Abstract: The subject of this article is the status of urban geography as a theoretical discourse and management practice of the spatial development. The authors rely upon the synergetic ideology that the modern world is a complex self-organizing and self-developing system, the realm that intertwines the actions of man, technology, and nature. The article attempts to delineate the subject field of Russian urban geography, as well as specify its methodological grounds in accordance with the following parameters: 1) understanding of city as an object of study and management; 2) identification of the source of development of urban agglomerations and basic principles of development management; 3) disciplinary status of urban geography. Methodological foundation of this research lies in comparative and typological analysis, with the use of technique of the parallax gap with urban planning. The following conclusions were made during the course of this work: the national urban theory currently exists in the form of a project, mostly in a negative aspect, in other words, as a parallax gap with the theory of urban planning; situation has formed within the national urban geography, when the theoretical discourse and even self-reflection are the outrunning with regards to the corresponding practical transformations of reality, and at times directly provoke the latter.