Economics of urban public space. Is creating a comfortable environment a benefit or a loss for the city budget? What public spaces look like in Hong Kong, Bilbao and other cities around the world

One of the universal trends in the development of modern cities is the formation of public (public) spaces - both through the efforts of city authorities and through grassroots, civil initiatives.

The process of creating and improving public space has become a kind of symbol of the return of the city to people after decades of "squeezing" pedestrians from the streets and the expansion of urban territory by cars. On the other hand, this is another way to distract us from numerous gadgets and network communication, to help return from the virtual to the real world.

The formation of open urban spaces is often a very costly and difficult task. It may require reformatting the transport scheme of the city, redevelopment of its individual parts, switching traffic flows from one street to another, elimination of traffic interchanges, etc. However, the authorities of various cities of the world are ready to bear serious expenses for the implementation of such decisions, knowing that they will not bring obvious and quick economic effect.

H Is such an effort justified? What makes public spaces so attractive?

It is customary to refer to public spaces as urban public areas free from transport - pedestrian zones, streets, squares, squares, parks, etc.

Such an “empirical”, practical approach to the concept describes public spaces as open to people, conducive to meeting and communicating with very different and unfamiliar people, demonstrating the diversity of urban life and reflecting its very essence.

Public space is a place for the activity and interest of citizens. Without losing the transit function (a person can simply pass through it), the public space opens up opportunities for action: here people linger, “hang” for a while, do something, communicate with someone, use it in one way or another. And most importantly, they come back again and again.

What makes this or that urban space public?

Full social life

Public space is, first of all, a place filled with some kind of events, interactions, activity. Its most important characteristic is what happens in it.

A wasteland or a landscaped area on which some structures, monuments or any other objects are located are equally not public spaces if there are no people there or people use this area exclusively for transit purposes and do not interact with each other in any way.

Filling the space with life is facilitated by regularly performed rituals (whether it’s a “clock show” at the Old Town Hall in Prague or clerks eating sandwiches on the lawn of Piccadilly Circus in Manchester) and the development (appropriation) of the territory by certain social groups or subcultures (skaters, chess players, etc.) .

Warsaw

It is also possible to stimulate social communication in the urban space and help people stay in it through technical solutions - by installing objects or devices that involve people in various types of activity. It was this decision that was used during the recent reconstruction of Triumfalnaya Square in Moscow - a swing was installed on it, which Muscovites and guests of the capital now use with pleasure.

At the same time, it is important not only to saturate spaces with landscape design objects, but also to have social direction that determines the possibilities of using and developing this territory. The presence of sun loungers signals the opportunity to chat with friends, read a book, take a nap in the fresh air, a pond with ducks organizes children (and adults) to feed and photograph them, but the piano ...

Ghent

everyday life

The space where events take place once or several times a year is not fully public, while the rest of the time there is desolation and melancholy, as, for example, on the Central Square of Kaliningrad.

A good public space is suitable not only for exclusive events such as celebrating the City Day, but - above all - for daily use, to meet the everyday needs of citizens - walks, meetings, games.

Rome

Comfort

It is clear that a person's stay in any space will be the more often and longer, the more comfortable it is. We need benches to sit down to rest, greenery that allows you to hide from the heat, the opportunity to entertain children.

Therefore, the city authorities, interested in expanding the recreational opportunities of citizens, developing tourism and, especially, in strengthening the emotionally positive attitude of residents to the city, are trying to fill open spaces with original and high-quality environmental design.

Wroclaw

Multifunctionality and the possibility of transformation

Attractive for a variety of people - adults and children, families and singles, the space makes it multifunctional, a variety of activities available in the area.

Brussels

And since public spaces are “exploited” every day, they must have the potential to change. Their organization implies flexible solutions that make it easy to transform the structure of space, quickly (and cheaply) mount and dismantle "content". So, sun loungers, tubs with trees, a bookcase can be easily removed or moved, freeing up space for an ice rink or sandbox.

Kaliningrad, wasteland near the House of Soviets, intervention within the framework of the project of the Baltic branch of the NCCA "Artistic strategies for involving citizens in urban planning"

At the same time, it is important that changes in this territory are entitled to be carried out not only by “specially trained” people from the city hall, but also by ordinary citizens who, say, take it into their heads to play petanque or fly a kite.

Proportionality to man

Not all spaces positioned as public spaces are capable of stimulating communication between people, not all can be transformed. To such sociologists Richard Sennet and Zygmunt Bauman, among other things, include the so-called "arrogant", inhospitable spaces. Spaces that are too large (or those that seem so because they are empty) cause emotional discomfort, a feeling of being lost, and an unwillingness to linger. It was precisely such squares - empty and with indispensable Lenin at the head - that were in every Soviet city.

Fundamental openness

Free access for all is an unconditional criterion of public space.

As the urbanist says Leo Hollis, “If the city does not belong to everyone, then it is of no use to anyone”.

It is noteworthy that in the official Russian lexicon, rather, the expression “open urban space” is used. However, in reality, a different practice prevails: some time after the improvement, under the plausible pretext of the need to maintain order, the territory is closed from the public - an entrance fee is introduced or visiting hours are set. Similarly, space cannot be fully used if there are any restrictions and prohibitions.

Poznan

Non-hierarchical, lack of social exclusion

Inequality and stratification, characteristic of society, are also manifested in public spaces. One of the lines of their hierarchical structuring is connected with the vertical relations “power – townspeople”. It is the authorities, as a rule, who determine what can (and what cannot) be done in a particular territory - by establishing the rules for using it or through the very organization of the spatial environment. Just as the presence of the "Do not walk on the lawns" sign limits the desire to lie on the grass, the tiled surface in the park makes it difficult for roller skaters or skateboarders to use its territory.

Alas, it is still difficult for Russian local authorities to abandon the perception of public spaces as in need of control, and sometimes come to terms with the very presence of citizens in them: Kaliningraders are well aware that even meeting the New Year at the main city Christmas tree can be considered by the authorities as a problem, and Muscovites suddenly learned that standing with easels on the Arbat is an offense.

Segregated, hierarchical relations between different groups of citizens themselves, as “us” and “strangers”, are also manifested in the public space, as in the case of the Voronezh Olympic park, which the parents of young skiers involved in there prefer to see only as a sports base, while the rest townspeople - a park for family recreation.

The plot with Chernigovsky Lane in Moscow is also indicative, which was transformed into a kind of reading room under the open sky - a quiet space closed to car traffic with benches, flower beds, an amphitheater and a bookcase. Surprisingly, the residents of the surrounding houses, who dreamed of making their lane pedestrian, perceived the reconstruction negatively. Why? They did not like that the alley was no longer just "their" alley, but attracted "outsiders" people who come here to read or chat.

In modern Russia, the risks for the openness and non-hierarchization of public spaces are especially great: this is the trend of privatization and commodification, and the tradition of "fencing", and attempts by individual groups to standardize social reality at their own discretion, and, of course, the course towards curtailing political freedoms. The constitutional right to freedom of assembly is practically impossible to realize today, and the reincarnation of a pioneer from an old Soviet film strives to emerge from around the corner with the words “Are you doing someone here?”.

Public spaces are also the answer to the question “Who owns the city?”

In addition to the empirical, the concept of public space has a deep philosophical and political meaning (one of the first to discover it was a woman from Koenigsberg Hannah Arendt) and is related to the concept rights to the city, first formulated Henri Lefebvre.

We are talking about the right of residents not only to be in the city, but also to participate in decision-making that determines its future, the state of the urban environment, and, of course, to use the central and symbolically loaded parts of the city. Actually, only in the public space the right to the city can be declared and implemented.

The public right to the city is opposed to individual access to city resources, in conflict and struggle with which there is a chance to return the city. It is no coincidence that urbanists so appreciate the movements of urban activism, situations of urban conflicts, the practice of capturing ("occupation") and re-development of urban spaces by citizens, including in the forms of public art or partisanship. As the urbanist writes Peter Marcuse, "it is best to use public space illegally, moreover, it is necessary."

Barcelona

Both street protests, and actions of direct action to transform the environment, and just riding on a “people's” slide, and not on a tubing track sanctioned by the authorities, fill the urban space with publicity, new meanings, and life.

Experts argue that the success of a public space is possible only if it is constructed “from below”, on the initiative of citizens and with their active participation. Local authorities can only recognize the initiative and support it financially and informationally.

But for this to happen, both we, citizens and local authorities, need to realize that public spaces are public and do not belong to any specific owner. That they can be used by everyone. That at the same time they are free for any activities that do not harm others. And that, despite the possible discomfort from such activity, we must respect the right of others to express themselves, because this guarantees the same right to ourselves.

Palanga

It seems that now, when we are all so divided, and even the most insignificant reason is increasingly opposing us to each other, the development of public spaces can be a salvation. After all, they not only help to make the city commensurate with a person, create a friendly landscape, and provide positive visual and emotional impressions. Public spaces allow you to build a dialogue, meet the human need to be together. I think it's worth believing Jan Gale who says that if we come up with good public spaces, people can feel the community.

Anna Alimpieva

We continue to sum up the year!

I would like to present you an overview of the best public spaces created in Russia in 2017 by Strelka Magazine.

Yes, Zaryadye is there. And the park near the stadium "Krasnodar" too. But there are also places you've never heard of!

1. Park "Krasnodar"

One of the largest projects of the past year is a park near the FC Krasnodar stadium. According to the project of the German bureau gmp International, known for the construction of the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, the park is divided into 30 zones. Among them are the summer amphitheater, which can serve as a cinema and a concert hall; a fountain that transforms into a skating rink in winter; water and musical labyrinths. On the territory of the park there is a rope park and a climbing wall, basketball courts and a skate park.

The entire park has a complex, multi-level terrain that crosses many paths, and wide alleys that ensure the safety of fans at the exit from the stadium. Plants occupy a little more than half of the entire territory: more than two thousand trees have been planted in the park, among which there are rare bonsai pines, wild plums, Japanese maples and oaks.

It is assumed that in winter the new space will not be empty, like most Russian parks: in winter, a fountain with a waterfall transforms into an artificial ice rink. In summer, film screenings will be held at the amphitheater site. Technically, the park has been operating since September 29, by the summer of 2018 it is planned to open a cafe with a rooftop terrace.

2. Khokhlovskaya Square

The aim of the project was to create a new type of public space for Moscow: to give it museum functions. So Khokhlovskaya Square turned into a small archaeological park: a new amphitheater there frames the old part of the White City wall that has survived to this day.

Trees were planted on the square, information stands, lamps and benches were installed. The participants of the round table, where the future of Khokhlovskaya Square was discussed, noted that now nothing is happening there in a good way: there are no food tents, sports grounds and pink penguins. You can just relax there and do nothing, so expats call Khokhlovskaya Square little Verona, and Yuri Saprykin - "no place" in the city.

Photo: Mark Sery, Strelka Magazine

Photo: Mark Sery, Strelka Magazine

3. Embankment and descent to the Ural River

The main task of the architects was to return the historical look to the descent to the river and turn the embankment into a full-fledged promenade with jogging and bicycle paths.

Specialists restored the historic staircase, built back in the 1950s in the Stalinist Empire style, restored the railings and installed 64 lanterns, some of which are exact copies of the historical ones.

