The growing interest in migration issues in the EU has not affected the analysis of African migrants. The focus is on social and political issues, while the economic issues studied are primarily related to the assessment of the reasons for the arrival of Africans in the EU, the trajectory of their movement, as well as the scale of remittances to their homeland and the conditions for their return back to Africa. The article focuses on the main features of African migrants’ economic activity in the EU. Instead of the traditional consideration of only one or several diasporas in a single country or a generalized analysis of the entire EU, we compare the specifics of immigrants from different African countries in the 4 largest EU member states (including the UK, which left the integration project in 2020). Our article begins with a review of studies that contain information on the economic activities of migrants from African countries. Then, based on data from Eurostat and national statistics from Germany, France, Italy and the UK, the role of people from Africa in these countries population is shown. The reasons for the differences between these four countries in the dynamics and structure of immigration from Africa are explained. Statistics of refugees, naturalized persons over the past 10 years, foreign citizens and residents with migration past are considered. France is the leader in the number of migrants, mainly due to people from French-speaking countries of North and West Africa. Italy stands out because it is targeted by many illegal migrant routes due to its geographical proximity to this region. The UK has become a target mainly for residents of former British colonies who are quite successful in naturalization in the United Kingdom (therefore, there are as many Africans without local passports in the UK as in Germany – 0.6 million). Further, it is shown that the key factor for taking a particular economic position in society is the status of migrants, their education also plays an important role (although Africans often work in places where a lower level of qualification is required than they have), as well as language barriers. There are big gender differences. At the end of the article we make conclusions about the problems of African migrants’ adaptation, although the EU countries cannot refuse to employ migrants in unattractive jobs in any case.

The article delves into the influence of the migration phenomenon on the complex process of the European political Identity-building process. The main research question is: why do migration processes erode the identity of the European Union? Or: what type of European identity is the result of these migratory processes?

Firstly, the author defines the difference between European identity and identity of European Union. The character of the latter, being the result of a negotiation process between its members on the shared values to be adopted and the meanings that the Union must assume for its citizens, can be only political. The approaches suggested, sometimes even indirectly, by studies conducted on the matter allow us to deduce that the dynamics of migration processes negatively affect the creation of the political identity of the European Union. Instead, they reinforce its apolitical character. On the one hand, there is not a shared vision between the EU Member States of rules and frameworks to manage migration phenomenon. While there is no agreement between the EU Member States on how to manage migration, the integration policies adopted by the various States are being transformed into policies of disintegration of national identities, without any advantage for the evolution of supranationality. Multiculturalism and pluralism, cosmopolitan citizenship, are variables that run counter to the basic principles of the legitimacy of European power, namely European citizenship, European cultural universalism, the idea of the collective and the particular identity of Europeans.

The author concludes that it is, therefore, “metapolitical” values, rather than the structure of the Union itself, that undermines the foundations of European political identity. It is in this context that the disidentitary potential of migratory phenomena finds the conditions for its full accomplishment. It is no coincidence that the metapolitical value that current liberal thought cannot do without is “politically correct”. The “political correctness” is a privileged dimension, which helps European elites interpret the problem of migration in a political sense, and this is reflected in the monolithic nature of the applied narrative, with which they interpret the phenomenon of migration.

Italy is one of the European countries hosting the largest number of Chinese immigrants. In the early 1980’s, the first Chinese new migrants came to Italy, where they would find an employment in the Italian textile industry. Since then, Chinese overseas have played an important role in the field of fashion, a sector of the Italian economy with a high demand in production and manual work. Petty trading and small-scale enterprises are also representations of the Chinese population’s activity in Italy. This article provides statistics concerning the Chinese migrants as an economically active person and the activities of the Chinese community in Italy as a whole.

