Comparative Analysis of Current Russian and Foreign Practices of Strategic Municipal Planning

Abstract:

In recent decades, strategic planning has been the dominant approach to strategy formulation at all levels of government and remains an important topic of public administration area studies. The objective of this research is to identify the features of modern Russian and foreign practice in strategic municipal planning.  The research will suggest results of the content analysis of the development strategies of Russian and foreign cities, supplemented by a comparative analysis of approaches to organizing the process of developing strategic documents, determining their structure and content of basic components. We also focused on the participation of stakeholders in the process of strategic municipal planning, which in turn helps make the process more effective and induce high-quality strategic documents. The empirical basis is formed by the strategies of the following cities: Voronezh, Kazan, Kaliningrad, Magnitogorsk, Penza, Rostov-on-Don, Tver, Togliatti and Ulan-Ude (Russian Federation) and Bristol, Glasgow (UK), Leipzig (Germany), Mississauga, Montreal (Canada), Oakland (USA) and Tampere (Finland). The research identified achievements of foreign experience in the development of municipal strategies that could be suitable for use in Russian practice.