Along with the restored steps, ramps appeared at the stairs. By spring, ramps should be equipped with decking - wooden flooring - so that bicycle wheels do not get stuck in the sand. In the spring, a playground with exercise equipment will open nearby. Benches and urns appeared on the embankment itself, and the slope near it was cleaned by planting new trees.

4. Vezelka river embankment

The Vezelka embankment used to look more like a natural area, parts of which were cut off from each other. There were no formalized slopes to the river, it was dark and dangerous to walk somewhere. Architects united these territories, and the banks of the river were connected by a network of pedestrian and bicycle routes. Wooden terraces appeared on the embankment, along which you can go down to the water.

The entire embankment is divided into three parts: the central section near Victory Park and the Kotofey children's park is intended for children's recreation, an amphitheater was built near the water. The site near the Belgorod State University is aimed at students, and the territory near the diorama museum, where trees have been preserved and terraces have been added, is adapted for a quiet holiday.

Bicycle paths were laid along the three-kilometer embankment, gravel and tiles were laid, curbs, lamps, benches and trash bins were installed. To make the embankment green all year round, coniferous trees and herbs were planted there, which bloom in early spring, and so that it would not be empty in winter, according to the plan, the installation of skating rinks, ice slides and heated pavilions.

5. Gorka Park

Gorka Park in Bolshoy Spasoglinishevsky Lane is a good example of how practically abandoned areas in the city center can develop thanks to local residents.

Residents of the area have been nurturing the idea of ​​creating a park on the site of a spontaneous parking since the late 90s. When they received the support of local deputies in 2013, the 2.7-hectare plot suddenly attracted the attention of other interested parties. This place could be given, for example, to the Russian Military Historical Society, and then not a park, but a parade ground would appear in Bolshoi Spasoglinishevsky Lane. Fortunately, the initiative group managed to defend their idea.

The park opened in summer 2017. The space is divided into three levels and divided into seven zones, all of them are connected by through passages and stairs that lead to neighboring courtyards.

In the middle part of the park there is a green area with trees and paths. The dominant feature of this part is a children's rope climbing frame in the form of a space plate. On the left is an observation deck with a wooden deck, designed for dancing. There is also a playground there. To the right - bulk hill and cast-iron rotunda. There is a basketball court nearby. An amphitheater staircase leads to the level below, a fountain was installed there (as in the Museon), and the walls nearby were overgrown with grapes.

A photo:

Photo: Olga Alekseenko, Afisha Daily

Photo: Olga Alekseenko, Afisha Daily

6. Builders Boulevard

A new stage and an LED screen were installed on the boulevard, and in place of the old one, surrounded by a fountain, they organized a place for a cafe for 30 seats. According to the project, it is assumed that small businesses will soon come there: about five places for pavilions and a food court area have been organized on the boulevard. The sites were asphalted there, electricity was supplied.

Places for sports appeared on the boulevard: a zone with horizontal bars and rings and a playground with exercise equipment. There is already a pump track and a closed bike path, and a skate park is due to open in the spring.

Lanterns were replaced on the boulevard and 80 trees were planted: willows, birches, pines, spruces and mountain ash, and in addition 600 shrubs. New benches and urns were also installed there and the police station was transformed.

7. Zaryadye Park

The project of one of the most high-profile openings of 2017, Zaryadye Park, was built around the phrase “natural urbanism”. Zaryadye, designed according to the plan of the creators of the Diller Scofidio + Renfro High Line, is both a park and an urban space, where wildlife flows into buildings, and greenery breaks through unusual for Russia paving without borders.

One of the distinguishing features of the park is the landscape itself. It represents all the natural areas of Russia, each of which is present in Zaryadye just like art objects are exhibited in an exhibition hall. Each zone has its own microclimate: for example, in an ice cave covered with a glass dome, it is colder in summer, hotter in winter, and always more humid than outside.

The Philharmonic, whose roof rhymes with the same curved "glass bark" canopy, will open by spring 2018. On the territory of the park there is a restaurant, an observation deck, a museum and a floating bridge, the view from which has become a new postcard and the hero of all tourist instagrams. According to Timur Bashkaev, the designer of the interiors of the public areas of Zaryadye Park, according to the original design, the floating bridge included a glass elevator for the disabled. However, he created a sense of support, and all the "wow" effect, important for the concept of the park, disappeared. Then they decided to remove the elevator so as not to spoil the feeling. According to the architect, the city lives now for the sake of these effects.

8. Boulevard on Rakhova street

The task of the architects was to equip the city boulevard: to plant trees and shrubs and light it up, inscribing infrastructure facilities (i.e. playgrounds and sports grounds, places for walking pets) into its structure, lay paths for cyclists and replace pedestrian ones.

During the first stage of improvement, four playgrounds, tables for table tennis and chess appeared on the boulevard. 195 lindens and about 1,500 lilac, shadberry and spirea bushes were planted on the boulevard. Pipes for automatic irrigation were also installed there. New lamps and benches were installed along the boulevard. Now only a part of Rakhova Street is ready, but the administration of Saratov plans to improve the street completely.

9. Public space of the Zarya factory

In 2014, the factory changed ownership, and it was decided to create a single public space there with cafes, workshops, offices and shops focused on design and craft. For this, the design workshops ConcreteJungle + Skameyka architects were involved.

They also rebuilt the territory near the factory. This year, wooden platforms, slatted facades and comfortable benches were installed there. The project used "rusty" metal, concrete, natural wood. A huge sewing machine made of plywood appeared at the entrance - an eye-catching element can become a symbol of a new urban space.

Photo: Concrete Jungle

10. Public space in front of the Yeltsin Center

The new space near the Yeltsin Center is essentially a large flower bed completely covered with sand. However, the sand is surrounded by a pine border on a metal frame with benches, deck chairs and ramps, so you can walk inside the "sandbox": children can make sand castles there, adults can relax nearby. According to the project, the object can be used as a stage.

Photo: Ashot Karapetian

11. Gorkinsko-Ometevsky forest (2016-2017, 2017 - the second stage)

At the end of 2016, the first stage of improvement of the Gorkinsko-Ometyevsky forest park began in Kazan. Then water and electricity were installed in the park, bridges were built across the ravine and parking for 100 cars, and the park was decorated with luminous balls. The entrance was decorated with seven-meter arches, to the right of which there is a festival site with a stage. On the contrary, instead of the old ski base, a multifunctional pavilion was built. Grandstands descend from the base building: a place for fans of skiing competitions in winter and a cinema with a lecture hall in summer.

By 2017, a large ecological playground appeared in the park (the authors of the project are the Chekharda bureau), close in style and function to the forest environment. There are two levels here: air, passing through the crowns of trees, and the base, located on the ground. It is divided into sub-zones: the central game "core", the research fields and the sensory labyrinth. A pedestrian bridge was built over a deep ravine, which now connects the territory of the forest with the Kasimov Brothers Street. Walking eco-paths made of larch and illuminated ski slopes lead through the forest.

At the present stage of development of the Russian Federation, there is a tendency for the outflow of people from smaller cities to large metropolitan areas, and the demographic situation is changing.In cities, it is the citizens who are the main producer of the urban economy. If municipalities do not see people as their most important asset, then cities will find themselves in a dead end. Today, local residents generate 25 percent or more of the city's income in the form of personal income tax, that is, a quarter of the city's budget is formed from taxes that the city receives from residents. In business, for example, if one customer brings in a quarter of the revenue, then the company will do everything to please him. And our cities often treat residents and their needs as a burden.

In the conditions of competition between cities for a “person”, the role of public spaces as a factor in a comfortable environment is growing.

To form an idea of ​​the potential of using public spaces as a competitive advantage for cities, it is first necessary to form an idea of ​​the meaning of this concept, its types and functions.

A single concept of public spaces has not yet been formed today. Architects pay attention to public space, geographers consider space as a whole, sociologists talk about social space, the concept of "places of public use" and "public places" is found in legal acts.

The first thing I would like to pay attention to when studying public spaces is that they occupy a certain physical territory. According to Russian experts, public (or public) spaces are an indispensable condition for the existence of a city. So, V.L. Glazychev singles out the obligatory presence of "a significant number of people (in public spaces) who are not engaged in industrial activities" as one of two signs of urban existence. If the public space is empty, then there is no center of gravity, therefore, there is no urban community, which means that we have a settlement, agglomeration, settlement, but not a city. Using the scientific classification: “pre-city”, “city”, “non-city” and “non-city”, - V.L. Glazychev shows that public spaces are impossible in the "sub-city", since there is no free space and people unemployed in production; in the "non-city" (or settlement) there is no urban community; spaces exist.

We can assume that public space means a certain urban area that has developed due to historical, cultural, social and other features, created for public use.

Examples of public spaces are areas available for public use: parks, squares, squares, pavements, embankments, sidewalks, recreation areas in shopping and business centers, playgrounds, stadiums, courtyards. In public spaces, services can be provided, both on a commercial and gratuitous basis (holding cultural, sports, leisure, political and other events for certain groups of citizens and the population as a whole). Public spaces are created on the initiative of both the state to improve the quality of life of citizens, and on the initiative of private companies in their personal interests, including to regulate the behavior of consumers, as well as the citizens themselves through their joint efforts. A characteristic feature of public space is its accessibility, that is, public spaces have such properties of a public good as non-rivalry and non-excludability. Non-rivalry implies that the presence of one individual in a park or waterfront does not diminish the possibility of another individual being there as well. Non-excludability is expressed in “the technical impossibility or prohibitively high costs of preventing additional consumers from accessing the good. Goods that have both properties to a high degree are called pure public goods. L.I. Jacobson distinguishes national and local public goods: "... the difference is determined by the difference in the territorial coverage of the useful action of a particular good" .

The definition of "place of public use" is also ambiguous. In legal acts, it is found in the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings. According to part 5 of Art. 1 of this convention, "places of public use" means those parts of any building, land, street, waterway or other place which is accessible or open to the public, whether permanently, periodically or from time to time, and includes any commercial, business, a cultural, historical, educational, religious, governmental, entertainment, recreational or similar facility that is thus accessible or open to the public.

It should be noted that there is no definition of the concepts "public space" and "public place" in Russian legislation. Based on Part 1 and Part 2 of Art. 20.20 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, public places include: children's, educational and medical organizations, all types of public transport (public transport) of urban and suburban communication, cultural organizations, sports and recreational and sports facilities, as well as streets, stadiums, squares, parks. Thus, according to the law in the Russian Federation, public places are organizations providing social services to the population, transport and recreational areas, while in the international community such places include those territories and objects, the main features of which are their openness and accessibility to the population.

Thus, there is an understanding of public space as a territory, the main feature of which is its accessibility to the population, regardless of their age, nationality, racial and other characteristics. This understanding explains why the definition of a place of public use by the International Convention is included in the concept of public space, but is not limited to it.

Public space is also a place of socialization, a place of gathering of citizens, that is, it includes the concept of "social space". In the work "Theoretical foundations of the sociology of space" A.F. Filippov presents the position of the German sociologist Georg Simmel, according to which space is also a kind of "piece of soil" inhabited by people, filled with their interaction and practical activities that require it, and a unique, exclusive location for certain social formations. A.F. Filippov concludes that "the meaning of territory, border, stay, place is found in the practice of social life." In other words, the social interactions of citizens form certain spaces (social), but when they are tied to the territory, public spaces are formed.