The authors analyze the phenomenon of Chinese labour migration to Italy from the point of view of the “push and pull factors” migration theory. This article illustrates the main factors leading Chinese citizens to leave their home country and shift to Italy, where China turns out to be the point of origin for one of the largest communities of extra-EU immigrants. It is shown that for the Chinese, Italy is a destination country, which is largely due to the already existing migrant network. As a case-study in the frame of this analysis, the authors take Prato (a municipal township located in Tuscany), renowned for hosting the largest Chinatown in Europe (so called “Chinese exclave”).

Paris is one of the most interesting examples of immigrants’ settlement pattern in the city. At various historical immigration stages, different immigrants groups settled in certain areas. Immigration policy, real estate prices differentiation, and the distribution of social housing have led to the concentration in some areas people from developing and poor countries. Sometimes they create a tense situation in the region and even in the city in general. These areas combine the signs of the “ghettos”, which has been denied for a long time by authorities. Considering the immigrants territorial structure, the housing prices, incomes, distribution of social housing, unemployment, the author reveals the features of the territorial differentiation in Paris. Data on the cost of real estate prices was collected according to the author’s algorithm. The differentiation of the residential real estate market in the Paris department is an interesting case. There also was found a correlation between the housing prices and the immigrants’ settlement pattern. However, there are immigrants from developed countries (for example, the USA, Japan), and from developing once in Paris. That is why in “expensive” areas there can be observed a large share of immigrants, as well as a small one. Immigrants from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia settle in the northern part of the Petit-Couronne. On the Val-de-Marne department in southeastern periphery, there is a small concentration of immigrants from Portugal. Turkish immigrants mostly live in the SeineSaint-Denis department. The ambiguous effect of the immigrants settlement pattern on income, unemployment and social housing was revealed. The comparison of all factors revealed a mosaic territorial distribution.

This article attempts to assess the role of migration processes in the urban development of Athens over an extended period of time – since 1834, when the city became the capital of an independent Greek state, up to this day. The history of modern Athens, which in less than a century has turned from a small regional center into one of the ten largest urban agglomerations in the European Union, is a peculiar case of Mediterranean-type spontaneous urbanization with all its drawbacks, such as illegal construction, excessively high population density and infrastructural problems. At the turn of the 20th century Athens faced a new challenge  – the mass inflow of immigrants from the former Yugoslavian countries and Albania, and after Greece entered the Schengen zone – from the countries of North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. During the 2015 migration crisis, Greece became the main gateway for hundreds of thousands of refugees and economic migrants to the European Union. These trends have had a direct impact on the economy and social environment of the Greek capital, reinforcing challenges such as an increase in the number of low-income residents, ethnic segregation by regions and suburbanization – relocation of indigenous people from a dilapidated center to safer and more comfortable suburbs and satellite towns.

The need for a transition to more responsible urban planning became apparent in the 1980s, when the first (to be legislated) master plan was adopted, which determined the development strategy for the manufacturing sector, transport system, land use and housing market policies. A serious incentive for the implementation of infrastructure projects – partially funded by EU structural funds  – was the holding of the 2004 Olympic Games. In 2014, against the backdrop of a debt crisis and economic recession, the city administration adopted Athens Resilience Strategy for 2030, which takes into account such chronic problems as infrastructure degradation, irregular migration, as well as poor management at the regional and prefectural levels. Presently, due to the lack of necessary financial resources, a decisive role in improving the urban environment is assigned to the private sector. Thus, municipal authorities contribute to the gentrification of the central regions of Athens, which have got unfulfilled tourism and investment potential, providing significant tax benefits and incentives for doing business.

