The article analyses the possibilities of remote sensing for the study of modernization influence of the city on the surrounding area. Roofs of the modern roofing materials were selected for this study as a marker of rural area modernization in the suburbia of a big city. Vinnytsia was selected to be the test city as the regional capital of Ukraine having the rapid pace of socio-economic development and taking a leading position among the regional Ukrainian centres of Ukraine on the quality of life over the past decade. The results suggest that configuration of modernization area around the city of Vinnitsa is determined by aesthetic appeal of landscapes, differences in the functional profile of the individual parts of the city, main transport arteries (highways and railways) and geographic position relative to other nodes (agents) of modernization, namely, major cities of Vinnytsia region. It is likely that these factors (although their list should not be considered complete and exhaustive) determine the configuration of the modernization areas around the other regional capitals in Ukraine of similar population. Modernization area around Vinnytsia has the average radius of 25 km; however, it characterized by spatial asymmetry.  It is fair to assume the shaping of a bipolar modernisation area between Vinnytsia and Zhmerynka. A promising direction for further research is the comparison of the intensity of modernization processes and the spatial configuration of modernisation areas around other cities of different population size and functional profile.
Keywords: suburbia, spatial transformation, remote sensing, roofing materials, roofs, Vinnytsia.