Percolation clusters of territorial inequality due to the spread of the coronavirus infection

. Due to the influence of the coronavirus infection, the issues of regional governance and territorial planning have been included in the urgent agenda of territorial development for two years in a row. Within the framework of this issue, a number of challenges of territorial administration are already being investigated. One of them is maintaining the achieved level of economic development and replenishing problematic aspects due to the spread of the coronavirus infection, which seriously affected all economic processes in 2020. The article reveals the management structure of Sverdlovsk region (Russia) and analyses the main socio-economic indicators of the region’s development. The results of the analysis contribute to identifying the urgent problem of regional governance and territorial planning of Sverdlovsk region, i.e. the deepening inter-territorial inequality caused by an unfavourable epidemiological situation. The authors propose management solutions aimed at improving regional governance and territorial planning of Sverdlovsk region in the context of the identified problem.


Introduction
Sverdlovsk oblast is one of the largest constituent entities of the Russian Federation, which is part of the Ural macroregion. The administrative centre of the oblast is the city of Ekaterinburg.
The regional governance structure includes government bodies such as the Legislative Assembly of Sverdlovsk Region, the Government of Sverdlovsk Region headed by the highest official of the RF constituent entity -the Governor of Sverdlovsk region, executive bodies of sectoral management -ministries, departments, administrations, as well as territorial intersectoral executive bodies -administrations of five administrative districts of Sverdlovsk region. In the context of the coronavirus infection, the authorities should pay particular attention to the territorial development.

Literature review
As of January 1, 2020, there were 20,846 municipalities in Russia, and the population was 146,748,590 people [6]. They live in urban districts, rural and urban settlements, and cities. At the same time, a significant part of the Russian population live in cities. According to official data, the share of the urban population in Russia amount to 74.7% [6].
The methodological basis of the research includes the fundamental works of Russian and foreign scientists in the field of municipal administration. For example, Madyarova [4] claims that "territorial development is one of the most problematic spheres of governance". The development of territories during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that provision of urban amenities also matters, so Latypov and Plotnikov [3] write that "providing urban amenities is an area where the subject and limits of municipal-legal regulation are the most vague in terms of the activities aimed at implementing a set of specific measures". Peshin [7] argues that "the main problem of housing and communal services and gentrification, in particular, is local monopoly, that is a lack of competition in the area under consideration". In the course of the research, we also used the proceedings of scientific-practical conferences, as well as normative regulatory acts of the Russian Federation and Sverdlovsk oblast.
Studies on COVID-19 in Central and Eastern Europe [14][15][16][17][18][19], see for instance the study of Duncan Light on COVID-19 in Romania and how transnational labour had to suffer due to coronavirus [14] and many other examples for Eastern Europe in a special issue dedicated to coronavirus launched by journal Eurasian Geography and Economics in the end of year 2020. So, Richard Connolly, et al. [16] investigate energy-related deformations in the development of Russian territories during a pandemic, and Danika Shantic [17] investigate the management of migration processes during quarantine in Serbia, Robert Krzysztofik [18] showed the peculiarities of spatial and functional changes in connection with the COVID-19 epidemic in Poland, Piotr Kourzhil [19] territorial differences in development depending on the "severity" of quarantine in the Czech Republic.

Materials and Methods
We analyzed the main indicators of the socio-economic development of Sverdlovsk region for 2016-2020 in the context of the indicators presented by the regional statistics body in late May, 2021. The study of the emerging trends allowed drawing preliminary conclusions about the need for extra attention to the factors that created negative trends during the development of the region under the COVID-19 spread.

Results
The study of statistical data makes it possible to single out the main socio-economic indicators of Sverdlovsk region's development (Table 1)   Analysis of the data presented for the last 5 years in the context of the enlarged groups of industries allows us to arrive at the following conclusions: x The decrease in GRP in 2020 was due to the unfavorable epidemiological situation in the Russian Federation and in the world as a whole, which seriously affected all economic processes; x The flow of investments in the region is steadily increasing, and various measures are being implemented to support small and medium-sized businesses, which meets the current trends in the development of the regional economy in the Russian Federation; x During the period under review, several economic indicators showed a stable increase followed by a decline in 2020, which was logical due to the coronavirus spread; x The region is characterized by all-Russian demographic and employment problems and trends, such as the population decline, a strong rise in the working-age population due to the increase in the retirement age, a fall in the number of both men and women employed in the economy, as well as an increase in the number of the unemployed, especially among the male population.
Thus, the conclusions obtained in the course of the analysis become the basis for identifying the urgent problem of regional governance and territorial planning of Sverdlovsk region, i.e. the deepening inter-territorial inequality caused by the spread of the coronavirus infection.

Discussion
The spread of COVID-19 in the Ural macroregion and Sverdlovsk oblast, in particular, has given rise to such an administration problem as the unpreparedness of public authorities to eliminate negative economic consequences of an unfavorable epidemiological situation in the long term [12]. The danger of delay and failure to implement long-term planning in an effort to solve the arising problems of economic development by methods of short-term planning can lead to Sverdlovsk region losing its status of a stable non-subsidized subject of the Russian Federation with a dynamically developing economy [8,13].
As a result, a draft solution to this problem should be developed. Within the framework of the project, it is necessary to identify the parties in charge of the event, the list of required resources, as well as to establish the approximate timing and the socio-economic efficiency of the activities implemented ( Table 2). We believe that optimization of the tax burden on businesses when they implement investment projects can have a positive effect on the development of territories [1,4]. In turn, subsidies provided to the local budgets by the regional budget to support entrepreneurs can serve as the basis for their sustainable development and strengthening the competitiveness of the territory [2]. The development of industrial parks should be the primary avenue in this field [1,4,12]. All of the above areas of development will give sustainable results while strengthening the trend in the sale of products from the territories outside the region.

Conclusion
The proposed measures will create positive dynamics in the activities of regional governance structures, as well as lead to positive shifts in the development of Sverdlovsk region's territorial potential in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which will eliminate the imbalance in the interregional cooperation between the Ural macroregion's subjects and other constituent entities of the Russian Federation [5,9]. Territorial inequality is noticeable and during the period preceding the pandemic it increased significantly [6,9] inequality markers also clearly shifted. So industrial territories turned out to be the most stable in comparison with infrastructural ones, similar trends are also observed in European countries [14][15][16][17][18][19].