Methodological aspects in analyzing the level of non-uniformity of socio-economic development of regions

This article considers uneven socio-economic development of territories. The experience of many countries convincingly demonstrates that the heterogeneity of space is a significant obstacle to the sustainable development of regions. Having analyzed the works of foreign and domestic scientists, the authors prove that in the course of transformation of the views on spatial development, there gradually evolved an idea of uneven socio-economic development as an objective feature of any territory. The study classifies factors that influence the socio-economic inequality of territories and determine its complexity. The authors pay attention to the fact that when studying development unevenness the researchers use different terms (“differentiation”, “asymmetry”, “polarization”, “disproportion”) that are often treated as similar. Therefore, the paper puts forward a hypothesis that there exists a relationship between these concepts that have similar meaning, and the special nature of this relationship is manifested in the fact that these concepts represent different stages of unevenness...