A region can be presented as the sum of its people, enterprises, organizations, and authorities. Such a territorial agglomeration shapes the need for satisfaction of public requirements and ensuring normal public reproduction. Regional economy has three-levels: regional, municipal and settlement. The last one has been out of focus of science. The current research relies on the system and reproduction approach and investigates fundamental problems of monotowns in the Ivanovo region as industrial centers created mainly around city-forming textile enterprises. Throughout the post-reform period, these small towns has seen a «curtailment» of material production (industry, construction, trade) as well as intangible production (health, education, culture), an outflow of population to more prosperous settlements and regions, an acute shortage of labor resources in both the quantitative and structural aspects, a lack of financial opportunities for self-development. All these problems bring about economy depression, both in small monotowns and in the region in general. The solution for the problems of small cities in the conditions of an old industrial depressive region like Ivanovo seems impossible without participation of the federal center.
monotown, region, socio-economic development, problems, perspectives, state support
