Welfare of Resource-Extracting Cities in the Russian Arctic: Challenges and Prospects

The strategic value of the Russian Arctic is related to the concentration of hydrocarbon resources in the region that form a basis for the development of offshore oil and gas production, support the development of the national fuel and energy sector, as well as exploration of essential mineral resources, which exploration cycle involves the expansion of relevant regional infrastructure, including that of resource-producing cities that service industrial facilities. The article contains research results for the economic and social status of Arctic resource-extracting cities. It includes the evaluation of the scale of the resource-extracting cities and their place in the overall settlement system in the Russian Arctic, determines the characteristic features of the Arctic resource-extracting cities and identifies their welfare challenges. Unemployment in such cities in the Russian Arctic was demonstrated to be brought about by the functional specifics of local businesses and destructive processes attributable to the national and global recession. The negative factors that affect welfare in the Arctic resource-extracting cities in particular include the restructuring of major production facilities built under Arctic development projects and their amalgamation with vertically integrated companies. It was determined that a comprehensive social and economic policy in the resource-extracting cities in the Russian Arctic could be efficiently implemented by balancing the interests of the local community, local governments, backbone companies, as well as regional and federal authorities. The article is prepared by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation, the project No.19-18-00025 “Socio-economic dynamics and forecast for the development of the Russian Arctic, taking into account geopolitical, macroeconomic, environmental, and mineral factors”.