№ 2(52) (2021)

Concern for urban spaces being comfortable and commodious is one major task the city authorities devote themselves to. A. A. Volodin, Deputy Head of Labor and Social Security Department of Moscow Government in his interview to the Herald described the level of effort to upgrade the inclusive barrier-free environment in the Capital that would provide for comfortable citizens’ life across the board. Public spaces, on the one hand, should be physically accessible for any citizen, including those with physical disabilities. On the other hand, sociocultural projects are essential to rehabilitate handicapped persons along with media coverage of their personal stories. Moscow currently runs professional training and occupational adaptation programs. Special programs are in train to teach citizens with various forms of incapacities for work the learned behavior patterns of living (independently) on their own. Rehabilitation centers are being equipped with up-to-date implements to include those based on the cutting-edge technologies. Facilities that are being built or refurbished in the city are designed to afford accessibility to invalids. The city projects under construction or reconstruction are designed to cater to the needs of people with disabilities. Thanks to rehabilitation and socialization activities Moscow is becoming a city of truly equal opportunities for all.

Community integration and socialization of children with disabilities are among the key social policy directions in contemporary Russia. One major task of the rehabilitation and education institutions of Moscow that is being successfully implemented is creating the rehabilitation and education environment, in which professional self-determination of adolescents with disabilities takes place, along with building a sound foundation for their future professional development and securing their employability further down the line.

Sociocultural animation as a technology of vivification of social practices helps arrange people’s interaction and is essential in many spheres – culture, education, social support, realization of social initiatives. Effectiveness of special order such technology demonstrates in the process of organizing social work for children and youngsters with special social and cultural needs. Sociocultural animation, while bringing together resources of creative rehabilitation and mechanisms of overcoming social estrangement, helps young citizens successfully absorb social norms and traditions, and easily socialize. Moscow Metropolitan Governance Yury Luzhkov University has acquired considerable expertise in realization of projects that are based on sociocultural animation technologies.

The article tackles prospects of employing modern computer modeling (BIM) technologies in managing the life cycle of the various city’s facilities. BIM represents an effective implement of buildings’ structures spatial modeling, of those planned and already in place. Using BIM digital systems can be built to manage the life cycle of any facility of the city’s real estate properties. For Moscow the introduction of BIM technologies into blocks of flats’ management sphere is a logical stage of digitalization process in housing and utilities sector. It is expected that all construction industry working in Moscow under public contracts will gradually switch to BIM based designing. Implementation of “Russian Federation’s Digital Economy” National Program and “Smart City” federal Project challenges opens up vast opportunities for integrating BIM technologies into the capital construction domain and that of upkeep of multi-apartment buildings, which will help proliferate the number of smart houses in modern metropolises.

Diversity and magnitude of the issues that crop up in the areas of city landscape improvement, housing and utilities establishment of Moscow on a daily basis determine the high standards in terms of professional skills of participating administrative and managerial staff. The system training of personnel of managing organizations in programs of Moscow Metropolitan Governance Yury Luzhkov University significantly improves the quality of their performance thus boosting the Capital metropolis’s sustainable development status.

Nowadays a city devoid of digital technologies is hard to contemplate, since they set the direction for the development of all walks of life in a society. Employing VR technologies virtual environment can be constructed enabling a user to live time and time again multiple times through a situation that will imitate the surrounding reality. This feature of virtual reality makes it an ideal implement learning environment. Moscow Metropolitan Governance Yury Luzhkov University builds VR simulators and makes use of them in professional development programs for Moscow managers. Developing a VR simulator is an arduous task requiring considerable amount of time and labor, but results fully justify the effort. While learning under virtual reality conditions the civil servants who are fresh in the service gain sound professional experience, whereas seasoned specialists gloss over their own mistakes in their working algorithms and verify their professional integrity. At the end of the day, the cutting edge digital technologies serve to provide foundation for quantum leap in the development of new and novel managerial practices.

Students’ participation in research activities of their Chair is one of the traditional forms of higher education. A novel interuniversity format of students’ research – a creative hands-on workshop – has been developed at Moscow Metropolitan Governance Yury Luzhkov University. Students studying to become specialists in city economy composed technical design specification for improvements in a court yard territory, whereas students studying landscape architecture created designs for that technical specification. The projects were further submitted to a competition, while the best design solutions were sent to the local executive council. The creative hands-on workshop makes it possible for students to use their acquired skill in practice, and for city authorities – to get hold of fresh solutions for environment improvements, as well as to enlist promising new personnel.