The paper gives consideration to specifics of spatial arrangement of new forms of innovation activity in conjunction with economic upturn. Actual trends regarding spatial development of the country have been substantiated.

This paper discusses new trends in urban centers in Russia. It is noted that the interest of scientists to the problem has increased as urban agglomerations were declared regional areas of priority development. The author gives different interpretations of the content of the concept of «urban agglomeration», which are formulated in the context of different scientific approaches and scientific schools. It is emphasized that the city agglomeration as a special form of reality can be studied in the coordinates of a systemic paradigm. The basic axiomatic features that allow identifying the metropolitan area as a complex system are presented and disclosed. The conclusion was made that a self-developing urban agglomeration is a special type of actively operating territorial unit in which the actors of the local community are able to mobilize local resources by themselves (and, in particular, the human capital) to change the living environment. The paper emphasizes the need to regulate the development of urban agglomerations and gives examples of two basic models of urban agglomerations management.

This paper reviews the evolution of scientific ideas about the regional economy as an independent direction of economic knowledge. The growing interest of scientists, university lecturers and specialists to the regional economy is noticed. The authors pay special attention to the origins of the regional economy, the contribution of Russian scientists to the disclosure of the content and nature of economic regionalization of the country as well as highlight the role of Soviet geographers and economists in developing the theory of clusters and the study of challenges to the rational distribution of production forces. It is emphasized that the new scientific discipline — regional economy — was born in the acute scientific discussions between Soviet geographers and economists, particularly regarding the subject of investigation. The conclusion is substantiated that so far in economic science four major views on the subject of understanding and interpretation of the regional economy were formed. The authors pay attention to the fact that at present there is a further extension of the subject of the regional economy, mainly over the border of the material space and location of productive forces. The paper concludes that the formation of a modern paradigm of regional economy should be based on several basic principles, among which are the following ones: consideration of the regional economy as an evolving complex structural discipline; territoriality as a dominant feature of any research in the regional economy; the imperative of any study that claims to belong to a regional economy is not only to establish general patterns of development and organization of economic life in the territory, but also the identification of its regional (local) specific.