The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant transformations in urban life that will be visible for many years to come. This will undoubtedly be reflected in the city's strategies, as is also evident in St. Petersburg, Russia's second largest metropolis. The transition to an information society in the 20th century opened up new opportunities for growth based on internal resources that determine the spatial development and quality of the urban environment. There is reasonable evidence (United Nations, 2015; Boykova M., Ilina I. et al, 2016; Borges, L.; Nilsson, K. et al, 2017; Verma P., Raghubanshi A., 2018; Stafford-Smith M. et al, 2017; Ameen R., Mourshed M., 2019; Kaur H., Garg P., 2019), that the prevailing model of big city in the modern world is based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs ). However, it is still unclear how the lessons of the pandemic will be reflected in the SDGs. Which of the goals will become a priority. The study of St. Petersburg presented the evolution of the strategic approach in management from 1997 to 2035. Based on the content analysis of strategies using the MAXQDA program, goal-setting based on the values of sustainable development in an explicit and implicit (real) form is proved. The 5 areas were identified. They combined 17 SDGs. Implicit or actual reflection of the 1.4 thousand keywords of SDGs was tested in the software SeoTXT.com.
The Strategy-2035 of St.Petersburg declares the introduction of innovative approaches. It is aimed at a comfortable urban environment, actively promotes the "smart city" model. The constructed trend line illustrates implicit attention to the concept of "sustainable city" in all strategies. This plays into the city's desire to follow global trends in creating the future. But in the implementation of the sustainable development model itself, an imbalance has been proven.