One of the most important trends in the modern stage of the socio-economic development of the countries of Southeast Asia is the acceleration of the process of urbanization which will determine the future of the region. By 2050, the share of the urban population in the total population of the region is due to increase to 65% compared to 42% at present. The author stresses that the process of urbanization in SEA has a number of distinctive characteristics. Firstly, it should be noted the uneven distribution of the urban population among the countries of the region. Secondly, there is an accelerated growth of medium-sized cities. Thirdly, in the socio-economic and political systems of Southeast Asian countries, large cities and primarily capitals still dominate Being the foundation of economic growth and social progress, urbanization at the same time has many challenges, one of which is the threat of environmental degradation for almost half of the region’s population. With all the diversity of socio-economic development and the political structure of the countries of the region, the environmental situation in their cities, and especially the capitals, is strikingly similar, which indicates the presence of common causes of environmental crisis. The article notes that environmental tension in cities, primarily subjected to problems associated with urbanization, are at the same time a consequence of the national environmental crisis, the cause of which is the realization of a model of extensive economic development, the implementation of which is accompanied by the over-exploitation of natural resources and increased pollution. The deterioration of the environmental situation in cities, which reveals itself in a high level of air and water pollution, restricting public access to drinking water sources and sanitary facilities, increasing the production of solid waste with imperfect disposal technologies, devalues the results of the economic and social progress of Southeast Asian countries.

The author discusses in detail the main environmental problems of cities, analyzes the causes of their occurrence and assesses the possibilities for their prevention. The latter involves an integrated approach to overcoming the environmental crisis along with implementing measures at different levels and in different areas. The author comes to the conclusion that despite the fact that in recent years there have been some positive changes in the approach of the authorities to solving the most acute environmental problems, nevertheless, it is doubtful that the environmental situation will noticeably improve in the near future without changing the philosophy of development itself

Latin America is one of the high level migration activity regions. The mass migration flows are the part of the Western Hemisphere South nations history for more than a century and a half. Both the structure and direction of that flows have been significantly transformed during that period. While being the transatlantic flows recipients at the end of the XIX – beginning of the XX centuries, the Latin American States turned into donors of human resources in the second half of the XX century due to the profound demographic transformation. The aim of this paper is to analyse the demographic transformations impact on the emigration mobility models development in Latin America and the Caribbean countries. Demographic changes were manifested in different ways in countries with a large share of European migrants and those that were not affected by mass migrations flows at the turn of the XIX – XX centuries. The Central America countries and Mexico have experienced the most profound population explosion that subsequently affected the intensity of the migration movement to the United States. The paper examines the main migration directions of Latin America and the Caribbean residents, identifies two basic mobility source areas that demonstrate different strategies via different destination countries choice. While the United States has become the leading destination country for Latin American migrants, accounting for 93% of migrants from Central America and Mexico, the South American migration is mostly intraregional. The largest regional integration associations migration policies implementation reflects this difference. Spain has become a significant extra-regional migration destination for South America. At the end of the second decade of the XXI century, global economic transformations affect the migration dynamics of Latin American subregions, producing powerful migration crises and local tensions.

The article discusses the issue of consistency in migration policy conducted by local and national governments. Four global cities (Paris, Shanghai, Seoul, Moscow) were chosen as the objects of the study, as these four cities represent common relationships between city and national migration policies. Several unique features of socioeconomic development of the countries and the cities in question that define the migration policy and its instruments are considered in this study. The findings indicate that the relationship between city and national migration policy affects the dynamics of migration indicators. In cities where national and local migration policies are consistent with each other the indicators of migration tend to be more stable overall, furthermore the regulatory instruments tend to be “softer” in cities with consistent policies. On the contrary, inconsistent city and national migration policy tends to produce more volatile outcomes despite harsher (and more costly) regulation, as well as guided opportunistic behavior in the interplay between national and city governments.

