Abstract: The article substantiates the necessity and possibility of integrating the environmental and systemic approach in the sociological study of the residential environment. The relevance of such integration is due to the complexity of the object – the residential environment – requiring the combined efforts of representatives of different professional communities (architects, urban planners, design engineers, sociologists, etc.), on the one hand, and the lack of conceptual foundations (language, general methodological and conceptual framework) for such an association, on the other. The importance of such studies for the subsequent social forecasting of the residential environment and the possibility of their application in connection with changes in the technologies used in the development of project documentation and the transition to the creation of information models is noted. The results of the work: 1) on the basis of a comparative analysis of concepts and studies within the framework of the "environmental" and "systemic approaches," their differences and similarities are revealed; 2) a definition of the residential environment is proposed; 3) on the basis of an analysis of the Russian regulatory framework for housing construction, the features of the modern use of a systematic approach in this area are shown; 4) the domestic tradition is presented a systematic (organismic) approach in the design of the living environment; 5) on the basis of theoretical reconstruction, a conclusion is made about the cognitive possibilities of tectology, in the research and formation of the living environment, the synthesis of existing approaches and the basis of promising interdisciplinary associations. Novelty: the potential of tectology, systems theory and system analysis as a promising methodological approach in the sociological study of the residential area, the synthesis of existing approaches and the unification of theorists and practitioners in its study, design and development is revealed. The results of the work are supposed to be used as a basis for the development of a methodology for a specific sociological study of the residential environment, its subjects and quality criteria.

Keywords: quality of the living environment, structure, living environment, environment, system, sociology of the living environment, subject, environmental approach, system approach, tectology

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.  

Keywords: urban environment, housing class, stratification criteria, housing status, housing stratification, housing stock, housing quality, housing disparity, housing, sociological observation