Innovative Technologies And Solutions In The Urban Economy Of The Regions

The first part of the study results

So, a serious obstacle for introducing innovations in such demanded sector as housing and communal services are:

• rising tariffs with falling quality of services;

• lack of control of performers;

• the level of expansion of the public sector in the housing and communal services market.

In the regions, housing and communal services enterprises must be managed by private owners: 40% of enterprises must be privatized, and the remaining ones must be transferred to concession. First of all, we are talking about service providers, water, electricity and heat supply companies like a water utility or a thermal power plant. In this case, the enterprises will not be sold to a private owner, but they will be transferred for use with the opportunity to make a profit in exchange for investments, which should be aimed at modernizing enterprises and reconstructing worn out networks. It is proposed to do this by 2020 using competitive procedures. Such examples already exist. For example, the Volgograd water utility was transferred to a concession by a private company, which should invest 58 billion rubles in it. In total, 1831 concession agreements with investment obligations in the amount of 257 billion rubles were signed in Russia in the housing sector. But the result is not visible…

The housing and communal services market increased from 1.5 to 2.4 trillion rubles from 2012 to 2016 including due to an increase in tariffs for housing and communal services. The annual growth of this market is forecasted at 4-6% per year, only low real incomes of citizens, leading to a rapid increase in debt, can slow down these rates. On average, people spend on housing and communal services 27.5% of all expenses for paid services for the population. And this is a very significant item in the budget of each family - 43% of Russian families have difficulty paying utility bills due to lack of money.

There are many problems, but can privatization and concession solve everything? This is not yet obvious. The situation with the deterioration of networks has developed simply disastrous. According to some estimates, the wear of the utility system is 60–80%. The most critical situation in the water supply and sanitation system. There were 74.5 thousand accidents in Russia, in 2016 on the water supply system. On average, three are 1.8–2.4 accidents for 1km in Russia per year depending on the region, and in Europe, for example, there are only 0.15–0.2 accidents for 1km per year. The difference is more than ten times!

The state faced the need for a serious modernization of networks in the absence of funds for the introduction of modern digital technologies. And, the state decided to get rid of the burdensome sector of the economy not wanting (or not being able) to control the unprecedented theft in this area. Potential investors, however, have already warned that they are not considering the housing sector, especially in the format of concessions, as a successful project for investing money. Businesses are interested in what position the state intends to take: playing with the population and controlling tariffs or a complete transition to economically justified tariffs with the costs of modernization and profit of entrepreneurs inherent in them? According to experts, some tariffs are now underestimated by at least 1.5 times. This once again confirms that the state intends to relieve itself of social responsibility for the housing and communal services sector, which is collapsing before our eyes.

Until now, the government has had one tool to solve the problems of housing and communal services - increase in tariffs. But without reference to quality control and without serious investment in modernization, an increase in the amount of payments that Russians receive only increases social tension, without essentially solving the housing and communal services problems. To maintain the infrastructure in good condition, it is necessary to invest about 500 billion rubles in it annually for approximately five years. Every year, at least 6% of networks need updating, but no more than 2% is actually updated. That is, repairs are underway, and there are only more problems. For example, in Novosibirsk last year, authorities announced a tariff increase of 15% immediately. But even with such an incredible jump in prices, repair costs could be increased by only 22%: from 3 billion rubles to 3.66 billion. There can be no talk of any threefold increase in repair volumes. After numerous rallies of city residents, the increase managed to change to 4%.

The idea of privatizing the housing sector was already discussed in 2011, but then the authorities abandoned it, fearing social unrest after bankruptcies or inefficient work of private owners of housing and communal services enterprises. Indeed, there is no guarantee that a private company will not stop providing houses with heat, water and electricity, or hire an army of collectors who extort debts from poor pensioners. In general, privatization is a good thing, but strategically important facilities should remain under state control. And without transferring to private ownership of this sphere as a whole, you can find ways to find the necessary funds for network modernization (Maksimchuk & Pershina, 2017).

Firstly, it is necessary to conduct a full audit of finances aimed at reducing debt at all levels (debts occur not only with the population, but also with the same thermal power plants that buy gas) and to avoid the recurrence of such situations. Bad debts must be written off and tariff changes balanced and agreed upon. After all, if the price of gas rises by 15% per year, and heat energy by 5%, then the heat supply organization simply does not have enough money to pay for gas. Subsidizing the installation of meters can help to reduce the costs of the poor. Without this, there is a vicious circle: the lack of funds for installing meters leads to large bills that cannot be paid, and so on in the chain.