Taking into account the trend of the predominant growth of the urban population over the rural population, the deterioration of the environmental situation in cities, not only the quantity, but also the quality of public spaces, places where a person can spend time, excluding office and home, becomes an important indicator of human life.

The social significance of public spaces includes:

Balanced development of territories;

Improving health and increasing life expectancy;

Increasing the level of physical culture;

Environmental and physical safety;

Socialization.

Public space, in addition to performing social functions, is also a living economic capital, which is very important for the city.

The impact of public spaces on the city budget can be characterized by the following effects:

Increasing the value of land and real estate;

Rising rental rates for commercial real estate;

Increasing the number of enterprises in the field of trade and services;

Increasing tourism attractiveness.

Municipal budget revenues may increase due to the organization of public spaces for the following types of income: personal income tax, UTII, UAT, patents, property tax of individuals, land tax, income from the use of state and municipal property, income from the sale of material and intangible assets. It should be noted that this is practically the entire list of local budget revenues established by the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, as well as the Budget Code of the Russian Federation.

If there is a public space, then there is also a private space. Private space has owners who pay land and property taxes. If public spaces are improved, the value of their real estate increases. Therefore, residents of apartments around Central Park in New York are happy to chip in for the improvement of the park - this raises the capitalization of their real estate (Figure 1). According to analysts, the economic value of the High Line Park in New York (Figure 2) can be estimated as an increase in rental income in neighboring properties by more than 25%. Similarly, business owners on the first floors. A well-groomed space creates more foot traffic, more visitors go to them, they make more profit, they pay more income taxes, they hire more employees who pay their income taxes.

Figure 1. Central Park in New York

Figure 2. High Line Park in New York

According to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, as a result of an increase in tourist flow and the flow associated with event events, additional budget revenues from the implementation of the My Street program in 2017 amounted to about 62 billion rubles, and in 2018 will reach the level of 80 billion rubles. At the same time, in 2015-2017, the costs of the program amounted to more than 93 billion rubles. Thus, capital expenditures that are made not for one year, but for 20-30 years, pay off within one year, and subsequent years give a net income to the budget (Figure 3, Figure 4).

Figure 3. Valovaya Street in Moscow before reconstruction under the My Street program

Figure 4. Valovaya Street in Moscow after reconstruction under the My Street program

Each street after reconstruction is capitalized. The cost of real estate, apartments grows in different proportions up to 20 - 30%. The number of pedestrians on these streets tends to increase three to six times. The turnover of restaurants and cafes is increasing. When public spaces are reconstructed, they become safe, beautiful, illuminated, cultural events begin to actively appear there: festivals, concerts, various events that generate additional flow.

Rental rates on the well-maintained streets of Moscow increased by 10-50%. In addition, instead of banks and offices, there are points of public catering and various services. At the same time, it is important to observe the proportion of interests of tenants and landlords, since in the event of a significant increase in rent, small businesses will not be able to compete with network and large businesses.

In addition, the concept of moving citizens has recently changed. According to recent studies, if earlier the majority preferred a car, now citizens choose walking routes, bicycles or public transport.

Walkable cities have a 38% higher GDP per capita than the rest, attracting more people with higher education and thus better ensuring social equity. This is due to the fact that residents have significantly reduced travel costs and, at the same time, housing costs are offset by proximity to the most relevant jobs.

In 2016, a study was conducted in the United States, the results of which led to the conclusion that for the first time in 60 years, pedestrian spaces occupy a larger share of the market compared to transportation areas. In 30 megacities, 619 pedestrian zones were assessed, which, however, represent only 1% of the total urban space. Provided that the population of these 30 cities is 46% of the total US population and at the same time generates 54% of the national GDP. The study showed that the development of pedestrian urban areas contributes to the revitalization of the business center of the city and more efficient urbanization of suburban areas.

Thus, the creation of a comfortable environment through the formation of urban public space, of course, is a benefit for the municipal budget.

However, today there are a number of problems associated with the need for reconstruction and management of public spaces, which prevent obtaining a positive budgetary effect. These include:

Low level of improvement of public spaces: lighting, unsuitability for different groups of citizens - disabled people, children in wheelchairs, athletes (cyclists, roller skaters);

The problem of safety in public spaces;

The minimum range of recreational and related services;

Lack of event content of public spaces;

Lack of consideration of the needs of the population and guests of the city;

Insufficient number of streets and squares with pedestrian priority;

Inefficient use of the recreational potential of embankments.

Unfortunately, in most cases, we have to state the fact that the local administration, not understanding the high social significance of public spaces for citizens, not seeing opportunities to replenish the budget through due attention to the quality organization and effective management of public spaces, does not consider this element of a comfortable environment as an important issue requiring a systematic approach in the organization.

One of the main reasons limiting the actions of local governments in the creation and management of public spaces is the limited budgetary resources under the “Improvement” budget expenditure item.

At the same time, I would like to note that the limited budgetary resources do not mean their complete absence. Of course, the share of budget expenditures in municipal budgets in this area is modest in comparison with other items of expenditure and averages about 2.5 - 3%, but having the opportunity to dispose of the amount of 500 - 600 million rubles, much depends on the adoption of sound effective decisions on the part of administrative resource.

In addition, the involvement of private investors, philanthropists and residents of the city in the process makes it possible to compensate for the missing financial resources for the implementation of projects to create public spaces.

New York has Zuccotti Park (Figure 5). John Zuccotti was the legendary chairman of the New York City planning committee, real estate company owner, real estate developer. His company owns some of the buildings around the park and the park itself. He was often asked the question - why did he not build up this park, but spent about 8 million dollars on its re-design. Zukotti's arguments are that if he built up the park, the total amount of financial flow would be much less. This “emptiness” here turns out to be the most important part of its economic capital. The private space he made public shows how important landscaping is to the real estate around. And the fact that a space is private does not make it non-public. Occupy Wall Street activists occupied Zukotti Park, since public parks close at 11 or 12 at night, and a private park does not have such regulations.

Civil protest actions in New York City beginning September 17, 2011. The goal of the action participants is a long-term seizure of Wall Street in the financial center of New York in order to draw public attention to the "crimes of the financial elite" and call for structural changes in the economy.

Figure 5. Zucotti Park in New York

Companies “originally” from Chicago are investing in the development of the same parks and other public places, although the authorities do not give them the right to build an elite residential complex nearby, as is happening in Moscow. For them, this is precisely a gesture of goodwill towards their city. The most famous example is Millennium Park in downtown Chicago (Figure 6). Construction was carried out for eight years instead of the planned four, the budget exceeded the original one by 3 times and reached almost $0.5 billion. But the park has become a landmark not only of the city, but also of the country.

Figure 6. Millennium Park in Chicago

But there are examples when the transformation of isolated territories into public ones took place without the participation of the state or municipality. In one of the districts of Berlin, the Rotaprint factory (8300 sq. M), which produced printing machines, went bankrupt. It was located in a building - a monument of constructivism, built by the architect Klaus Kirsten in 1959-1870. This unusual structure, as if assembled from concrete boxes, has already been dubbed Betonbaby by the media. The stray factory was put up for auction in 1989, and several unsuccessful attempts were made to sell it. Since 2001, the factory site has been managed by the Berlin Real Estate Fund. The object was again put up for auction in a package with other property.

And then the public took the stage. “We wanted to be seen as an investor,” says Daniela Brahm, artist, co-designer of the factory transformation. In 2005, together with other tenants, she created the Ex-Rotaprint association in order to obtain a hereditary lease on the territory of the factory and save it from destruction (Figure 7). Usually vacant industrial premises attract artists with low rents, then galleries and high-end stores, and then construction investors come in who turn popular places into high-end residential areas. In the case of Ex-Rotaprint, other potential investors were not active in the area, “which gave us time to develop an alternative (reorganization) program,” says Brahm, “our goal was to preserve the site and support art and culture.” Profit was not supposed to be earned initially. Now 10,000 sq. m of factory space are being developed autonomously, without the help of the government, at the expense of tenants. In total, there are 11 buildings on the territory, about 90 lease contracts have been concluded.

Ex-Rotaprint occupies a third of all premises, the remaining ones were divided among themselves by local public institutions and tenant companies. There are tutoring sessions with schoolchildren, workshops, etc. “This kind of community creates new partnerships, connections and relationships. Social capital is being created here, which has important implications for the city,” says Brahm.

Figure 7. Creative cluster and social center "Ex-Rotaprint" in Berlin

Examples of financing mechanisms for projects to create public spaces, improve the urban environment in order to create comfortable conditions for citizens are presented in the table below (Table 1) .

Table 1. Mechanisms for financing projects for the creation of public spaces, improvement of the urban environment

Melbourne
The budget for capital projects lasting several years is determined by the management team. Funding comes from the city's capital budget and/or the national budget. The budget for smaller projects is determined by the beautification coordinating committee and funded from Melbourne's capital budget. Routine repairs are financed from the city hall's current budget.	Projects are financed from the budget of the district mayor's office or the mayor's office of Paris. If the district mayor's office does not have sufficient funds, additional sources of funding are sought - for example, through targeted programs	Funding for improvement projects is carried out mainly from the city budget. Major projects may be subsidized from the national and state budgets. The costs of minor reconstruction of the street and road space are sometimes borne by small entrepreneurs.	Road improvement projects can be subsidized from public funds (national, city budget or district councils) and from private investors. One of the features of the process of improvement in London is the widespread attraction of private investment. Here, the mechanism of public-private partnership is applied - there is a fee scheme for the infrastructure improvement of the area at the expense of the developer. The fee depends on the size and type of new development. The purpose of spending is determined after careful consultation with the local population and public hearings, for example, funds can be used to build affordable housing and the infrastructure needed by the local community	Large-scale urban improvement projects, as a rule, are financed by budgets and/or budget programs of various levels. Various public-private partnership schemes can be used. In the case of small projects, both public funds and exclusively private funds or a combination of both (PPP) are used. A common case of using private capital is the so-called Business Improvement Areas, which receive preferences when investing in projects for the improvement, repair or construction of walls, and improving the appearance of the facades of commercial real estate. There are 81 such zones in Toronto.

There are several models for the development of projects to create public spaces:

concession agreements;

Rent or management;

Development;

Business associations for the development of territories;

city ​​initiative.

It should be noted that regardless of who will act as an ideological inspirer, investor, executor of local transformations in the form of the formation of public spaces, it is important to be able to rely on a formulated vision of how the city will develop. Such a vision could be, for example, a master plan together with concepts of spatial development, urban zoning or a city master plan.

The sequence of actions of local authorities to ensure the legal framework for the formation of public spaces should be as follows:

1) development on the basis of the master plan of documentation for the planning of public areas;

2) inclusion of the entire set of objects in the register of municipal property;

3) development of rules for land use and building and improvement rules in conjunction with cartographic materials;

4) adoption of a municipal program for the improvement of public areas;

5) consistent implementation of the program.

