Аннотация:This is an attempt to generalize the results presented in the series of articles and related to the evolutionand the current state of the old-developed regions of Russia on the area from its western borders to theUrals inclusive. Contrary to declarations and strategies of spatial development, the existing institutions andtrends promoted polarization and shrinkage of the developed space. About 60% of the country’s populationlives on 5% of its territory. Shrinkage is stimulated by concentration of economic activities and social benefitswithin the country in the direction from east to west and from north to south, as well as from the periphery ofregions to large agglomerations, with few centers outside. These gradients are objectively rooted in the historyand development pattern of a vast country, its natural diversity, special role of its large cities and their comparativelysparse location. However, it is far from always possible to justify the scope and impacts of growingcontrasts, which are unpleasant for both “poles,” condensing human activity in the centers and devastatingthe peripheries of the regions even at a relatively short distance from Moscow. Therefore, the article concludeswith a review of options of attitude to the processes of spatial shrinkage and the most suffering peripheries.Four policy options are being considered for such places: let the process flow, accelerate it in order to savemoney, slow it up through financial support for depopulating and depressed areas, and stimulate new wavesof their development, including summer cottages.