Mental and Functional Connectivity of the New Moscow Settlements

Over the past 12 years, authorities and developers have made a great contribution to the development of the territories of the administrative districts annexed to Moscow - Troitsky and Novomoskovsky. As part of this development, transport infrastructure is being updated and improved, new housing stock is being introduced, and recreation areas are being improved; new city residents come to villages and dachas. All these actions are aimed at bringing the TiNAO closer to Old Moscow and its way of life and uniting the districts with each other. The purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which these territories are currently connected. To answer this question, two approaches to analysis were chosen: mental and functional. The first shows how New Moscow people form an image of the territory in which they live. Mental connectivity reflects not only its idea, its fullness, boundaries and “empty spaces”, but also how much actions to develop New Moscow transform it and whether this succeeds at all. Mental maps make it possible to obtain and process data that contains not so much spatial patterns as the peculiarities of the population’s perception of areas. To determine functional connectivity, the principal potential method is used, which determines the intensity of the influence of settlements on each other depending on demographic indicators and distances between them. The results of the study are the mental maps of New Moscow of local informants and the distribution of the main points of population concentration by level of influence in the territory. By comparing the results obtained in the two study options, good mental connectivity is noted, in contrast to the functional connectivity concentrated in the northern part. The conclusions of the work are a fairly good orientation of new Muscovites in the space of their territory with the identification of their own dominants and landmarks, the designation of borders with external settlements and with Old Moscow.