The Second-Order Agglomerations in the Moscow Region: Trends in the Post-Soviet Period

The trends of second-order urban agglomerations in the Moscow region in the post-Soviet period is analyzed in the paper based on mobile operators’ data on commuting labour migration in 2023. Their delimitation was carried out using a graphoanalytical approach, which had not previously been used to study settlement network systems. The author’s methodology included the development of a set of graphs and their processing using the Leiden clustering algorithm (taking into account and without taking into account the influence of Moscow). The resulting clusters were examined as possible second-order urban agglomerations. Twenty-five small urban agglomerations were identified, sixteen of which originated in the Soviet period. In the course of the post-socialist transformation of social and economic life, a largescale influx of migrants and mass housing construction in the area of the near and medium-remote suburbs of the metropolitan urban agglomeration, a dynamic and multi-core frontier belt emerged, in which new ones second-order urban agglomerations appeared (Vidnovskaya, Chekhovskaya and NaroFominskaya) and many previously existing ones were segmented (Lyuberetsko-Ramenskaya, KhimkiZelenogradskaya and Mytishchi-Korolevsko-Shchelkovskaya). The rapid growth of nuclei occurred in them both as a result of migration growth and due to the entry of satellite settlements network into their composition as a consequence of administrative and territorial transformations. In turn, many cities that were not absorbed grew up and formed secondary cores, laying the foundation for further division of small urban agglomerations (for example, Lyubertskaya). In the urban agglomerations located on the periphery, the vast majority of which were formed during the Soviet era, it was only in recent years that the cores stopped reducing the population. At the same time, the role of large rural settlements network and workers’ settlements network has significantly increased, currently forming the spatial framework of suburban areas of most urban agglomerations. Thus, the analysis not only revealed the trends of this underestimated tier of the settlement network system, but also lays the theoretical foundation for the practical implementation of the principles of polycentric spatial development of the Moscow urban agglomeration.

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