Vysokovsky Graduate School of Urbanism

Publications

• Book

  Kutsenko E., Gokhberg L., Boos V. et al.

  HSE Global Cities Innovation Index: 2024

  HSE Global Cities Innovation Index (HSE GCII 2024) has been developed by the Russian Cluster Observatory of the National Research University Higher School of Economics Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge. It presents a measurement tool to evaluate the competitive edge of cities in terms of their attractiveness for the innovation economy leaders in technological development and creative industries.

  The study covers over 1,000 agglomerations from 144 countries, where at least one of 27,925 leaders of the innovation economy is present – top enterprises (mega corporations, disruptive startups, and leading universities) and exceptional individuals (Nobel Prize laureates, highly cited researchers, popular designers, architects, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and developers).  The ranking is based on a unique system of 90 indicators calculated with the use of recognized international data sources (excluding expert estimates, surveys, and administrative data) that were grouped into three key blocks: Technological Development, Creative Industries, and Urban Environment. To affirm the reliability of the used data sources, a special statistical audit was conducted.

  The report presents the ranking scores and examines key factors of attracting the world’s most successful representatives of the innovation economy to cities. It also discloses the ranking algorithm and provides detailed methodological comments. The publication includes 50 city profiles with the full information about their scores, benchmarking against the leader, and technological specializations.

  The publication will be of practical interest to a wide range of readers, including technology entrepreneurs and researchers, artists and representatives of creative industries, urban governance practitioners, and professionals involved in the development of specific innovation economy sectors.

  M.: ISSEK HSE, 2024.

• Article

  Ivan N. Alov, Petrović M. D., Belyaeva A. M.

  Evaluating the Economic Sustainability of Two Selected Urban Centers—A Focus on Amherst and Braintree, MA, USA

  While the topic of sustainable development has been extensively explored, there is a lack of quantitative assessment of economic sustainability in the scientific literature; moreover, the term is often interpreted with excessive attention to the environment but not socio-economic inequality. In addition, university cities are often considered the most sustainable, although the higher education system in the United States is often criticized for the inequality of access to it among different racial and other groups of the population. This paper adds to the debate about how the concepts of sustainability and economic development relate. Many researchers have noted that they come into conflict with each other because their ultimate goals are fundamentally different: a voluntary limitation of production and consumption in the interests of future generations and, conversely, the pursuit of well-being during our lives. We would like to explore the issue of economic sustainability, which, at first glance, may become a compromise between the two approaches outlined above. So, our study is devoted to exploring the ambiguous concept of economic sustainability, which can add some new knowledge to the understanding of how social, economic, and ecological factors relate to each other in the broader framework of sustainability. For this objective, we analyzed the economic sustainability of the town of Amherst, MA. The city’s top employer and core enterprise is the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with over 32,000 students and almost 2000 staff members. Based on a literature review, a hypothesis was put forward that a university city should have a high level of economic sustainability. To assess economic sustainability, the original methodology based on the US Cities Economic Sustainability Index (USCESI) was developed. It evaluates sustainability in three groups of parameters: society, economy, and ecology. The first group includes the level of racial diversity, the level of education of the population, and the access to medical services. The second group consists of the Gini coefficient by income level, the median cost of housing, and the unemployment rate. The environmental situation is assessed according to the Air Quality Index developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency. For comparison, the town of Braintree, MA, was chosen. As a result of the study, the USCESI was calculated for both locations. The analysis showed that both Amherst and Braintree have a high degree of economic sustainability. However, it was revealed that proximity to a significant economic center has a more powerful positive impact on economic sustainability than the location of a large university. In our paper, we proposed a new methodology for measuring economic sustainability with a special focus on inequality as a major problem in American society. The findings provide new knowledge about university cities and debunk the myth that they represent an exception to the general logic of urban development in the United States. A similar approach, with clarification of statistical indicators and a different emphasis, can be applied to other countries where inequality may be the main threat to economic sustainability, not in terms of access to higher education but in other areas.

  Sustainability. 2024. Vol. 16. No. 2.

• Book chapter

  Nadezhda Zamyatina.

  Development cycles of cities in the Siberian North

  This chapter describes the development cycles of cities in the Siberian North. These cycles are typically connected to the boom-and-bust cycles in associated natural resource development. I discuss the oil and gas cities of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug “Ugra,” the Yamal peninsula, the Yenisei North (Igarka, Dudinka), and Dickson on the northern sea route. Using ethnographic interviews, I analyze the characteristics of different phases of development and changes in the social sphere and the mood of citizens across these phases and geographic areas. I discuss on the peculiarities of urban development in Siberia based on different resource exploitation histories and the possibilities of moving to a post-raw material stage of development in the Siberian North.  

  In bk.: The Siberian World. Routledge, 2023. Ch. 24. P. 352-363.

• Working paper

  Muleev Y. Y.

  EXPLORING ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN PARKING OCCUPANCY RATE AT RESIDENTIAL ESTATES AND SPATIAL CHARACTERISTICS. THE CASE OF YEKATERINBURG

  Financial losses due to low demand for parking spaces in garages at residential estates is a key motivation for this research. The purpose of this paper in particular is to statistically explore the relationship between parking occupancy rates and various factors on transport supply, characteristics of location and the building. The occupancy rate of parking was measured as the ratio of actual number of cars to total number of parking spaces. The fieldwork on counting occupied parking spaces was conducted 2 times per day during a week on a sample of 13 locations in different areas of a 1.4-million Yekaterinburg city in Russia. 4700 observed parking spaces give sample size of 173 records. Statistical analysis shows that the crow-fly distance to the city center as well as the number of public transport stops are strongly associated with occupancy rate for parking. Also, occupancy rate is much more affected by the type of parking ownership. Private owning means purchase of a parking space or renting it while public ownership suggests free access. So private parking means a 45% decline in occupancy compared to the public parking regime. Research provides empirical results and some theoretical underpinnings are also highlighted.

  Urban and Transportation Studies. URB. НИУ ВШЭ, 2020. No. 9.