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. Throughout almost the entire history of the city, the contaminated areas have been a zone of uncomfortable living attracting the poorest segments of the city’s residents. Urban development of these territories is associated with a number of social and environmental problems, for example, with the need for mass resettlement, demolition of illegal buildings, settlement of land disputes, etc. In the course of analyzing the materials of the author’s sociological survey of macrophotography, the bulk of the residents (65%) note the need of improving the ravine. At the same time, 30% of respondents want to improve living conditions by building a shopping and entertainment center, 45% want to see only pedestrian and transport accessibility and 35% believe that the creation of parks and recreation areas is necessary.