Sergii LISOVSKYI, Institute of Geography, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine
Eugenia MARUNIAK, Institute of Geography, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine
Small towns’ development is one of the important conditions for ensuring sustainable development of the country in a whole. In the structure of Ukrainian settlements the group of small towns is the most numerous one. It includes 371 towns (with 21% of the urban population living in them).
However, over the last three years, the majority of small towns in Ukraine have undergone some degradation and depopulation. The main reason for such a negative trends is the prolonged economic crisis, resulted in negative birth rate and migration indicators. The most active directions where population moves are abroad and to the capital city.
At the same time, social problems have become urgent, including unemployment, low wages, the decline of medical care and educational system. The result of poor developed infrastructure and its destruction there is a significant pollution of the surface and ground waters as well as soils.
Within the metropolitan areas in different regions of the country, in the East, South, and the West, the problems of small towns differ significantly and have to be considered in detail.
It should be noticed, that for a long time, the issues of small town development in Ukraine had not been taken into account at the state level. In this regard some positive shifts have become visible after signing the Association Agreement with the EU and introduction of European standards into the planning process. Nowadays there are attempts to re-launch urban development concept, including Agenda for small towns within the framework of “State Strategy for Regional Development for 2021-2027”. However there is an urgent need for their further development and additional adjustments.
One of them is the assessment of small Ukrainian towns and their sustainability level, which was performed by authors based on the case of the small towns of regional level. Based on this assessment and discovered impact factors, some recommendations for urban development policy have been developed.
Mots clés : small towns|urban development|sustainable development|Ukraine
A104686SL