The article discusses the problems of urban development of the contaminated territories of Saratov aimed at improving this territory. Particular attention is paid to the substantiation and necessity of using in sociological studies of a modern city such a concept as a socio-territorial community, which is interpreted as a form of social life, where a certain set of individuals has the same type of relationship to a specific territory. Glebutchev ravine was chosen as a contagious model polygon.