The article discusses the experience of studying the demographic development of the Kavminvodskaya urban agglomeration and its territorial planning taking into account intra-agglomeration differences. The data of official statistics, population censuses, and territorial planning materials are analyzed. The paper provides a historical sketch of the formation of the urban settlements network and the development of links between them, which serves as a basis for understanding the structural features and current trends in the development of the agglomeration. We conducted a detailed study of the regulatory framework containing documents of strategic and territorial planning at the regional and municipal levels. The documents were studied in terms of the agglomeration development management, from the perspective of cities, districts and areas. A comparative analysis of demographic development showed the asynchrony and spatial asymmetry of all its parameters. Population growth, migration, and natural reproduction processes within the constituent elements of the agglomeration system occur differently, with changes in their pace and direction in different years. The greatest contrasts have been revealed between the core cities of the first and second order, suburban settlements, and peripheral areas. The population growth in the agglomeration occurs almost exclusively due to international and intraregional migration, which, to some extent, compensates for the interregional outflow of population. There is noted an increasing population decline, the main factors of which are the aging of population, the transformation of traditional ethno-cultural characteristics under the influence of urbanization, and, in recent years, the spread of the coronavirus infection. The conducted medium-term forecast demonstrates a downward trend of slow agglomeration growth.

The article presents results of the multi-scale analysis of the processes of coronavirus infection spread and its impact on the demographic situation in the world, Russia and regions of the South of the European part of Russia. The methodological basis of the study was the principles of geoinformation monitoring, making it possible to process and visualize large volumes of diverse materials. The information base was statistical data from the Russian and foreign sources reflecting the spread of coronavirus infection at various spatial levels from global to regional-local. The characteristic features of changes in the parameters of the disease during its active expansion are described. The article also deals with dynamics in demographic indicators and identifies trends in their widespread deterioration. The contribution of the South of European Russia macro-region to the all-Russian Covid-19 situation is determined. Development of the coronavirus pandemic at the level of municipal districts is analyzed using individual regions as an example. The study identifies main factors of the Covid-19 pandemic development and demonstrates some of its features and consequences in the largest urban agglomerations.

The paper presents the results of the demographic processes analyses study in the South of European part of Russia in comparison with national outcomes. The research is based on a GIS monitoring concept and reveals the main characteristics of population size dynamic pattern with the influence of prevailing reproduction processes. The main sources of data are the office for national statistics and various regional statistics sources. ESRI ArcGIS Spatial Analyst software platform is used as a primary analytical framework. The study case covers the time frame from 1959 to 2018. Developing map models of the population’s natural reproduction brings out the depopulation speed and direction as a primary trend in Russia’s demographic development. At the beginning of the XXI century’s third decade, there is a significant reduction in the number of regions with positive natural population growth. The regions with decreasing in population have prevailed. The positive natural population growth preserves mainly in national territorial subdivisions with an unfinished demographic transition. The demographic picture in the south of European part of Russia looks relatively propitious. Negative demographic trends arise with a delay and have not reached the critical levels yet. The obvious polarization of demographic space in the south of Russia has educed — there are two areas with unequal trends of population growth: South-East area with a sustainable increase in the population and a migration outflow, the North-West area with a natural decline in the population and an erratic positive migration balance. Though the area with a sustainable increase in the population is reducing, showing positive trends in Krasnodar Krai and Republic of Adygea. The ethnic republic’s migration outflow is stable.

The article considers the experience of classification documents of the territorial planning and management of urban agglomerations in the Russian Federation. We have analyzed the documents of the federal level the main aim of which is regulating the processes of formation and development of agglomerations in the country. The documents developed in the regions over the past ten years, which regulate the functioning of all Russian urban agglomerations including laws, concepts, strategies, territorial planning schemes, inter-municipal agreements, and regulations on the activities of coordination councils are considered in detail. A comparative analysis of the documents allowed us to group agglomerations according to the degree of representation of the regulatory and documentary basis. There are five groups of agglomerations that differ in the number of documents and the degree of elaboration of agglomeration issues. The results revealed a significant gap between the selected groups. For agglomerations of the first and second groups we have prepared the complete sets of documentation, which reflect sufficiently the main parameters of agglomerations as integral system formations. For agglomerations included in the fourth group, there are no special documents, there are also some relevant materials in the regional documents of strategic and territorial planning which are characterized by poor elaboration. Agglomerations of the fifth group are not provided with regulatory documents at all, they are not considered as special formations. The analysis can contribute to improving the methodology of agglomeration development, understanding the need to expand and improve approaches to the management of urban agglomerations as integral objects. It is obvious that the urgent problem of sustainable development and functioning of urban agglomerations is the need to develop an innovative management model, its coordination with the regulatory framework of regional management structures, and a clear definition of conceptual and terminological and spatial-structural parameters.

The study offers an analysis of the specific features pertaining to adaptation and integration strategies of various migrant groups; the identification of issues, and ways for successful integration of migrants in the regional community. The study has been carried out based on empirical data obtained through sociological approaches in one of Russia’s southern areas — the Stavropol Region. The authors here offer their theoretical and methodological approaches to defining the key categories of socio-economic adaptation and socio-cultural integration of migrants, and identify parameters that reveal successful adaptation and integration. There are three basic migrant adaptation models proposed as well as the stages of foreign migrants’ integration. Key issues of adaptation and integration of migrants (naturalization, language integration, migrantophobia, migrant capacity of host communities) have been identified. The interpretation of the outcomes obtained from studying the Stavropol Region has allowed identifying the most relevant adaptation and integration issues along with potential measures aiming to improve the migration situation in Russia.