Secondly, the most radical and effective method:

To direct part of our gold and foreign exchange reserves to the total reconstruction of water pipelines, heating mains and power lines. After all, $ 266 billion is now invested by the state in American and European debt securities. This money may be lost to us with the increasing pressure on Russia. So, is it more efficient to invest money in the Russian economy and, in particular, in the modernization of public utilities? Investments will pay off handsomely. Now the losses of communal resources are very large: in water supply they make up about 30%, in electricity supply - 15%, in heat supply - up to 40%. Money simply disappears. In addition, the big potential lies in the gasification of the country. While everyone is worrying about what Gazprom will do without deliveries to Europe, in our country a significant part of the country does not imagine that main gas can be brought into the house. Firewood, coal and fuel oils are the main sources of energy for Zabaikale and Dalnii Vostok. Investing in the gasification of one’s own country will both reduce dependence on export supplies and improve the quality of life of people. The second part of the study results

In a situation where there is practically no competition in the country's economy and the main figure is not an entrepreneur, but an official, it is difficult for an innovative economy to survive. Therefore, it is more correct to think about how to make the reform of the housing and communal services , possibly in a single territory , an island of a new economy, which would give impetus to long-overdue changes. What should we proceed from?

The government does not intend to abandon state dominance over the economy. Therefore, there will be no competing businesses in the country that will compete for innovative solutions. At the same time, the authorities did not focus on the “new industrialization” - therefore, in the near future there will be no industrial sector in Russia that could implant new technologies into mass production. There is no breakthrough strategy for world markets, which means that external competition will not create a new motivational mechanism. All this means that Russia will not go either through the United States, which relied on natural competition in the domestic market, nor through South Korea or Brazil, who actively “invested” in industrialization in many sectors, or through Japan, which sought to become an export-oriented economy while maintaining a high level of monopoly inside the country. What, then, can give impetus to innovative development? Apparently, only one thing : the "point" demand stimulated by the state.

Within the framework of this strategy, the territory, which should be innovative, modern development, should become a link in a single innovation - production chain. While this "zone of freedom" will be built, the state needs to determine development priorities. Among them, there is already energy conservation and the creation of alternative energy sources; development of new communication systems; pharmaceuticals and medical technology. The development of new building materials, transportation technologies, energy storage facilities, etc. should be added to this list. When priorities are set, the authorities must decide how much money they are willing to allocate for the purchase of the corresponding products, on subsidies to their producers, or how tough they are ready to set standards that require entrepreneurs to use them.

Under such conditions, two centers of manifestation of initiative will arise. Firms and teams, which are ready to offer innovative solutions, will stretch to the territory where they can hope for a preferential tax and organizational regime. Intermediaries and venture funds that are ready to finance research and pilot production in minimal volumes will also rush here. State assistance, in this case, should be expressed in providing cheap rent, good infrastructure and a high degree of freedom. Industrialists seeking to participate in the production of innovative products will present demand for new technologies and will contribute to their commercialization. The state will guarantee the inviolability of the intellectual property of the former and the profitability of the latter.

It may seem that this goal is not ambitious enough. “Any effective innovation is surprisingly simple; if it is not simple in nature, it will not work” (Druker, 2001, p. 41). The reform point in the housing and communal services (or the reform territory) should become a place of “propagation” of simple solutions that will certainly be in demand. If this minimum program is implemented, it will confirm that in the future such a “reform point” will be able to become an innovation and implementation center of the all-Russian level.

The formation of a new economy in our country is a very long process, and there is no need to count on speedy success in this matter. Innovation - and this is recognized by the authorities themselves - goes poorly with the realities of Russia, which is entangled in bureaucratic snares. Therefore, a point-wise reform of the human living environment, which is housing and communal services, will not make a revolution. But it can - and should - become the first link in a long chain of measures that can make Russia a modern highly developed industrial country (Maznitsa, 2011, p. 78).

The third part of the study results

Organizing a local change in the work of the housing and communal services on the basis of innovative solutions in a single territory (Maznitsa, 2011, p. 104), we must provide a system of indicators that allow us to carry out a prognostic specific assessment of planned reforms. Indicators should be numerically measurable, recalculated, measured, etc., making it possible to make an accurate economic forecast. It is always surprising that there are no such indicators and prognostic estimates performed by various teams of economists in the development of all kinds of development strategies (Ferreira et al., 2017). The following criteria were used in the Russian Federation (Table 1 ).

