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Aim. The aim is to assess the socio‐economic and metropolitan environmental development of border areas of the Central Black Soil region (Belgorod, Voronezh, Kursk regions) in order to develop a model concept.Material and Methods. The study uses a systematic approach through methods of comparative and economic‐statistical analysis. The statistical base employed was the official materials of Rosstat 2016–2020.Results. The calculated integral index of socio‐economic and metropolitan environmental development of the border areas of the Central Black Soil region indicates the presence of four groups of municipalities with high, medium, below average and low levels of development. The socio‐ economic development of border areas is characterised by high spatial heterogeneity and a high degree of concentration of human and economic capital within the agglomerations. There is a polarisation in the considered indicators: while the gap in the private indices is not so significant, it is significant between municipalities. In accordance with our calculations, there is a need to develop a model concept of socio‐economic and metropolitan environmental development of border regions.Conclusions. The level of socio‐economic development of areas is a derivative of the power generated by the metropolitan‐core and is determined by the available local economic potential, the ability of district centres of concentration of business activity to absorb the impacts of the metropolitan centre. Gradual "filling" of socio‐economic gaps is possible if the level of development of the metropolitan core and adjacent territories increases, i.e. the territorial spread of the positive socio‐economic effects generated by the metropolis.The work has solved an urgent practice‐oriented task of socio‐economic and geographical research – the assessment of socio‐economic and metropolitan environmental development of border areas of the Central Black Soil region, which provides an opportunity to comprehensively and adequately identify "strengths and weaknesses" of the metropolitan development of the regions.

Aim. The aim is geoecological diagnostics of regions of the Central Black Soil Region on the basis of which the areas with different degree of tension of a technogenic and medicoecological situation have been revealed. Material and methods of research. System, comparative-geographical, geoinformation, historical, statistical methods of research, as well as software packages MS Excel and Statistica have been used. The database has been formed in retrospect for the period 2006-2015. About 50 public health criteria and about 200 potential risk factors have been analyzed. 9 key (indicator) criteria have been selected.Results. The authors propose an algorithm to perform geoecological diagnostics of the large region. The correlations between integral estimation criteria of levels of technogenic loadings and parameters of public health have been calculated. The positive correlations of weak and medium degree indicate the presence of stable trends: the increase in the levels of technogenic loads on the environment of the regions is an unfavorable "response" on the part of the population (the growth of environmentally caused pathology and, first of all, malignant neoplasms, as well as congenital anomalies in children). It is established that among the regions of the Central Black Soil Region this pattern is more pronounced for the area of the Belgorod region, where the environmental situation is much more contrasting, and the level of technogenic impact in the urban agglomeration zone is higher than, for example, in the Voronezh region.Conclusion. In this scientific paper, the authors have solved the actual practice-oriented problem in the field of geoecological researches, namely, they have developed the method of geoecodiagnostics of a large region, which allows to quickly and reliably determine the degree of technogenic load on the area. The analysis of the obtained data allowed us to reveal the regularities of the formation of the geoecological situation in the area of the Central Black Soil Region, to formulate the main directions of environmental policy and to predict the dynamics of the geoecological situation development.