TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE CENTRAL ECOLOGICAL ZONE OF THE BAIKAL NATURAL TERRITORY
This paper provides an overview of the main facilities of social infrastructure and considers their distribution in the Irkutsk-related area of the central ecological zone of the Baikal natural territory. It is pointed out that this territory with a special modality of economic management serves as the life-sustaining environment for the local population requiring adequate living conditions. Attention is drawn to the fact that the social infrastructure is an important sustainability parameter of the population distribution system. It is found that the main elements of the social infrastructure are far from being present in every settlement. It is emphasized that a large number of settlements are at significant distances from services centers so that access to social infrastructure facilities is reduced. Centers and settlements with a different development level of the social infrastructure are identified: district-level centers, grassroots-level centers of municipal formations, settlements with a minimal set of institutions of social infrastructure as well as settlements not having such institutions. Different investigation techniques have been used, namely the statistical and cartographic methods, and field investigations.