Competitiveness as an Integral Criterion of Urban Socio-Economic Development: Approaches to Definition and Strategizing

The study is aimed at solving a highly relevant scientific and practical problem of forming a theoretical base and methodological tools for the socio-economic development of cities. The paper provides a rationale for the basic prerequisites for applying a new methodological approach to managing city development based on strategizing its competitiveness.From a theoretical and methodological standpoint, the approach proposed in the study is based on a combination of one of the most promising modern areas of spatial economics — the concept of territorial competitiveness and the provisions of the general theory of strategy and methodology of strategizing by academician Vladimir L. Kvint. This theoretical and methodological innovation sets a new perspective for considering the driving forces and patterns of socio-economic development of cities. in which the key category is the phenomenon of urban competitiveness, which is both an integral criterion for the state of the city’s socio-economic system and an object of management for the main stakeholders of urban development.The purpose of the study is to clarify the theoretical basis of urban development based on the concept of urban competitiveness and to form methodological foundations for its strategizing. The object of the study is a set of processes and patterns of socio-economic development of modern cities, the subject is the phenomenon of urban competitiveness. The article contains a bibliographic analysis of the works of domestic and foreign scientists devoted to the study of the evolution of theories of territorial development and the substantiation of the concept of territorial competitiveness, solves the problems of clarifying the content of the category of urban competitiveness, substantiating the organizational and methodological model of urban competitiveness and adapting individual provisions of the general theory of strategy and methodology of strategizing to the task of strategizing urban competitiveness.The result of the study is the development and substantiation of the organizational and methodological model of urban competitiveness, which allows us to consider it as a key criterion of socio-economic development and an object of strategic management for the main stakeholders of urban development, as well as the definition of the main methodological prerequisites for strategizing urban competitiveness.