Socio-Ecological Differentiation of the Development of Urban Fringe of Million-Plus Cities in the Republic of Kazakhstan

The article proposes a methodology for delineating and assessing the urban fringe of Kazakhstan’s millionplus cities. These fringes emerge as a result of the chaotic expansion of the urban core and the persistence of inherited features—both natural, which contribute to improving the environmental situation, and anthropogenically transformed, exhibiting varying degrees of environmental stress. At the first stage the urban fringe was delimited as the zone between the administrative boundaries of the city (adjusted for actual built-up areas) and the inner boundary identified using the land use diversity index (Shannon entropy). At the second stage, a combined typology of composite indices for social infrastructure density and environmental conditions was developed. This typology revealed asymmetric development between the fringes and central districts of Kazakhstan’s million-plus cities where areas with a low level of one indicator are often compensated by a high level of the other. More than 70% of the fringe territory (50% of the population) is characterized by favorable environmental conditions but underdeveloped social infrastructure. In central areas, high levels of social infrastructure predominate, surrounded by fragmented zones where environmental stress is determined by industrial and transport influence, while social infrastructure remains insufficiently developed. Industrial impacts are generally declining; however,  industrial zone disintegration is actively progressing in Almaty, has only recently begun in Astana, and has not yet started in Shymkent. Polarization of the composite social infrastructure density index is characteristic of the fringes in Almaty and Astana, whereas in Shymkent it is more homogeneous and minimally different from the urban core. The greatest diversity is observed in newly and rapidly developed areas of Astana and the least—in the integrated former suburban areas of Shymkent. Improvement of the composite environmental index from the center toward the periphery, along with substantial variation in environmental well-being levels from very low to very high, are universal features of the urban fringe.

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