Some investment is determined, first of all, by the efficiency of investments. Such a popular term in the Russian Federation “funds mastered”, in fact, do not give any idea of the need and profitability of certain investments, both private and budgetary money (Maznitsa et al., 2016).

The first part of conclusion

Summing up the results of the study, we see that modern economic growth is point-like in nature, and in all regions without exception, growth zones are adjacent to zones of depression or zero growth.

Growth occurs in places where infrastructure facilities, raw materials, financial, and intellectual resources are concentrated. In the economic space there are gravitational effects. The available money on the market remains unclaimed during the crisis. This is especially clearly seen in the declining interest rates of bank deposits - the financial system is full of money and does not need them. Many investors are ready to invest in housing and communal services and ask only to create understandable mechanisms and provide guarantees. In our opinion, modernization has several social dimensions. The first is to improve the quality of life (Lizunkov et al., 2017). The second involves increased activity of social groups. After the crisis, there are no clear leaders, and the challenge is to set in motion social groups - primarily technical specialists. It is necessary to prove that money can be earned with brains, and the position of a significant part of our business, unfortunately, is extremely conservative - it is difficult to prove to corporations that they cannot survive without technology. Thus, the meaninglessness of financial investments in large-scale programs should become clear even for regional power structures - again, we will not wait for the result. Everything will be plundered and spent with minimal impact. To implement innovative modernization projects, including those in the housing and utilities sector, a fundamentally new social environment is needed, at least point-wise, from architecture to tax benefits, from new behavioral and technological standards to ordinary human comfort and the concentration of qualified people in one place. This is precisely the key issue when discussing the scale of innovation and modernization in modern Russia.

The second part of conclusion

We also want to propose the modernization of the regional housing and communal services not with the entire region, but with the exponential, point-by-point modernization of the public utilities in a single quarter, district or small town. The city of military glory of Kalach - on - Don can become an exemplary training ground. First, you need to conduct a sociological survey of residents - how do they see their city? What is missing above all? Next, you need to determine the economic potential of the city - what can work in it, which enterprises of which sectors of the economy will be successful?

Specialists of our Institute of Architecture and Construction of the Technical University will analyze the use of the funds already collected for housing and communal services, on a separate site they will calculate the depreciation of communications and other fixed assets, the necessary amount of investments. The main thing in our proposal is absolute transparency in the use of collected funds, coordination of tariffs with consumers of housing and communal services. Here, of course, a clear account of the consumption of services is necessary. The consumption volume should be determined by metering devices - we will calculate how much it will cost to install the meter for the tenant, and not for the house as a whole - so that everyone can and wants to save. First of all, we want to interest consumers of housing and communal services - individuals. And there is no need to invest additional significant funds in modernization - we will find losses from already paid services. In this, our program is fundamentally different from those offered so far (De Dominicis et al., 2013).

The third part of conclusion

In our opinion, the proposed integrated development program may consist of the following sections (directions) (Ergunova, 2017), which should be implemented sequentially:

• A sociological survey of residents, entrepreneurs, public sector employees, managers on the topic “how do you see your city? What production, social projects should be launched in the near future?”

• The assessment of the production and economic potential of the territory and project of a development plan.

• The development of the architectural and construction part of the master plan for development.

• The creation of conditions for the development of various types of tourism

• The development of agricultural processing enterprises, the formation of civilized conditions for the existing roadside trade.

• The assessment of the state of the housing and communal complex.

• The analysis of the formation of tariffs and the efficiency of use of funds collected for utilities.

• The development of innovative directions for reforming the housing and communal services of the city: energy-saving programs in the industry, “Pure Water”, etc.

• The analysis of the effectiveness of implemented innovations

The strict adherence to the algorithm, calculation of costs and economic effects at each stage of implementation will make innovative solutions in the housing and communal services a real engine of the regional economy (Kennedy, 2016; Minin et al., 2019).

The reform point in the housing and communal services (or the reform territory) should become a place of “propagation” of simple solutions that will certainly be in demand. The implementation of this minimum program will confirm that in the future the “reform point” will be able to become an innovation and implementation center of the all-Russian level.