The article concentrates on the analysis of the current state of settlements at the territory of the Ural region. The Ural region is shown to be an industrial and highly urbanized area. There are some settlements at the territory of the Ural region where the mining complex is the city-forming enterprise, they are mining towns. It has been revealed that the negative environmental impact never vanishes with the termination of mining but causes some new social, economic and ecological problems. With the purpose of reducing the negative impact of mining effect, a number of measures have been proposed aimed to renovate the mining complex facilities which remained after liquidation and to rehabilitate the industrial areas which remained after mineral deposit development termination.

The article is devoted to the analysis of spatial organization of the mining cities historical sites located in the Middle Urals with a special focus on the old mining territories. The article overviews the Demidov family contribution in the mining development of the Ural Region; the presented research also suggests a mining cities classification in terms of their age; the given study analyses the land management and construction development of the historic sites and its residential areas, and the condition of the architectural objects which form these sites and areas; the authors of article propose a classification of historical sites. The research singles out the ecological, social and economic problems resulting from the still existing out-dated mining sites. The authors recommend a concept of revitalizing the historic mining territories. The article also determines the trends for further research.

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