Development of Regions in the Context of Territorial Differentiation

The goal of the study is determination of the spatial offset and geographical coordinates of the economic center in the North Caucasus for 2005 – 2015. The methodological base of the study is built on the centographic method. Results. The research in identifying new factors, mechanisms, and models of the national economy growth has intensified recently. The regional and spatial studies aimed at identifying "growth points", "development spaces", etc. that allow to "restart" the internal sources of growth development are an important area. The state of the economic center of the territory (from national to regional) is an important indicator in assessing the dynamics and structure of the growth development. The economic center of the territory can be a criterion; its behavior (offset to the North, South, West, East, as well as the pace and length of offset) can signal changes in factors, methods, and the mechanism of the existing economic growth in the national (regional) economy. The geographical coordinates of the economic center in the North Caucasus for 2005 – 2015 have been defined in this article. New methodological provisions have been considered that allow defining the coordinates of the economic center of the microregion more correctly. The estimated data have been compared with similar data produced by other authors based on different methods; the advantage of the proposed technique has been demonstrated. Clarifications and methods of calculating and interpreting spatial offset and other centers of the national (regional) economy have been proposed. Conclusion. Certain provisions of the method for defining the location (coordinates) of the economic center, in accordance with which the economic center of the North Caucasus is found, have been provided in the article. The economic center of the North Caucasus is unstable and tends to offset.