Demographic degradation of Severodonetsk-Lysychansk agglomeration in the post-soviet period

Abstract

Formulation of the problem. Today Severodonetsk-Lysychansk agglomeration is the main administrative, socio-economic, political center of Luhansk region, where 15.6 % of the region's population lives. This agglomeration is a conurbation and includes 3 city-cores (Severodonetsk, Lysychansk and Rubizhne) and 44 other settlements (5 cities, 10 urban-type settlements and 29 rural settlements). Such a complex structure determines the importance of studying internal differences in the dynamics of population in different settlements of agglomeration.

The purpose of the article. The article deals with the analysis of population dynamics and rates of its growth for Severodonetsk-Lysychansk agglomeration and its individual settlements in the post-Soviet period and justification of the agglomeration depression in terms of population loss.

Results. The post-Soviet period of agglomeration development is characterized by a negative dynamics of the population. For the period 1989–2015, the population of the agglomeration decreased by 22.2 %, in particular by 10.7 % for 1989–2001 and by 12.9 % for 2001–2015. Such extremely negative trends can be explained by its location, on the one hand, in old industrial area, and on the other hand, in the area of the antiterrorist operation. The loss of the population of almost all urban agglomerations is very significant (exceeding 5 % over a decade). According to the indicator of population decline (more than 10 % for the thirty year period) agglomeration is depressed. Among the 18 urban settlements of Severodonetsk-Lysychansk agglomeration, all settlements, except for urban-type settlements belonging to Severodonetsk City Council, are depressed in terms of population loss. This testifies to suburbanization processes in the suburban zone of Severodonetsk. The largest decrease in the population during the years of independence was in settlements in the influence zone of Lysychansk.Negative dynamics of the population in Severodonetsk-Lysychansk agglomeration in the post-Soviet period is primarily accounted for depopulation due to negative indicators of natural growth.

Given the extremely high rates of decline in the population of Severodonetsk-Lysychansk agglomeration over the past decades, aggravation of the demographic situation, negative balance of migration, location in the area of the antiterrorist operation, chronic nature of socio-economic problems, the agglomeration can be considered as crisis.

The geopolitical crisis in the east of Ukraine has both negative and positive impact on the development of agglomeration on the whole and the dynamics of the number of its population, in particular.