made components, the level of development of information exchange, the nature of the dominant symbolism [1, Dridze T.M., p. 131]. But if a quarter of a century ago, the famous Soviet sociologist Tamara Dridze believed that people and the urban environment do not occupy an insufficient place in predictive social design, today the situation has changed, despite the fact that perception of the city as an object of man- agement are developing slowly, possessing tremendous inertia. At the same time, the urban envi- For citation: Russova O.N., Smak Т.S., Tarasov I.A. Assessment of the Comfort of the Urban Environment as a Factor in the Social Well-being of Citizens of the Arkhangelsk Oblast. Arktika i Sever [Arctic and North], 2020, no. 41, pp. 236– 247. DOI: 10.37482/issn2221-2698.2020.41.236 Arctic and North. 2020. No. 41 Olga N. Russova, Тatyana S. Smak, Ivan A. Tarasov. Assessment of the Comfort… 202 ronment as the focus of civilization has been evolving for five thousand years, sometimes with stops, often with backward movements [2, Glazychev V.L., p. 259]. In this sense and in this connection, we imagine the city as a social laboratory. According to Robert Park, civilization and social progress in our modern cities have acquired the character of a kind of controlled experiment [3, p. 4]. One of such social experiments is the implementation of the priority federal project “For- mation of a comfortable urban environment”. The main goal of the program is to create condi- tions for the systematic improvement of the quality and comfort of the urban environment throughout Russia through the annual implementation (in the period from 2017 to 2020) of a set of priority measures to create a modern comfortable urban environment, the implementation of 400 complex improvement projects and training of 2.000 specialists by 20201. Integral index of urban environment quality There are various methods and ratings to assess the state of cities as a whole and its indi- vidual components, which differ in the degree of differentiation of indicators and an emphasis on social, cultural, political, economic, environmental or other parameters. Global City Indicators Pro- gramme, City Blueprint, European Green Capital Award, European Green City Index and others are among the foreign indicators. Among the numerous Russian approaches to assessing and rating cities, it is important to note the general index of cities attractiveness of the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation (up to 2014) and the integral index of the urban environ- ment quality of the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation. For several years, the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation has been deter- mining the quality level of the urban environment of municipalities. The methodology for calculat- ing the integrated index is used for this purpose, based on the indices of the quality of the urban environment 2. The results of the Index formation are used in the implementation of the provi- sions of the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of May 7, 2018 No. 204 “On nation- al goals and strategic objectives of the development of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2024”, the national project “Housing and the urban environment”, as well as to determine the amount of subsidies from the federal budget to the budgets of the constituent entities of the Rus- sian Federation to support state programs of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and municipal programs for the formation of a modern urban environment. 1 Strategicheskoe napravlenie razvitiya «ZhKKh i gorodskaya sreda» [Strategic Direction of Development "Housing and Communal Services and Urban Environment"]. URL: http://www.minstroyrf.ru/trades/gorodskaya- sreda/strategicheskoe-napravlenie-razvitiya-zhkkh-i-gorodskaya-sreda/ (accessed 26 December 2019). 2 Rasporyazhenie Pravitel'stva RF ot 23 marta 2019 g. N 510-r «Metodika formirovaniya indeksa kachestva gorodskoy sredy» [Order of the Government of the Russian Federation of March 23, 2019 No. 510-r "Methodology for the For- mation of the Urban Environment Quality Index"]. URL: http://static.government.ru/media/files/wbRiqrDYKeKbPh9FzCHUwWoturf2Ud0G.pdf (accessed 26 December 2019). Arctic and North. 2020. No. 41 Olga N. Russova, Тatyana S. Smak, Ivan A. Tarasov. Assessment of the Comfort… 203 The urban environment is characterized by a combination of natural, architectural, plan- ning, environmental and other factors that form the habitat in a certain territory and determine the comfort of living in this territory. In this document, the concept of "urban environment" is used in relation to cities, urban districts, urban settlements, as well as rural settlements. The Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation, together with the state company “Dom.RF” and the “Strelka” consulting bureau, calculated the quality indices of the urban envi- ronment of 1.114 municipalities for 2018. The index represents the digital value of the state of ur- ban environment of the settlements, assessed from quantitative and measurable indicators of comfort in the territory concerned. When calculating the city index, the maximum and minimum absolute values in the data array are determined (in each of the climatic and size groups) and a fixed absolute value is deter- mined for each point. The cities are divided into ten climatic and size groups for the correct compi- lation of scales for assessing the city index and their correct comparison. Two indicators are taken into account while assigning a city to the corresponding group: the geographical location of the city (constant factor) and the population of the city (updated annually). Climatic groups are determined by the following parameters: cities located on the territory of a conventionally comfortable climate, and cities located on the territory of an uncomfortable climate. For several years of using the methodology for calculating the urban environment quality index, the approaches and the number of indicators have changed. The technique has been ad- justed and refined several times. Today, the final index includes an assessment of six spaces on six criteria. The spaces include housing, road network, green spaces, public and business infrastruc- ture, social and leisure infrastructure, city-wide space. Each of the spaces is assessed according to the following criteria: safety, comfort, environmental friendliness and health, identity and diversi- ty, modernity and relevance of the environment, management efficiency. Thus, there are 36 indi- cators with a value from 0 to 10 points; the maximum possible value of the city index is 360 points. Information on 19 indicators is taken from open sources: information from search and information mapping services, data from a geographic information system, space images of territories, social networks. The remaining 17 indicators are taken from statistics agencies and executive authori- ties. According to the calculations of the indices of urban environment state of 1.114 settle- ments made by the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation in 2018, the average value of the quality index of the urban environment in the country was 163 points. The share of cities with a favorable urban environment at the end of the year is 23%3.