second cities

The application of a multi-scale approach to the study of socio-economic processes makes it possible to see the importance of large (first, second and third in terms of population in their regions) cities for the formation of a territorial production system of supra-regional education as a whole.

The article raises the question of complementarity of economic structures of a number of the Volga and Ural regions within the supraregional formation, which can be the Volga economic region or the Volga-Ural macro-region. The degree of changes in the structure of the manufacturing industry of the Volga regions over the decade is estimated, including taking into account the dynamics of the production of innovative products.

Identifying the spatial structures of economic activity within a supra-regional entity is an urgent scientific task. In this study, it is solved using a combination of a framework approach and a model analog of the gravitational interaction for the cities of the Volga-Ural macroregion.