Urban space digitalisation as a factor in urban communities’ consolidation

Department of International Relations, Foreign Regional Studies and Political Science, Belgorod State University, Preobrazhenskaya str., 78 k. 9, 308009, Belgorod, Russia

^* Corresponding author: babintsev@bsu.edu.ru

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the impact of digitalisation of the provincial Russian cities on the prospects of consolidation of urban communities. It is noted that digitalisation qualitatively change the metabolism of the modern city, turning the urban environment into a space of interaction of complex socio-biotechnical systems. Virtual-digital practises, technologies, and services are built into all the processes of urban development, which leads to the transformation of most social phenomena: processes, institutions, communities, as it makes society more dynamic, changeable, “turbulent”. Based on the results of the expert survey, which was conducted in the sociological study Social Consolidation of Urban Communities - Opportunities and Limitations in a Digitalized Urban Environment, March-April 2022 (N = 50), the positive and negative effects of digitalisation / digitalisation of the urban environment for the prospects of social consolidation are analyzed. It is empirically confirmed that the wiggle effects of the digitalisation of the urban environment on the enhancement of consolidation are ambivalent. On the one hand, digitalisation creates new conditions for communication and mobilisation of city dwellers, but on the other hand, it leads to the emergence of nontraditional barriers.