The man of the new millennium wants to live in an environment saturated with aesthetically complete, truthful images. The human right to beauty and truth has not yet been written down in any constitution, but it is this right that constitutes the content of the current stage of the development of society, and it is this right that constitutes the subject and goal of modern urban planning. At the same time, it is important to understand that the implementation of this right is not a single game, but a team game, that is, each participant in the process of creating a comfortable urban environment (local governments, the business community, civil society) must understand, evaluate the potential benefits, and be ready to engage in dialogue , find optimal solutions and take responsibility for the transformation of the territory.

Bibliographic list

1. Glazychev V.L. Political economy of the city: a textbook. - M .: Publishing house "Delo" ANKh, 2009. - 192 p. – (Ser. “Educational Investments”).
2. Yakobson L.I. The public sector of the economy: economic theory and policy: A textbook for universities / European Commission of the EU (Tacis). - M.: GU HSE, 2000. - 367 p.
3. International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings (New York, December 15, 1997) (The Russian Federation ratified the Convention by Federal Law No. 19-FZ of February 13, 2001, entered into force for the Russian Federation on June 7, 2001).
4. Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses dated December 30, 2001 No. 195-FZ.
5. Abstract of the dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Sciences: Filippov A.F. Theoretical foundations of the sociology of space. 2003.
6. An A.L. The role of public spaces in municipalities // Issues of state and municipal management. 2012. No. 1. pp. 174 - 184.
[Electronic resource] // Official site of the magazine STRELKA. (accessed 03/12/2018).
7. Beregovskikh A.N. The formula of love for cities or the economy of beauty // Urban planning and management, environmental quality and business climate: materials of the V scientific and technical conference of the Institute of Territorial Planning "Grad" (Omsk, March 1 - 3, 2015) / ch. ed. A.N. Beregovskikh, responsible ed. G.V. Gornov. - Omsk, 2016. - 198 p.

On May 18, within the framework of the international exhibition ARCH Moscow-2018, a panel discussion "Development of public spaces: global and local trends" was held, organized by the ICU "City" in collaboration with the company "Ilya Mochalov and Partners". How to competently renovate the surrounding world for a comfortable human life, what technical innovative solutions can be used to improve the urban process, what is the essence of the modern approach to creating public spaces - these and other issues were discussed by experts in the field of architecture, transport, and public communications.

The first part of the program "Public Spaces as a Driver for the Development of Urban Areas" was devoted to new territories, for the development of which various modern approaches and technologies are used. Head of the Urban Development Department of the A101 Group of Companies Svetlana Afonina spoke about the formation of new districts of Moscow from the developer's point of view. She noted that the task of their company is, first of all, to create the so-called post-industrial environment 2.0, which involves building a city for everyone: for the disabled, children, families, teenagers. And everyone should find their territory in this city, their public spaces to realize their potential.

Vice President, Director for Urban Environment Development, Skolkovo Foundation Elena Zelentsova, made a presentation "Economics of the Outskirts: Capitalization of Public Spaces through the Cultural Capital of Districts". She once again recalled the importance of cultural tradition, which must be studied and taken into account when working on socially significant objects.

In the second part of the discussion, dedicated to the expectations and requests of citizens in the development of public spaces, reports were made by the head of the department for work with public authorities of the Department of Socio-Political Research of VTsIOM Kirill Rodin, Deputy Director for External Communications of JSC "Mosinzhproekt" and the main ideologist of the projects of the ICU "City" Alexey Raskhodchikov; head of the AVTV architectural bureau, chief architect of the Moscow Ring Railway Timur Bashkaev and Vice President of the Union of Moscow Architects, General Director of Yauzaproekt LLC Ilya Zalivukhin. The speakers were unanimous that a competent approach to the creation of public spaces requires a clear understanding of where the vector of citizens' request is directed today and who is the subject of this request. As Kirill Rodin notes, presenting the results of the latest VTsIOM study on this topic, the vector in terms of pastime of Muscovites is focused on the places of their direct residence. That is, Muscovites prefer not to get to public spaces themselves, but broadcast a request that public spaces gradually come to people's places of residence. At the same time, there is actually no common global subject of inquiry, some kind of “global Muscovite”, there are separate groups of people with their own requests that require study.

According to Alexei Raskhodchikov, the approach to the study of individual subjects or communities should be predominantly multifunctional: the needs of different social groups vary greatly, and it is simply impossible to create a universal system of public spaces that will always work. Therefore, before designing and building any kind of spaces or objects, it is essential to investigate the consumer of these public spaces. The developed model of social diagnostics includes several points: diagnostic studies, analysis of activity in social networks, organization of communication platforms, feedback support and monitoring of changes.

Ilya Zalivukhin also supports this approach to the formation of public spaces: “The main thing in the city is, first of all, people. When creating centers of attraction, it is necessary to be based on the preferences and expectations of city residents, each urban area has its own characteristics, new spaces must be harmoniously integrated into the fabric of the city.”

Timur Bashkaev also stressed that our needs today are developing at a tremendous speed: “A two-dimensional city can no longer satisfy all the growing needs of all citizens. This model has run its course. We need to look for new models of the vertical city, where every need will be given space for development.”

Particular attention in the third part of the program "Modern Trends and New Formats of Public Spaces" was given to the unique project of the Zaryadye Park.

“Today, Zaryadye in the global trend line acts as a global showcase that shows the heritage of the country, our geographical diversity, our cultural context,” says the director of Zaryadye Park. Pavel Trekhleb. - And at the same time, this is a place for recreation, where you can just come, hide from the metropolis in a coniferous forest, and restore your strength. You can enjoy new panoramas from the floating bridge, which reopens the historical center, views of the Kremlin, Stalin's skyscrapers, and the City. This is a project that works for different audiences.”

“Many investors in Russia now do not understand that public space of a certain level is a very expensive pleasure. This is about one billion rubles per hectare, if we talk about the Zaryadye park-level project,” the landscape architect notes. Ilya Mochalov. It must be borne in mind, the expert emphasized, that any even more or less high-quality improvement cannot cost less than one hundred million rubles per hectare, otherwise we will get just a house adjoining territory, and not a public space. Therefore, each investor must clearly understand how much he is willing to invest in this project in order to get a really worthy place in terms of level. But public spaces are more than just costs. Parks can be not only "roads", but also beneficial from an economic point of view. Public spaces are the points of application of labor for small businesses and the development of the service sector, as well as the center of attraction for tourists.

The participants of the discussion noted that over the past few years, a revolutionary modernization of public spaces has been taking place in Moscow, their new infrastructure is being formed. Public spaces form the image of the city, directly affect the level of comfort of the urban environment and the quality of life of residents. Modern trends in the development of the urban environment show that the city strives for a variety of forms and concepts, but it is necessary to approach the design of public spaces based on the historical and cultural characteristics of each district, as well as the social composition and preferences of its inhabitants.

Photos from the event

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Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor

MAN IN URBAN SPACE

(Philosophical and anthropological foundations of urbanology)

As a concept, urbanization denotes the process of the emergence of new types of settlements - cities, and also characterizes the growth of their role and influence on the entire settlement structure of the population. Urbanization is a new form of spatial and structural organization of life, a specific historical stage in the development of society, characterized by the intensive formation of cities, as a special type of settlements, with a large population concentrated in a relatively small space. Urbanization is accompanied by the expansion of the activities of urban residents, who are separated from the old agrarian economic and social basis, acquiring a global character. This urban settlement structure is based on an industrial basis, its socio-economic, political, ideological, psychological relationships and mutual influences, and creates a new socio-economic organization of society. The problem of urbanization is posed and studied by a wide range of sciences: history, geography, economics, sociology, philosophy, psychology. Philosophical anthropology should make its contribution to the study of urbanization processes. This is due to the fact that modern social science begins a gradual turn from studying only the objectified aspects of society to human problems.

In the processes of urbanization, a person was also studied as an integral part, as an element of the urban community, a resident of an urbanized environment. This is completely insufficient. It is necessary to consider the city dweller as an active subject, influencing the environment of his habitat, constructing it in accordance with his needs, creating it and at the same time changing himself under the influence of both this environment and his activity. While in modern social science more and more attention is beginning to be paid to the person, urbanology also pays attention to the interrelationships and relationships between the person and the city. Man is the creator of the city, man is the creator of the city itself and urban conditions, and at the same time their product, i.e. the new man is a city dweller, and as such is worthy of a separate study.

Such an approach can be implemented by urbanology, as a philosophical and anthropological theory of the city, an integrative science that studies the problems of cities and urban systems in their origin, functioning in close connection with the consideration of a person as a subject and object of urbanization processes. Anthropological urbanology, highlighting the role of man, placing him at the center of research, studies the city as a socio-historical phenomenon, as the most complete manifestation of the civilizational process.

As part of the study of the problems of urbanization, philosophical anthropology acquires practical and even empirical significance, which is expressed in the concretization of its problems - focusing on the study of human activity and mentality in an urban environment. In cities, various social institutions are being formalized: law, state, religion, culture, and others. In urban conditions, new types of relationships between people are formed, losing their personal character. Relations become impersonal: neighborly, legal, economic, socially unequal, religious and ideological, administrative and managerial, etc.

Thus, the need to study the problem of man in urban conditions is dictated by several factors: the spatial structure of human settlement has changed; the process of urbanization has assumed a wide scope; a person acts as both a subject and an object of urban conditions; the city becomes a kind of anthropologized body; there is a change in the corporality of a person as a city dweller, his ideology, worldview, mentality and social institutions; the city is a kind of socio-historical laboratory that forms the image of an urban man and a person in general, the image of a city and society as a whole; the city has had and is having a great influence on the development of urban culture; there is a need for a philosophical and anthropological study of the city as an arena of human life.

The city as an object of study is a complex and functional complex that can be comprehensively studied only in the focus of the intersection of a number of social sciences: philosophy, philosophical and social anthropology, history, sociology, economics, geography, ethnology and others. The city is studied as a socio-historical and socio-civilizational factor, a geographical spatial object in which all human activities are organized, a place where a new community is formed - the townspeople, and at the same time new forms of organization of public life are formed - legal, industrial, social and stratification. new social institutions are being created.

The city man is the creator and product of the city and city life. Man is the creator of history, the creator of technology and technology, social relations, social institutions, various types of settlements, and, ultimately, the creator of himself.

The subject of the study is the interaction of the city and the person in their mutual influence and mutual development. The city is studied as a kind of socio-historical laboratory of society, in which various and ambiguous processes take place. New forms of production are being formed in it - industrial ones, which form urban spatial units - plants and factories, in which separate types of activity are developed. The city creates a legal regulation of relationships, which finds its expression in the spatial structure of the city. The city is undergoing a change in the religious life of society, which is moving from natural space to intra-city artificial, specially equipped premises - temples. In the city, the cultural inventions of mankind arise and develop - writing, printing, radio, television, cinema, newspapers and magazines. They also receive their own spatial design - educational institutions, publishing and broadcasting centers. Urban crowding dictates a special type of housing - multi-storey and multi-apartment buildings, without the provision of land for farming or recreation.

