Value Bases of Social Consolidation of Urban Communities
Authors: Babintsev V. P. , Serkina Ya. I. , Ushamirsky A. E. , Velikikh P. K. 
Published: June 2024

The relevance of the work is determined by the demand for consolidation of local communities, which in an unstable social environment acts as one of the forms of social conjunctionality and creates prerequisites for their successful reproduction, increasing competitiveness and ensuring security. The importance of analyzing the problem of the value bases of consolidation is also connected with the insufficient study of the factors of consolidation of urban communities, including the regulatory role in the development of consolidation processes in an urbanized environment of values and meanings, the need to overcome illusions and misconceptions about their influence.

The purpose of the article is to determine the value bases for the consolidation of urban communities, to establish logical connections and interdependencies between them.

Objectives: conceptualization of the phenomenon of social consolidation in a modern unstable society; analysis of the value bases of social consolidation; systematization of the value bases of social consolidation of urban communities; a meaningful description of the main value patterns on which the consolidation of urban residents can be based.

Methodology. The research is based on the communicative theory of solidarity (Yu. Habermas); the concept of social conjunction and social disjunction (O. A. Karmadonov).

The empirical basis of the work was the results of the study "Social consolidation of urban communities: opportunities and limitations in the conditions of digitalization of the urban environment", carried out in 2022 by methods of mass questionnaire survey (n=1518, quota sample) of urban residents (Kursk, Belgorod, Voronezh regions); expert survey (50 experts); focus group interviewing urban residents (6 groups). The secondary processing of the data of the "Integrated Monitoring "Consolidation Potential of the Belgorod region", carried out by the method of a questionnaire survey of the population of the Belgorod region in 2022 by the research laboratory for the development of civil society of the Belgorod State National Research University (n = 6800, quota sample), was used.

Results. The bases of consolidation are value patterns, each of which can be interpreted as a complex of stable, semantically unified representations formed on the basis of a specific configuration of values; in relation to urban communities, it can be stated that the patterns of identity, justice, trust and responsibility are of particular importance for the prospects of consolidation; the considered patterns are potentially interconnected; at the same time, the most significant integrator The pattern of justice stands out; However, all these patterns have not yet been sufficiently formed in the mass consciousness.

Conclusions. The task of initiating and regulating the consolidation process in an urbanized environment in the context under consideration appears as the task of establishing in the public consciousness attitudes to the local identification of citizens; increasing the level of trust within a long social distance; forming an ideologeme of responsibility for the organization of urban life, but most importantly – consistent implementation of the principle of social justice.