Moscow as a world city combines territories with various functional content. At the same time, the complexity of the morphological structure of the capital is supplemented by the high dynamism of the socio-economic processes taking place in it. In this context, an important task is to assess the role of large infrastructure projects, intensifying the processes of transformation of the urban structure and in a short time changing the historically established functional roles of vast urban spaces. The article uses the data of mobile operators to analyze functional changes in the zone of influence of the largest urban megaproject  – the Moscow Central Ring (MCC) from 2015 to 2018. The available information on mobile telephony about the distribution of the population at night and daytime allows us to characterize the degree of “dormancy” and “attractiveness” of urban areas near the MCC, and accordingly their functional roles. The analysis showed that during the period under review, the day and night population of 43 municipalities surrounding the MCC showed an equal increase of 0.35 million people with a significant differentiation of its pace in certain areas. The ratio between the day and night population of the areas, as well as its change from 2015 to 2018 allowed to distinguish the characteristic functional types of districts. The typology demonstrated that the role of the MCC in spatial development for the attractive territories of the center and subcenter of Moscow turned out to be significantly less noticeable than for areas located on the side of the MCC external to the city center. This influence was more replaceable in municipalities, where the railway ring became the first type of high-speed off-street transport, as well as in areas that have significant areas of industrial zones, the majority of the observed structural and functional movements in urban morphology are associated with the synergy of renovation.

Currently, Russia has declared the need to develop a federal law “On urban agglomerations”; the development of urban agglomerations is declared as a necessary condition for ensuring economic growth and innovative development in the country. However, there are no evident approaches to the allocation and delimitation of urban agglomerations; the definitions given in the Russian spatial development strategy are very general. In this regard, the purpose of this article is to summarize the existing approaches to working with agglomerations in foreign and Russian science and practice. The article shows that in economically developed countries, the main approach to the allocation of agglomerations is functional, in which the area of interaction between the “core” of the agglomeration and its “hinterland” is determined, first of all, by the intensity of pendulum labor migrations; the functional approach is gradually transformed into a network approach, implying the polycentricity of agglomerations. The allocation and delimitation of agglomerations in a country can be based on a unified or individual approach. The article suggests using both options in Russia: a unified approach for improving statistical accounting of changes in the settlement system, which is close to the OECD methodology, and an individual approach for strategic planning and development of inter-municipal cooperation. The advantage of the OECD methodology is that there is no need to rely on the existing territorial boundaries of local self-government, which differ markedly across the subjects of the Russian Federation. It is also proposed to conduct a broad discussion of the approaches to the allocation and delimitation of agglomerations for the law “On urban agglomerations”; to improve the system of statistical accounting for pendulum population migrations, including in population censuses.

In the context of the world development paradigm shift and the transition to a network structure, so-called new transnational actors are beginning to play an increasing role in global governance processes, their activity is constantly growing and their composition is expanding. In the economic sphere their core is made up of transnational corporations (TNC), in the political sphere  – of international organizations of different profiles and status. Placing their headquarters in cities, such structures, together with the institutions of traditional subjects of international relations, largely determine both the set of command and control functions over urban agglomerations, their competitiveness, sustainability of development and the variability of the configuration of the General framework of “centers of power” operating on the world stage. Their influence growth in the context of desovereignization process development means the approximation of the historical transition in the spatial organization of the international community from its traditional “countries-nations” model to the “archipelago of cities”, which is a set of centers of different rank and functional profile, closely interacting on a global scale.

The global cities concept, which emerged in the 1990s, is aimed at revealing this phenomenon. The explanatory part of this concept is based on the superposition of network structures of global firms highly specialized business services in global cities. The article discusses the main directions in modern research of global cities, argues for the need for a qualitative update of existing approaches, and the importance of new transnational actors in their formation. An assessment of the dynamics and localization of the headquarters of the world’s leading TNCs and international organizations is given. The revealed asymmetry in their placement refutes the hypothesis that global cities are equally attractive. Based on the rating and grouping of centers, several types of hubs of new transnational actors were identified, including complex ones headed by “hegemonic cities” (New York, London, Paris), and specialized ones of various ranks – geoeconomic and geopolitical. Given the relevance and significance of the phenomenon of new transnational actors based in urban agglomerations, it is assumed that a productive study of the features of their formation, composition, specialization, placement and interaction mechanisms can become the subject field of a new scientific problem area at the intersection of a number of disciplines  – geopolitical urbanism, which can make a significant contribution to the study of the contours of future global transformations.