A city person is not only a resident, a unit of population, he creates and lives in a community that is new in its essence, urban, and a completely new spatial organization. A city dweller becomes one simultaneously with inclusion in a new type of settlement, which is a city. He is part of the city, and the city creates a city dweller out of him. A person in an urban environment acquires many roles, he becomes a polyfunctional being and at the same time in almost every position - he is dichotomous. The functions of the city dweller are divided and various social and functional masks are created (producer and consumer, actor and spectator, independent and rigidly directed, rhetorician and listener, clergyman and parishioner, etc.). This division is most clearly manifested in the specialization of production functions (potter, weaver, blacksmith, etc.), as well as in the division of production operations (preparation, manufacturing, decoration, etc.). The city dweller becomes a "partial worker". This process reaches its apogee in conveyor production.

The psychological traits of the townspeople are also being processed, gradually approaching a certain average. An inner conviction is formed in the psychological difference between a city dweller and a “village”. The behavior of people, their reaction to certain events are formed during public acts - festivities, spectacles, processions, punishments, which prescribe certain reactions of behavior and experiences. A single, common, a kind of common, leveled consciousness, a new urban mentality is being created in the city.

Urbanization - as a civilizational process, is characterized not only as a change in the place of residence of people, but also as profound changes in all aspects of human life and society as a whole without exception. In the city, various forms of interaction between people arise and are tested, rules of behavior in private and public life are developed, more and more indirect interdependencies arise, and new forms of communication are formed. The city creates the physicality and mentality of the city dweller.

Urbanization is a concept denoting the process of the emergence of new types of settlements - cities, as well as the growth of their role and influence on the entire settlement structure of the population. Urbanization is a new form of spatial and structural organization of population settlement, where cities acquire a large share and main importance. Urbanization in historical development is realized as a state and process that actively affects the entire social space, acting as a means of transformation.

The city as a material-historical formation is one of the forms of human settlement in the historical retrospective and spatial continuum. The historical stages of society dictate the type and historical fate of a city in general and a particular city in particular. In the study of the city, philosophical anthropology draws attention to the relationship between a person (in the historical process turning into a kind of subject - a “city man”) and the changing environment of his habitat (urban space). The development of the city is accompanied by a change in urban space, both external (geographical and architectural) and internal (mental, semiotic).

The city is a model of modern processes of human formation in a person. In the processes of urbanization, new forms of institutionalization and identification of society in general and the individual in particular arise. With this approach, general philosophical and anthropological problems are narrowed down to the consideration of human problems within the city. This allows us to explore the problem of "man and city" as a specific part of philosophical anthropology through the peculiarity of the correlation of the characteristics of an urban person through the prism of his activities and relationships with other people in the city.

Urbanology is an integrative science that studies the problems of cities and urban systems from various angles in their totality. Urbanology - a word that includes the Latin words "urbs", "logos", - means "the science of the city", the theory of the city, integrating knowledge, which is designed to substantiate and reveal the essential characteristics of the city, its historical meanings and nature with general methodological characteristics . This allows us to consider the city as a special social, stage-significant, historically determined phenomenon, in its close unity with the civilizational development of society. In its development, urbanology relies on urbanistics - the description of the city.

It seems relevant philosophical and anthropological understanding of urban life. A new person appears in the city - an urban person - having his own bodily, mental and social characteristics and a special way of life, performing various functions, and, in turn, forming his own original, unlike the village or natural new environment of his habitat - the city. The socio-historical changes in the position of a person in the space of the city and his place in the urban fabric are traced as an object that changes under the pressure of urban conditions, and an active subject that changes its environment and the city around itself with its activity and influence.

In the city, the mentality of an urban person is formed, his perception of the urban environment, the semiotic "decoding" of the surrounding world, the hermeneutic interpretation of the world and himself.

City as a phenomenon of culture and its functional environment. . The first and main characteristic of a city is its quantitative parameters (population, settlement size, population density per unit of urban area - what researchers call "crowding"). And the second - intertwined with the first - qualitative indicators (types of activity of city residents, functions performed by the city, interaction with the near and far districts). Together with the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the city, its spatial structuring takes place.

The city is characterized by the performance of a number of functions, both for its own life and for the surrounding area (industrial, administrative, economic, political, military, etc.). The peculiarity of the city is that it forms not only a population that is new in character and activities, but also creates a new type of person - a city dweller.

The city is largely revealed as the most vivid manifestation of the essence of the world historical and socio-cultural process. The city is a transformative force in the development of a new (in relation to primitive society) historically defined sociality (corresponding to civilization). Therefore, to study it, a large empirical historical material is needed, which acts as a meaningful framework for the definition. It is in such a new form of socio-historical organization as a city that a change occurs in the social and geographical space, the content of industrial and cultural life, the complication of social relations and the socio-stratification structure of the population. The socio-political and production-economic roles of not only the settlements themselves are changing, but also the social roles of people.

In the city, the social organization of the population becomes different. Social stratification is formed in the city, various social roles of people are distanced and fixed, which are reflected in various aspects of the life of citizens, ranging from differences in functions, relationships, etiquette, clothing, food, housing, and ending with a change and a special structuring of urban space, which are expressed: distinctions and oppositions of spaces of types of activity - production, economic, ideological, cultural and leisure, educational, etc.; designing the structure and fulfillment of the socio-political roles of certain groups of the population - places of political interaction - the authorities (execution and demonstration) and the ruled (their interaction and opposition), their ideological (religious) and legal support; designing the structure and implementation of socio-economic places of interaction (market, banks, various financial and economic institutions), residence of the haves and the have-nots; the allocation and separation of territories for persons with any restrictions - industrial, ethnic, asocial, medical, etc.; and then expulsion from the boundaries of urban areas of places of shame, executions, deprivation of liberty of criminals (i.e., spaces of repression), death (cemeteries), medical institutions for the mentally and terminally ill, etc.

A peculiar unity of physical and social space was formed in the city - a space of relations, interdependencies, systems of connections and regularities. Thus, it becomes clear that the definition of a city is an ambiguous problem, involving many aspects of social life and social science into its orbit.

Urbanization as a process and result of human activity. Urbanization is a concept that can be interpreted in three senses: 1) as the emergence, formation of a city, as a new form of settlement - urban, separating from the old agrarian economic and social basis; 2) as a process of emergence and formation of a new settlement structure, based on a new basis - industrial, their new socio-economic, political, ideological, psychological relationships and mutual influences, and creating a new socio-economic organization of the whole society; 3) as the formation of an urban person, a member of a new urban community, performing a number of new (compared to rural, pre-urban activities) functions, developing a new mentality and existing in it.

Urban genesis (the emergence and formation of a city) plays the role of a fundamental structure-forming part of the urbanization process. It becomes a necessary factor in the development of society. The city creates within itself and around a special environment - urbanization, which with the need to "allocate" from itself special structures that implement and ensure its existence and development. It acts as a defining component of civilization. This environment, which arises in the process of urbanization, becomes the basis and at the same time a condition for the development of the urbanization process.

The urbanization process can be understood as a manifestation of a certain, historically limited stage of the territorial organization of society, the main features of which are: the predominance of a centripetal trend in the location of production and the resettlement of people, which leads to the concentration of economic and social life in large cities - agglomerations; the presence of two forms of settlement (city and village) with a clear predominance of the city; the growing replacement of the natural components of the habitat with technogenic, "second nature"; the existence of socio-territorial differences, i.e. heterogeneity of living conditions in settlement systems.

At the first longest stage of urbanization, conventionally called the "urban revolution", there were many diverse urban settlements. Despite the remoteness from each other, external difference, location on different continents - they are united by one thing: the close connection of cities with the agrarian environment. The second stage is the independent development of cities, based on internal, actually urban, processes. Inside the cities there was an accumulation of technical and technological potential. The city develops as a center of handicraft activity, closely connected with exchange and trade activities. And at the same time, it has a transformative effect on the district, causing new socio-cultural processes. Urban and suburban space is filled with new meanings, a new social and cultural historical text is being developed.

And the third stage is the unrestrained growth of cities, literally crushing almost all settlement structures under itself. Most of the world's population lives in cities. Cities acquire gigantic proportions, become megacities.

A characteristic feature of urbanization is the active human activity in creating cities, shaping the urbanization environment and organizing a new urban social life. Urbanization actively affects the entire social space, acting as a means of transforming life. The material substrata of geographic space undergo transformation. The spiritual sphere of society is also being transformed. Ideas and the forms of communication that have developed in the city, the interaction of people have a profound influence on the population of the district.

So, urbanization is a product of complex transformations, transformations that "bring beyond" a certain type of society to a historically new level of functioning. This level, which implies new principles and forms of organizing the life of a new urbanized society, characterizes its fundamentally new state - the state of civilization.

Urbanology as an understanding and study of the processes of formation and existence of cities. Urbanology is an integrative science that studies the problems of cities and urban systems from various angles in their totality. Urbanology - a word that includes the Latin words "urbs", "logos" - means "the science of the city."

Urbanology is the basic science for the study of the city from its genesis and functioning process to the consideration of individual aspects of the urban organism, its influence and interaction with social, economic, political and other social processes.The city as an object of study is worthy of a comprehensive study. Urbanology can become such an integrative science, which should substantiate and reveal the essential characteristics, historical meaning and nature of the city from general methodological positions. The real historical processes of the formation of the phenomenon of the city must be analyzed from a generalizing integrating position. The city must be studied in the horizon, not only retrospectives, but also prospects. As a creating factor, the New Scientific Discipline relies on the achievements of urban studies as a set of descriptions of urban processes. Urbanology must determine the nature and character of the settlement system, consider cities as a separate specific phenomenon among similar ones, while emphasizing their originality and unity of essential characteristics. The patterns of development of urban processes characterize not only the city itself as a system closed on itself, they also influence the development processes of the whole society as a whole, acting as its generators.

First, with this approach, it will be possible to consider the interaction of production, science, culture, and way of life in a relatively closed socio-geographical space. Secondly, within the city one can track the variability, mobility of both geometric and social space, the development of the urban environment. Thirdly, it will become possible to consider urban dynamics, in its uniqueness, originality and strength-functional changes occurring in the urban organism. And, finally, fourthly, this approach allows us to consider the development of historically established (or emerging) communities of urban communities themselves and, in particular, an urban person as a subject and object of the urbanization process.

Urbanology is a kind of integrator of scientific analysis of the entire process of urbanization. It should include interdisciplinary research. A comprehensive study is important for developing a general theoretical basis for the processes of both urbanization and social progress in general. After all, it is within the city in a relatively compact geographical and social space that the interconnections and interweaving of various aspects of the development of society, the types of activities of people and their interaction are most clearly visible.

The social dynamics of society is manifested primarily in cities. A city dweller, a community of citizens, an urban community are special characteristics of a person and human unity, special objects of study. Urbanology pays special attention to the study of the interaction between man and the urban environment, which he himself creates, changes and creates.

Urbanology studies the city as a socio-historical phenomenon, as the most complete manifestation of the civilizational process from the most diverse sides in their totality, highlighting the role of man, placing him at the center of his interests.

