FUNCTIONAL ORGANIZATION OF THE KAZAN URBAN AGGLOMERATION SPACE

Abstract

The study deals with the functional organization of space of the Kazan urban agglomeration, which is adeveloping agglomeration, one of the largest in Russia. The paper proposes the concept of the functional framework of amonocentric urban agglomeration – a special spatial structure, a form of the organization of an agglomeration space. Itexpands the concept of the planning framework of a city being an agglomeration center, both in terms of geographicalcontent and the level of urban agglomeration space.The identification of the functional framework of an urban agglomeration is based on the precise localization offunctions of the agglomeration, their concentration within the territories of the centers and cores, as well as the localizationof transport and communication infrastructure that ensures the functional interaction of the centers. For this purpose, theauthors used empirical data compiled and summarized in GIS spatial databases. The paper presents the authors' methodsof identifying the functional framework, which include algorithms combining the methods of geoinformation and spatialanalysis of territories.The article provides a detailed characterization of the functional framework of the Kazan agglomeration and themain directions of its development identified through solving the problems of functional differentiation of the Kazanagglomeration territory. For this purpose, the main functions of the agglomeration were determined, including residential,public-business, economic-production, green, agricultural, recreational, service, transportation, etc. Their spatial referencing, i.e., matching places (sites) and their functions, was carried out through such a method of spatial data organizationas GRID – an ordered set of territorially contiguous cells with equal sizes of less than one km2. An analysis of the functionsconcentration in the cells allowed us to identify and accurately localize the centers and cores of the functional frameworkof the Kazan agglomeration, as well as transport and communication links that ensure the interaction between the centersand cores.The study of the functional framework of the Kazan monocentric agglomeration clarifies the directions of its spatialdevelopment taking into account the analysis of the main features of the functional organization of space, which increasesvalidity and accuracy of planning decisions not only for the city being the centre but also for the entire space of the urbanagglomeration.