Assessing the resilience potential of the Russian Arctic cities: the factor of economic specialization

Abstract

This paper proposes an original methodology for assessing the impact of economic specialization on the resilience potential of Russian Arctic cities. The author understands the resilience as the ability of urban economies to adapt to crises, especially structural ones. He considers the key concepts of urban and regional development, in which the impact of economic specialization factor on resilience are assessed. The author takes into account the specifics of the Arctic urban systems that evolve focusing mainly on the resource development of the territory. As a result, he ranks 28 Russian Arctic cities on the resilience potential basis. The ranking consists of four quantitative indicators with equal weight. These are the degree of diversification of the economy in terms of employment structure, the level of the extractive industry development, the share of innovative firms and the patent activity level. The cities differ mostly by the last two indicators responsible for the development of human capital and the generation of new niche industries of specialization. In terms of employment diversification and dependence on the extractive industry, the distribution is more even. Regional capitals, research and university centres acquire higher scores of resilience potential. By contrast, factors of location in suburban zone, on the remote periphery with low infrastructure provision or in areas with a high concentration of mineral resources negatively affect the assessment of the resilience of the cities. The ranking methodology can be applied to identify the risks Arctic cities are likely to face if they lose their current specialization.