TYPES OF URBANIZATION IN THE USSR

A typology of urbanization is developed for the 163 major civil divisions of the USSR on the basis of three factors: (a) an index of the level of urbanization (incorporating the percentage of urban population, the share of cities of 100,000 or more in urban population, an index of urban agglomerations, and a coefficient adjusting for the density of urban population); (b) the structural complexity of urbanization (which is treated as deriving either solely from the urban population percentage in the simplest case; or from the urban population percentage and the share of large cities in a two-element case, or additionally from the presence of urban agglomerations in the three-element case); (c) the dominance of any of the three structural elements. The typology yields 24 combinations of the three factors out of a theoretically possible total of 54 combinations, some combinations being represented only by one or two examples. The typology is conceptualized as a mobile system in which particular major civil divisions may advance to higher levels as urbanization processes continue.