Philosophical and anthropological foundations for the study of urbanization processes. Philosophical anthropology is a science that holistically studies, in interaction with other disciplines, a person, his physical and spiritual life in the past and present, taking place in conditions of various forms of activity and spatial arrangement, as part of various social and ethnic groups. The most detailed philosophical and anthropological description of the understanding of man in European philosophy belongs to M. Scheler, who noted that there are natural-scientific, philosophical and theological anthropology that are not interested in each other, but we do not have a single idea of ​​man. He defined philosophical anthropology as a philosophical concept that embraces human being (existence) in its entirety, determines the place and relation of man to the world. Philosophical anthropology poses and seeks answers to questions of a general philosophical nature, such as, for example, the traditional question of what is absolutely existing being from the point of view of man.

H. Plesner continued the development of the philosophical and anthropological direction. He proposed to consider man as part of the general problem of world consciousness, setting the task of comprehending the natural sphere of man, and not limiting himself to studying him only as a subject of spiritual creativity and moral responsibility.

M. Heidegger gave the term "Dasein" a special meaning for denoting an existing being or existence in general, correlating it with the existence of a person who, as a being, is distinguished from a number of other beings by that which relates to his being. The word "Dasein" captures not a person in general, but the spectrum of being that is revealed in a person. The indication "here" (Da) to openness presupposes a relationship in the sense of being taken as understanding. On this path, it becomes possible, or rather, it becomes possible to think through the essence of the person himself in an orientation towards existential openness.

Following Heidegger's idea of ​​human being-understanding, philosophical anthropology reveals the essence of man in his polyphony. In philosophy, science, and even in religion, there are different aspects of human understanding. Philosophy opens up transcendental discourses about the world and man. Science seeks objective characteristics and meanings. Religion turns to the supernatural and the sacred. And everyday life, in which a person is dissolved, is a combination of everyday experience, traditions, prejudices, prejudices, delusions, fragmentary scientific ideas and moral and legal institutions. All three positions turn out to be similar, if not in content, then in structural terms.

In the book "Philosophical Anthropology" B.V. Markov gives a starting point for considering the problem of man as fundamental for this philosophical direction. “In philosophy and the humanities, a person is defined as a bearer of reason, he is fundamentally different from animals in his intelligence, which allows him to restrain and control bodily desires and instincts ... People literally had to learn everything themselves and everything that they can is a product of cultural development, upbringing and education. Man is not born, but made. And we can continue this idea by saying that a city person, a city dweller, also becomes in the process of interaction between a person and the urban environment.

The application of the problems of philosophical and anthropological understanding of man to the study of urban man, of course, is a kind of narrowing of the problem field. But the choice of such an object as a city, which is a type of historical settlement of people and the historical organization of society, makes it possible to concretize the general philosophical and philosophical-anthropological characteristics of the general understanding of man.

Hermeneutics of urban space. A person creates a city and lives in this urbanized environment created by him. He understandsthe city itself as a model of the world, trying to comprehend how the city and the world as a whole affects person. world, being of a person in the world acquires a specific color, a kind of prism.

Hermeneutics as one of the areas of philosophical thought can offer some approaches to understanding and solving the problems of interaction between man and the world, and in particular, man and the urban (urban) environment. Hermeneutics is understood as "disclosure (clarification) of the previously hidden". This is, firstly, the art of understanding as comprehending the meaning and meanings of signs, secondly, the theory and general rules for interpreting texts, and, thirdly, the philosophical doctrine of the ontology of understanding and the epistemology of interpretation.

The central aspect of F. Schleiermacher's hermeneutics is the identification of the text researcher with the individual, unique content of the spirit (“individuality”) hidden behind the text in order to understand the author even better than he understands himself. The main problem of understanding is related to the spatial and temporal distance separating the researcher and the object. Hermeneutics should contribute to overcoming the distance between them.

W. Dilthey drew attention to the fact that the cognizing subject is a historical being. He himself creates history, and he tries to explain it himself. Based on this fusion of historical events and their understanding, he believes that history is concerned with those relationships that can be experienced by the individual. In experiencing itself, there is no difference between the act of experiencing and what is internally perceived; experiencing is an indissoluble being.

M. Heidegger in "Being and Time", developing philosophical hermeneutics, sought to reveal the meaning of that being that we ourselves are - Dasein. To designate Dasein circulating in the world, Heidegger introduced the concept of “being-in-the-world” (In-der-Welt-sein). The existential mode of dissolution in the world essentially determines the phenomenon that answers the question of who is Dasein. In this connection, two structures “Dasein” are designated: co-existence (Mitsein) and co-presence (Mitdasein). In this who-way of being, the mode of everyday being of selfhood finds its foundation. Others, met by Dasein, always share the world with him and among themselves, and therefore the world is existentially a common world. In this shared world, being Dasein is an event with others in the modes of caring. Heidegger understands the world, which is always being-in-the-world.

Gadamer, highly appreciating Heidegger's position, believed that it was she who made it possible to move away from hard historicism, thanks to his transcendental interpretation of understanding, the problem of hermeneutics acquired a universal outline, even an increment of a new dimension, in philosophical development follows his concept.

Traditional hermeneutics was primarily an "art of understanding" that was concerned with the interpretation of texts. The city and urban space in this respect can be considered as a kind of text. Gadamer specifically dwells on the understanding of architecture. He considers architecture to be the most fertile material for dealing with problems of understanding. Hermeneutics explores the world in the unity of understanding and interpretation.

P. Ricoeur, in the further development of philosophical hermeneutics, revealed two ways of substantiating it by referring to phenomenology. The first way is an appeal to the ontology of understanding (in accordance with the positions of Heidegger and Gadamer), considering understanding as not only a way of knowing, but as a way of being. The second way is the ontology of understanding in its correlation with the epistemology of interpretations, proceeding from the semantic, reflective and existentialist planes.

The problems of hermeneutics were posed and discussed in Russian philosophy (G.G. Shpet, M.M. Bakhtin, P.A. Florensky, A.F. Losev, etc.). his being as understanding and comprehension of being.

Hermeneutics is a discipline that analyzes the process of understanding in the broadest sense of the word. Understanding is not only an epistemological problem, but also an ontological one. The universal meaning of understanding can be neither purely objective nor purely subjective. Meaning is always personal. It is a person who creates meaning, the act of giving meaning - there is always creativity, and creativity is the process of creating and creating meanings. Hermeneutics expands the possibilities of studying the city and the person in it.

Semiotic analysis of the symbolic space of the city" . The science of sign systems is semiotics. There are several approaches to its definition. The idea of ​​semiotics was expressed by F. de Saussure in "Works on Linguistics", as a field of knowledge, the object of which is the sphere of sign communication, as "a science that studies the life of signs within the framework of society." He defined the sign as the unity of the signified and the signifier. This unity is closely related to the problem of understanding, and, consequently, to the mentality of the perceiver. It is necessary to point out the difficulties in understanding and applying the concepts of "sign". There are certain relations between the objects of reality and the signs denoting these objects: relations of substitution, indication, reproduction. These diverse relationships offer, in turn, a range of interpretations. On the one hand, signs act as something passive, only fixing certain objects, and on the other, as an active, motivating principle that affects objects and people's behavior.

In cities, especially in their architecture, we encounter this kind of semiotic evolutionary series: changes in architectural styles, preservation or, conversely, restructuring of existing structures, etc. In them, one can observe the sequence of replacing some objects by others, in which new objects and phenomena retain their old names and designations, being filled with new content. The change in architectural styles, the development and change of utilitarian and symbolic objects of the entire urban environment and everyday life, social and structural changes - all of them preserve the "semiotic" historical memory: some signs and symbols are filled with new content and meaning, others disappear.

The closest to such an understanding of urban spatial signs and their interpretation by the city dweller is the position of U. Eco, presented by him in the book “The Missing Structure. Introduction to semiology". He believes that “one of the areas in which semiology is most in demand by time and life is architecture. It is precisely in architectural structures that the contradictory nature of semiotics as an organization of human living space, culture, and the civilizational development of society as a whole is embodied with the greatest, perhaps, force.

Signs and symbols are not only a reflection of already existing objects, they, together with their understanding, create the world. The city and urban space provide great opportunities for a person to read it with the help of symbols and signs, and, in turn, to reward urban space with such symbols and signs. An iconic sign (architectural as well) not only informs, but has a prescriptive function.

U. Eco significantly expanded the system of signs-symbols by introducing the concepts of "code", "rhetoric" and "ideology", where the last two denote the context in which codes exist and interact. The code is understood by him as something that defines both a system of constant universally valid values ​​and a system of local, particular values ​​(the so-called "lexicode"). Semiotics allows a person to mark the urban space surrounding him. This semiotic coding is fixed in linguistic signs, in the translation of historical memory, as well as in a person's perception of the present, as well as both the future and the past.

In the semiotic signs of the city, a person's perception and understanding of his environment is encoded, giving it certain meanings, distinguishing one's own personal individual space and its relationship with the space of the Other, with the space of All, with the objectified space of the settlement. That is why, in order to study the city, it is necessary to turn to the study of the semiotic meaning of urban space.

Civilizational and anthropological significance of urban space . The city acts as a structuring form in relation to a person. urban a person creates the spatial structure of the city and at the same time the city forms a person.

An urban person can be considered in several planes: 1) in spatial characteristics; 2) in functional characteristics, which, in turn, include occupational, managerial, socio-stratification and ethnic aspects; 3) in the characteristics of socio-stratification groups: some of which are recognized as full-fledged citizens, others are prescribed to live in special urban areas - the ghetto, and the third - a special group of outcasts, who in the city are either forced out to the social and spatial margins, or even driven out of the city.

Consider the spatial characteristics. But to indicate the spatial position of a person is not enough. In this space, a person must be rooted. And this rootedness of a person in the city is framed spatially and socially. Spatial rootedness is expressed in the fact that the city dweller lives in an artificial environment: dwellings, public and industrial premises, architecturally designed space of the city. Social rootedness is expressed in the social procedures of legitimation and coexistence.

An urban man is in many ways an isolated person who independently makes a choice of the type and type of his occupation, the way of obtaining his daily bread, ethical standards of behavior, home decoration and type of clothing. An urban man lives side by side with people with whom he does not have consanguinary ties, but there are neighborhood relations that are being formed. A neighbor is a person with whom, despite all the closeness and crampedness, it is necessary to learn to maintain a certain social distance, not interfering in his personal life and not allowing him too close to his own. These relations are regulated by etiquette, and more strictly by law.

New functions arise for a person in the city in connection with the reorganization of his whole life. It is characteristic that a person from the early syncretism of functions in an archaic society (“both a swedish, a reaper, and a gambler”) in the city moves to polyfunctionality: the functions of producer and consumer, seller and buyer, speaker and listener, clergyman and flock, actor are separated and viewer and teacher and student, leader and subordinate, etc.

This is based on the socio-stratification characteristics. Socio-stratification differences are most clearly expressed in the distinction and opposition of social production functions and social roles in urban people. For example, the roles of a person - the owner of the means of production and a person deprived of them - are being formed.

The beginnings of the state are being laid in the city as a structure of management and interaction of people, based on an impersonal law, ignoring personal and blood relations, making equal demands on all citizens and giving everyone equal rights and duties. And at the same time, people stand out(functionaries) performing managerial functions, supervising the correct adherence to standards and punishing their distortion and violation.

