Методические подходы к составлению комплексных индексов социально-экономического развития городов

The article provides a detailed overview of methods applied for compiling complex city indexes of socio-economic development (both international and Russian). Specific methodological features of indexes computation and selection of indicators and categories (subindexes) are analyzed basing on 12 international and 8 Russian city indexes. All of them are divided into three types: 1) sustainable development indexes, 2) indexes assessing the position of cities in the global systems, and 3) quality of life indexes. It is determined that in most cases 20-30 indicators are used both in Russia and abroad to compile a comprehensive index of socio-economic development of cities; these are usually aggregated into 5-6 groups (subindexes). The linear scaling method is most often applied to normalize index indicators, and the final integral score is formed as an arithmetic mean or weighted average and is presented in a point scale (from 0 to 1, 10 or 100). The analysis shows that at present there are no generally accepted methods for compiling indexes of socio-economic development of cities, either in the world or in Russia. There are noticeable methodological discrepancies in the selection of areas of socio-economic development of a city that are included in the comprehensive assessment, as well as indicators for their evaluation. However, there are a limited number of aspects of urban development, e. g. economic development, human capital etc., for which indicators and assessment approaches have become common in the international practice, while not a single indicator could be considered established in Russian practice. Russian practice of compiling urban indexes falls significantly behind the world one. The authors identified principal limitations of compiling Russian indexes of socio-economic development of the cities, the most important of them being: 1) the absence of most commonly used indicators for assessing the development for cities having the «urban settlements» municipal status (in Russian «gorodskoeposelenie» -the lowest level of municipalities hierarchy); 2) poor development of methods for assessing a number of important components of the socio-economic development of cities (transport, social infrastructure, environmental situation, human capital). The existing barriers limit possible compilation of complex indexes of socio-economic development of Russian cities to only a small sample of cities, and also cause the low representation of Russian cities in international indexes, thus making it impossible to compare the cities of this country with other cities in the world.