Demographic Potential of Agglomerations of Siberia: Influence of the Factor of Population Density

We examine the main factors influencing the dynamics of population density in urban agglomerations of the Siberian Federal District, based on a case study of the Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk agglomerations, among which there are the processes of natural and migration movement of population. It is shown that the contribution of migration to an increase in the population size prevails over the natural population increase in all regions of agglomerations. However, there occurs an intra-agglomeration differentiation with respect to the demographic potential. The Krasnoyarsk agglomeration shows a more stable natural population increase. On the other hand, Irkutsk exhibits a less favorable tendency; a stable increase in population size is characteristic for the nearest suburban zone only. This paper considers different effects from the factor of high and low population size on the population growth rates for different structural elements of urban agglomerations of Siberia: center cities, satellite cities, and the suburban zone. It is shown that more compact urbanized territories, such as center cities of agglomerations, the rates of population increase are limited to crowding, unlike the suburban zone where the population increase is directly proportional to the population size. The population increase of satellite cities is more dependent on the distance to large center cities of Siberian agglomerations and is less dependent on population density.