Abstract: For the improvement of cities, the project «Formation of a comfortable urban environment» has been implemented in Russia for several years. In many regions, a number of their own landscaping projects are being carried out.
The analysis of feedback from the population can be used as a tool for monitoring and measuring the effectiveness of urban improvement programs. The purpose of the work is to evaluate the results of the implementation of improvement programs in Kirov, the regional center of the Kirov region, taking into account the opinions of the population as the main recipient of these programs. The object of the study is the current state of improvement of the city of Kirov. The subject of the study is the analysis of landscaping in a number of areas (road transport, house and communal infrastructure, accessibility and quality of work of socio-cultural facilities) through feedback from the population. The study was carried out by analyzing official statistics data, a formalized survey of the population and interviews with experts.
Two clusters of citizens were identified according to the level of satisfaction with the current state of the city's improvement, a large proportion is a cluster with a low level of satisfaction. However, 60% of residents believe that the quality of the urban environment has been gradually changing for the better over the past few years. The majority of respondents have minimal experience of involvement in the co-development of the urban environment, usually expressed in voting for objects for priority improvement.
The study made it possible to identify and concretize the problems of the urban environment: disproportions in the improvement of central and suburban neighborhoods, catching up with the nature of infrastructure development during housing construction, insufficient road capacity, insufficient landscaping of park areas and public recreation areas. A scheme for solving the identified problems of landscaping is proposed, combining two directions: urban planning and communication and managerial.

Abstract:  
The object of this work is the phenomenon of housing stratification in modern cities. Considering that the majority of Russian cities have a fairly long history, the housing differentiation within and between the city districts becomes evident. The article substantiated the stratifying function of housing space, which is yet insufficiently studied in the sociological field. The author examines the methodology of sociological research of inequality in housing sphere in the works of Russian and foreign sociologists. The criteria and empirical indicators for assessing housing stratification are analyzed. The article also provides the results of empirical research of the parameters of housing inequality through the method of structured semi-formalized observation in the three cities of Kirov Oblast: regional center Kirov, and two administrative centers – Kirovo-Chepetsk and Vyatskiye Polyany. A number of objective and subjective estimates of the quality of housing accessible to observation is determined. The conducted comparative analysis allows revealing the strong and weak sides of the housing complexes of various cities. It is demonstrated that at the microlevel of the building, occasionally one can observe the polarization between building entrances depending on the civic engagement and responsibility of the residents. At the mesolevel, within the residential neighborhood, housing stratification depends mostly on the year built, because the parameters of quality and state of the building directly correlate with its age, despite the capital repair.