Periphery of Old-Industrial Region Challenged by New Industrialization

The article addresses the concepts of an "old-industrial region", "periphery", "new industrialization", offering a generalized view of some current approaches to the evaluation of processes associated with the new industrialization. Having analyzed the statistical data available, the authors describe a process of the new industrialization occurring in one of old industrial regions of Russia (the Sverdlovsk oblast) and its periphery. It is assumed that, despite the de-industrialization of the 1990s, the industrial sector remains crucial for the economy of the RF subject concerned, including its peripheral municipalities. The improved quality and quantity dynamics of the industry caused by the "new industrialization" is a key to successful development of the region. On its territory, there are several sizeable industrial centers (close to Yekaterinburg, Severouralsk, Nizhny Tagil and Kamensk-Uralsky). Enterprises of these areas ensure most of the industrial production volume in the Sverdlovsk oblast. From 2010 to 2015, the proportion of the peripheral territories in the regionwide indicators was getting down steadily. Judging by the quality indicators referring to the industrial sector, manufacturing enterprises located in the center of the region are driving all the critical innovations, whereas the peripheral territories mostly remain a resource base for the industrial development of the region. The authors conclude that development of old industrial regions and peripheral territories can be ensured by certain center-to-periphery innovation impulses as well as by technological re-equipment of peripheral enterprises, with a transfer of some of them from the center to the periphery.