Urban Design as an Instrument to Enhance the Urban Competitiveness

Nowadays there is no ratings of city competitivenes. Besides there is a small number of authors who consider urban design to be a first step towards the formation of high-quality urban environment and consequently competitiveness of cities too. The relevance of this study lies with the adding the term «urban design» to the concept of urban competitiveness. This paper focuses on 15 largest cities in Russia. Research methods are the analysis of definition of term «urban competitiveness» and its factors, studying theoretical part of the urban design, calculation of level of the competitiveness since 2013 to 2015 with the help of the methodology provided by E. A. Gutnikova. The next step is the correlation analysis and creation of a model because it is necessary to know what instruments urban design uses to influence the level of competitiveness. The conception of public space reconstruction in Saint-Petersburg was created on the basis of author’s findings and it uses modern practice of placemaking. Keywords: the largest cities, competitiveness of cities, quality of urban environment, urban design.