Most of our country's population – about 75 percent – lives in cities. Many of them ensure the technological independence, defense and security of the state. Such centers especially need to focus and attract human resources.

For this to happen, their level of comfort must be increased: infrastructure, quality of services must be improved, digitalization must be applied, and population mobility must expand. That is why the state decided to focus its attention on such cities and give priority to creating development projects for them.

Some of them have been implemented by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI). Today, more than two thousand assisted settlements have been identified.

This list includes cities of strategic importance, regardless of their number of inhabitants.

According to experts, in the near future the final list of assisted settlements will be approved – territories of special interest to the federal and regional authorities.

The development of supportive settlements will be carried out comprehensively in areas such as transportation, housing, housing and communal services, culture, health, education and a number of other fields. This agency is preparing to implement a number of programs: “Sustainable mobility” (organizing transportation services for people), “Affordable housing”, “Technology and practice of housing and Commune services”.

In addition, one of the important tools for developing supportive settlements is tourism. The agency already has several successful projects in this direction. For example, a program is being implemented that aims to create educational outings for children and teenagers – “Cool Country”. The goal is to create educational tourism for children and adolescents that broadens their horizons and increases their motivation to learn, as well as providing a basis for discovering their homeland and being proud of their country. There have been 200 schools that have approved travel plans, integrating them into outside school hours. A special place is occupied by the project “Tourist Passport for Students”, which includes 22 regions.

They introduced educational tourism models for children, building 103 tourism programs in 5 main areas: history, science, culture, sports and ecology. Already this year, five thousand children will go with them.

This year the program has reached international level. 7 BRICS countries (Brazil, Egypt, India, Iran, China, UAE and South Africa) participated. An International Competence Center has been opened together with the BRICS+ school.

It is necessary to unite young people, students, teachers and professionals from all over the world to master key professions. Listeners will have access to two programs: “Educational travel in BRICS countries” and “Development of professional communication in the international business space”.

Based on the results of their training, the graduates with the best results will be able to find jobs in international projects where advanced solutions in educational tourism will be implemented.

The opportunity to realize your career is another important part that affects the quality of life. Nowadays, there is a misconception that working at domestic industrial enterprises means having to work hard in difficult conditions, on outdated equipment. To dispel the myth, hundreds of factories across the country have joined the ASI Open Industry program, and organized factory tours for students.

Boys, understanding their employment prospects and seeing modern facilities with high-tech equipment, will be able to make more informed decisions. Perhaps some of them will want to build their careers there.

Corner

Olga Zakharova, Director of the Department of Urban Economics:

– The list of support settlements will include cities of special strategic importance, new growth points, as well as rural settlements that serve as support centers. One of the national goals is to improve the quality of life in such centers by 30% by 2030 and 60% by 2036. A method for assessing quality of life is currently being developed. ASI is directly involved in all this. We see the value of our work in the methods, methods and decision-making algorithms that have been developed. All this becomes possible thanks to the involvement of professionals in the process; they are the driving force of change. After all, people change countries!