Another social separation awaits a person in the city - this mixing and differentiation of tribes, races and peoples. In some cases, interethnic confrontation is smoothed out by legal acts proclaiming the equality of townspeople (citizens) regardless of origin, race or social affiliation. In another - an ethnic or professional group is prescribed an isolation measure - living in special areas of the city (ghetto, etc.). At the same time, due to close contact with people of other ethnic groups, every city dweller is aware of his ethnicity and at the same time learns to live in a multi-ethnic world.

Through a kind of historical "challenges" the city makes new demands on a person and at the same time creates social institutions through which a person realizes these "social challenges and orders" of the city and the developing society. Such a response to the "challenge" is the creation of writing. The school, education as a whole becomes one of the most effective factors in the social stratification of society and its consolidation. Literacy becomes a marker of an urban person. And, having invaded the field of religious ideology, writing becomes one of the conditions and grounds for the formation of a monotheistic worldview, a new system for transmitting and preserving the principles of faith.

In general, writing and the anonymity of urban communication create the possibility of "social bluff", the ability to imitate one or another urban character. It becomes possible to fake not only age, but also gender.

So, in the city a special type of person is being formed - a city dweller, who has a number of peculiar characteristics dictated by the peculiarity of his spatial position, the functions performed. A new person appears in the city - an urban person - having his own bodily, mental and social characteristics and a special way of life, performing various functions, and, in turn, forming his own original, unlike the village or natural new environment of his habitat - the city.

The physicality of the city man" . In the city, the bodily structure of a person, his corporeality, his habitus becomes different. An urban person has an artificial corporality in comparison with the habitus of a rural person. The city presents a person with its own requirements and rules, which he must strictly follow in order to fit into the city machine, both industrial and everyday. What should be the body of an urban person? According to B.V. Markov - “the body is not an organism, but the same product of civilization, like everything that is created by man. It is a symbolic system and, at the same time, a perfect and economical machine that uses transformed natural or artificially grown and prosthetic organs by society. The surface of the body is dotted with cultural signs, and its internal control structures - the soul and mind are used as carriers and executors of social meanings. At the same time, dwelling, enterprise, school, market and church are disciplinary spaces of human production.

In urban conditions, such a formative condition is, first of all, production. The production cycle in urban conditions overcomes the seasonal cycle. Together with the new cycle of work, the psyche and physicality of the working person changes. He adapts to production operations, gets used to performing partial operations to create a product. In the city, other requirements are made to his body, and he changes his bodily structure in accordance with these new requirements.

An urban person has a different level of consciousness, structure and nature of relations to the world of things. Clothing becomes not only a utilitarian element, but also a symbolic sign of a person's inner change. “A person acting in a certain public role, for example, in the role of a priest, leader, judge, dressing in his symbolic clothes, putting on the appropriate attributes (for example, a judicial chain, sacred vestments, ceremonial uniform), surrounded by subject conductors (temple furnishings, courtroom, parliament), often completely transforms and ceases to resemble himself, as he is in private life, outside of these attributes, ”said P.A. Sorokin. Examples of such practices are the army and educational institutions in which the creation of a new corporeality takes place.

Religious ideology, starting from primitive beliefs, also takes care of the human body and shapes it. Christianity has impressive examples. Buddhism also taught people to shape their body, curb pride. In Buddhist iconography and ideology, certain qualities of people are embodied in the images of various animals.

In connection with the new understanding of corporality, the system of medical care begins to develop in the city, hospitals, hospitals, i.e. the sick body is placed in a special space. The reasons for this varied. One is the possibility of qualified medical care, the other is the tightness of urban housing, the inability to provide the patient with the necessary conditions and care at home. The human body is recognized as sick or healthy, depending on whether medicine recognizes it as such or not. So the question of a person's bodily health is taken out of his own competence and is decided by outsiders, medical specialists.

Just as a primitive society creates a man of his society, inflicting indelible signs on his body and soul, so the city affects the city dweller. An urban person forms his appearance (clothes, hairstyle, beard, cosmetics), behavior (obeys the norms and rules of the hostel) and communication (impersonality, detachment from the Alien, Other, granting freedom to another up to certain limits, defending his rights, loneliness, social "autism ”) according to the norms and requirements of urban society. The city acts on the human body as a disciplining space. Changes are taking place in all areas of manifestation of the human corporeality: nutrition, care for health and education, life expectancy, and even death itself.

urban mentality . The mentality of citizens is a social consciousness and socio-psychological awareness of a special community of people united spatially, socio-historically and economically organized in the city. So the mentality of an urban person is an expression of his special state, experience and self-assessment of his activities and connections, as well as part of the mentality of the whole society in a particular era. The concept of mentality includes: 1) a worldview as a holistic view of the world, nature and man, 2) the internal psychological attitudes of people, their readiness to perceive any ideas or their defense, a system of feelings and experiences. This complex combination of conscious and unconscious has a profound impact on the entire system of attitudes, perception, evaluation of the environment, self-awareness, self-identification of a person and his choice of his behavior.

The mentality of an urban person can be outlined, as it were, in three circles. In one of them - the mentality of an individual city dweller, in the second - the mentality, which is dictated by the relationship "man - man", "I - Other", and in the third circle we can consider the interaction "man - society or public institutions". 1) The mentality of an individual is manifested in the fact that the individual is aware of himself as a city dweller. Those. first of all, he emphasizes his spatial location as an integral part of a larger unity - the city. Calling himself a Muscovite, a New Yorker or a Petersburger, a city dweller implies some features and qualities that characterize his native city, and along with it, his own. 2) Instead of relationships of close people - relatives, friends, etc. rather impersonal relations are formed - neighbors, "I - Other", "I - We", "Other - Other", etc. A contradictory culture of a social community is assimilated and formed, where each person is quite autonomous, and at the same time he is closely connected with others. 3) An urban person enters into economic, political and legal relations with other people and with the city. A person develops a “social response” here, he accepts, rejects, or remains indifferent to their impact. The city dweller feels his closeness to power, even if he is not included in the system of power relations.

Attitudes towards work in urban areas are also changing. Labor is included in the mentality of the city dweller as a necessary component of his life activity.

The city is a real multi-ethnic crucible. The city dweller is aware of his ethnicity, opposing himself to representatives of other ethnic groups. At the same time, norms of cooperation with other citizens and a sense of unity, as residents of one city, are developed.

The contradictory nature of urban conditions finds its expression in the fact that the city simultaneously contributes to religious tolerance and religious intolerance. Quite often, social tension, social confrontation takes the form of a religiously colored conflict, accompanied by crowd violence, human casualties, social and economic upheavals. The dominance of monotheism in the minds and activities of people does not always resolve social tension. Within its framework, social mores are sometimes even tougher and religious persecution is carried out.

The mentality of an urban person is part of the mentality of society, of the entire social consciousness. In the mentality of each individual person, there may be separate parts of the mentality of society, or even their distorted ideas, but each person ultimately accepts it, relies on the social mentality or pushes it away, entering into a confrontation with it. The mentality of an urban person is formed and preserved, transmitted from generation to generation, which is transmitted and maintained through the mechanisms of mass consciousness and various (for example, legal, educational, religious) procedures and institutions.

Lifestyle of an urban person . The object of such research can be not only an individual, but also communities of people, groups and society as a whole. The way of life is largely determined by the conditions, the environment as a kind of metasystem, the fundamental component of which in our study is the city. The vital activity of a person is determined by the actions of people to satisfy their vital needs. In turn, needs are divided into two powerful branches - biophysical (vital, life-supporting) and social (socio-cultural).

Lifestyle is a complex concept, a general sociological category,which is applicable to characterize the totality of specific forms of human life in all spheres of public life, occurring and interacting in natural and social conditions, a way to meet the needs of people in existing natural and social conditions. The main features of labor, life of representatives of a certain social group of society or ethnogeographical group.

In the city, the satisfaction of almost all needs (both biological and social) is associated with living conditions dictated by the urban environment, in which an additional, supranatural, artificial system is created. This system, in turn, dictates new needs, and a person seeks opportunities to satisfy them, creating not only new goods, but also new communication routes.

The urban way of life is characterized by the division of activities along with the division of space. Human activity itself is divided into functions, and not only into large components (production, life and household, education, healthcare, leisure, ideology, communications, etc.), but also within them (inside production into separate operations, engineering and communicative support of the household sphere, by forms and types of education, forms of medical care, etc.).

Citizens are offered a wide range of types of production activities. The urban way of life is characterized by the division of labor operations into component technological parts, the links between which are carried out on the basis of commodity-money relations. Labor activity in the city acquired a commodity-economic character. It largely determines and dictates the characteristics of other aspects of the urban lifestyle.

They are divided, in fact, excluding and at the same time presupposing each other, - spaces for work and housing, entertainment and leisure, etc. Housing becomes fundamentally different. Urban dwellings are characterized by overcrowding, tightness.

In addition, the time dependence of human life in the city is changing. The city dweller submits to the rectilinear stadial movement of time, artificially divided into the time of work, leisure, rest, etc., instead of the natural cycle of time and the natural change of activities.

The development of the economic sphere of the lifestyle of citizens is undergoing a series of metamorphoses, covers all aspects of the life of a citizen and has an impact on the spatial environment of the city, the principles of urban planning, and architecture. The space of the city receives its own peculiar semiotic meaning and spatial organization.

Thus, the way of life is an important multidimensional category that characterizes the various manifestations of human activity in various conditions. Urban lifestyle - a characteristic of the life of a city dweller. It is reflected in it. the originality of the spheres of activity of citizens (production, family, cultural, communication, and others), determined by urban conditions (physical space, management structure, social organization, etc.), It expresses the forms of life, both of the entire urban community and social groups emerging and existing in the city, and at the same time each individual.

Physical and geographical space of the city . The city acts as an organization of external (in relation to the city) and its internal spatial structures. The city is a combination of two sides of space - external, objective, geographical, natural, independent of man, and internal, man-made, man-made, architectural, organized according to the laws of not only expediency, but also beauty.

The city acts as a form of ordering the world, an expression of the relationship between man and the world, correlating the space inhabited by man with the world space, gives him cultural coordinates (“inhabited and uninhabited”, “far and near”, “near, outside, inside”, etc.) . The internal space of the city, organized, marked by streets, squares, houses and other structures, structures not only itself, but also creates a special urban multicultural atmosphere, dictates the occupation of people, the type of their communication with each other, the way of life.

When creating a city, the will of a person - an architect and designer - comes to the fore. In the architecture of the city, in its planning, we immediately come across a bizarre interweaving of the need to take into account the physical space of the city (its landscape location, geographical, climatic, spatial features) with its simultaneous mental understanding (purpose, semantic meaning as separate objects, structures, buildings, their mutual location, and their totality), with the way the city is understood, perceived and considered by a person.

The inner space of the city is organized by architectural structures, placing a kind of markers of urban space, marking it out, dictating the mutual "significant weight" of individual structures, parts of the city and the city as a whole. A person simultaneously dictates this peculiar architectural “text” and reads it.

The main differences in urban planning are to some extent historically determined: rectangular-lattice, linear-beam and radial-concentric. These differences are especially pronounced in the development of medieval European cities. The rectangular structure of intersecting streets has its roots in ancient times, the late Roman "sieve". The linear-beam structure is a variation of the rectangular one, only the streets diverge from one center in rays. The radial-concentric layout indicates a kind of hierarchy of space organization by value (then the main administrative building, the religious center, the ruler’s dwelling is located in the center), or by the time of construction (then the oldest buildings are in the center). Such a layout is typical for a “spontaneous” city, in contrast to one founded according to a plan. At the same time, a more rigid ordered structure of a rectangular or radial layout suggests a more rigid socio-political organization of society than a radial one. So the space acquires disciplining properties, dictates the forms of human behavior.

So, the city is a special structuring organization of physical and geographical space, deforming the natural spatial structure and creating its own - external and internal. The city from its very first appearance destroys the landscape, making changes to its natural structure. It has its own physical space, acts as an independent geographical object, affects the surrounding geographic space, involving it in a variety of relationships. The inner space of the city can be perceived both as physical-geographical and as anthropological, organized by man, in accordance with his needs. The anthropological nature of the city space is manifested in its internal organization aimed at meeting human needs: housing, security, communication, management, food and water supply, sanitary and hygienic requirements, and, purely human needs, aesthetic. As a physical and geographical space, the city manifests itself in its adaptability to natural conditions: climate, relief, terrain, vegetation, building materials used as material that creates the space of the city, its buildings and its own urban physicality.

Both sides characterizing the physical-geographical space of the city are closely intertwined with each other, gradually forming the image of the city, dictating its similarity and unity with other cities and sharply distinguishing one city from another, giving this or that city a unique look and semiotic significance.

Social stratification of the population in the spatial organization of the city . The formation of the social structure of the urban population is a largely contradictory and ambiguous process, closely related to the system of human settlement. A clear inequality is manifested in the city, not obscured by the generic symbolism of leveling unity, and in this regard, “pure” social groups arise, differing in the level of economic and social “weight”, consumption, social circle, areas of settlement. And relationships outside groups, relationships between groups also reinforced and provoked social stratification in the socio-psychological and physical space.

That is why the socio-stratification structure of the population is one of the main characteristics of the city in its dynamics and statics. Population growth, changes in its socio-economic and mental aspects dictate changes in the forms of settlement, interaction and mutual influence. These processes find their expression both in physical time and space and in social time and space.

Civilizational development of society inevitably leads to social inequality. The social stratification of society is a natural-historical line of development of society. Inequality manifests itself literally in everything. But psychologically, people perceive it as an injustice and most often hate with all their hearts invisible, but insurmountable (at least, difficult to overcome) social boundaries. The striving for equality, for the erasure of stratification differences often leads to new inequalities.

The city, as a spokesman for a new form of settlement, itself imposes a new spatial organization of the settlement of its population, changes in both its quantitative and qualitative composition.

A special place in the organization of urban life was occupied by new management institutions associated with the actual urban structures of activity, in particular with administrative management, solving problems of distribution of products and means of production, etc. They provide nascent urban relationships and new social ties. On the one hand, they perform new, meaningful functions. On the other hand, they often retain the old form of organization, relying on traditions and customs. For a long time, within the system of legal regulation, the old shells of primitive communal relations have been preserved.

To determine the place of a person in the socio-stratification structure of society, there is a whole range of indicators - economic, political, psychological, explicit and hidden signs, symbols and concepts reflected in settlement systems. It seems that people, choosing their place of residence and area of ​​residence or recreation, the type of dwelling, follow the changeable fashion, but the fashion itself acts here as a social indicator of the spatial organization of society.

A Christian temple, especially in a medieval city, performs not only religious and moral-normative functions. The temple plays the role of a legitimizing body, it gives legality to acts of civil status, fixes the citizenship of people, their unity in the social and legal space, their common rights and obligations, affects the social status of a person and his social "weight".

Social stratification is clearly seen in the spatial arrangement of the buildings themselves, where people live and in the quality of the premises. The high social position was emphasized by luxurious palaces, which most fully expressed the social differentiation of urban society. People's dwellings are always important components of the inner city space and speaking characteristics of the social status of residents. A dwelling is a place where a person lives, a place where a person bows his head at night, and at the same time a symbolic sign of his social status, fixed by the place of residence, the nature of the dwelling, its interior decoration, the set and purpose of household items. The construction of palaces consolidated social inequality not only in social space, but also geometric.

With the increase in the number of cities and with the growth of the urban population, the problem of housing is becoming more and more acute. Housing design, as an activity and a special sphere of mentality, is based on some general theoretical views, a kind of construction philosophy. Housing should be democratic, i.e. accessible to many. It should provide an adequate level of comfort and safety.

In fairness, it should be added that the city authorities have always sought to streamline the places of residence on various grounds, not only ethnic. The location of harmful, polluting or noisy industries, people of certain professions was prescribed (women of easy virtue in the so-called "quarters of love", military men in barracks, monks in monasteries, the executioner lived outside the city, etc.). The city represents a new spatial structure, the space of a new life, more civilized and more rigidly organized than the rural community.

Thus, the city is the creator of a new type of space - social, where people not only live and engage in various activities, but create a new type of relationship, a new multifaceted structure of society based on the awareness of deep differences and contradictions between them, social, political, economic and ethnic. imbalances. These new relationships are expressed in the settlement system within the city, creating a new topography of the city and society as a whole, reflecting a variety of social differences and confrontations between individuals and between communities, as well as their cooperation within a single urban space.

Mental picture of the city is an expression of ideas about the spatial organization and the special own atmosphere of the city. And although this concept is filled with subjective content, which does not seem to suit such an object as a city, nevertheless, let's turn to what can be called the "mentality of the city." The mentality of the city depends on what content and meaning the townspeople put into the city, as well as on what internal symbolic charge the city itself carries, how its semiotic content is perceived and interpreted by the townspeople.

The mentality of the townspeople affects its defense capability, the structure of the city, its independence, power, wealth, beauty, and uniqueness. Urban patriotism, readiness to defend one’s city from the invasion of enemies, pride in one’s city, concern for the prestige of one’s native city, understanding of the city as “one’s own, one’s favorite, the most beautiful” - these ideas are, as it were, an ephemeral intangible nature, but in turn have a great influence on the behavior of citizens, and through them on the appearance of the city.

Starting from the wall, enclosing the urban area in a circle, we are faced with the ambiguity of the content and understanding of the city. The wall, as one of the important (but not mandatory) indicators of the city, goes back to the concept of a magic circle, a circle that protects not only from the geographical earthly space, as alien, but also from the supernatural, unenclosed, alien, threatening, undeveloped, uncultivated.

A kind of model of the cosmos is being created in the city - its own microcosm. On the Buddhist tank icon, this combination is called "mandala" and symbolizes the magical embodiment of the order of the universe. The square denotes the earthly, human (man and his “imperfect” angular dwelling), and the circle means heavenly, divine (heaven as “perfect”, complete, all-encompassing). In fact, the ratio of any human habitation and the world is reflected in the mandala. Already a nomad or a warrior, breaking up his parking lot, follows this initial layout. A circle that carries a magical load, at the same time the most economical placement of protective equipment, protects against supernatural hostile forces and allows you to optimally arrange protective equipment (carts, for example). The urban area covered by the wall semiotically reproduces the same picture of the universe.

The larger the city becomes, the more difficult it is for the city dweller to capture it with one glance. For orientation in the city, he usually creates a special map, which, as it were, opens up to his inner gaze. This is a mental map of the city. It may not coincide in everything with the general mental picture of the city, with the physical space, because it fixes only those parts of the city that a person considers significant for himself. Sometimes this is a road brought to automatism, ordinary movement from one point of the city to another, sometimes it is marked by several bright, positively or negatively colored landmarks in psychological terms, a scheme of space. The mental map "reads" the urban environment, endowing it with additional signs: indicative, value, aesthetic, personal, etc. A mental map is not a simple cast of reality, it is a complex of ideas of a person who arranges the coordinates of the environment. They may even have sounds or smells woven into them.

But at the same time, mental maps, being filled with personal perception, personal experience and experiences, nevertheless, are consistent with objective cartography. This becomes possible with the assimilation of generally accepted coordinate systems: the cardinal points, universally significant objects, in the role of which architectural dominants act, which, with their expressiveness, form the framework of the overall mental picture. Together with the orientation to the cardinal points, they serve as the basis for the unification of many ideas of people, give them a common basis.

For mental assessment, it is important to perceive parts of the urban space through a hierarchical ranking - “above”, “below”. No wonder this is the ranking of parts of the city on different continents and at different times. A person evaluates the center as “higher”, and the periphery as “lower”. Such an understanding is closely related to the egocentric beginning of psychological perception, and is also often dictated by the characteristics of the urban environment itself. In the center there are concentrated not only high (in terms of number of storeys, height) buildings - managerial, ideological, leisure, but also institutions endowed with "high" functions (the palace of authorities, religious temples, a theater, preferably an opera, etc.) Therefore, in the views of citizens, these objects are endowed with a high rating.

Endowing spatial characteristics with symbolic formulas, they are supplemented with religious assessments-oppositions. Such assessments also extend beyond the limits of objective reality. Then the space of the city is filled with a mental experience of a religious and ethical nature.

In general, a positive mental characteristic of space is associated with a familiar environment. The native city is endowed with increased aesthetic, ethical, etc. characteristics (for example, a sense of security, which is not always true). A person’s emotions, experiences and feelings caused by his private life (environment of relatives and friends, positively colored memories, friendship with peers, etc.) are superimposed on the objective qualities and properties of “one’s own” space. Man endows urban space with anthropomorphic, even psychological metaphors. In his mind, his hometown “smiles” at him, “is sad about him”, “is glad to meet you”, “sleeps peacefully”, etc. Apparently, this is due to the fact that a person begins to perceive the urban environment as part of himself, realizes the city as “his”, “native”, “beloved”.

In an unfamiliar city, a person's perception can be brighter, he considers architecture, accepts or rejects their external characteristics, sees and marks the townspeople. Sometimes in an unfamiliar “foreign” city, orientation difficulties, ignorance of significant landmarks are interpreted by a person as “hostility”.

The organization of space itself contributes to the development of interest in the environment. The more it is proportionate to a person, the more he is ready to perceive people and structures, admire them, feel comfortable next to them. And at the same time, the lack of new impressions muffles the positive perception of the environment, it begins to tire with its facelessness, monotony, information satiety, “fatigue” sets in, and against this background, psychological stress, what could be called a kind of “urban somnambulism”.

So, the mental picture of the city can be represented as a special internal map, on which signs and symbols that are significant for people are indicated. Separate parts of the city are ranked as places of piety or wickedness, lower and upper, best and worst, etc. The social and stratification structure of the city's population is reflected in the spatial organization. And, finally, in the space of the city, as nowhere else, the contradictory combination of closeness of interpersonal contacts of the townspeople and at the same time their deep loneliness is expressed. All these aspects are reflected both in the very spatial structure of the city and in the ideas about it. The mental picture of the city is its special atmosphere, filled with the meanings that the city itself contains, and the meanings that people attach to the city and its parts. Meanings can be transpersonal, official (religious and administrative center, convenient geographical location, well-fortified fortress, etc.) or deeply personal in nature (beloved city, native, memorable by some significant event). The psychological assessment and perception of the urban environment is set by the person himself and is expressed in the content of the mental picture of the city, which can change over time.