The study tests the hypothesis that in order to develop industrial enterprises in the modern realities of the BANI-world (brittle, anxious, nonlinear, incomprehensible: fragile, disturbing, nonlinear, incomprehensible) it is of high importance to understand the influence of the social context and assess it in the correct manner. To reach new heights of development, not only direct investments in people's education are needed, but also indirect ones, i.e., in creating favourable living conditions. The purpose of this work is to identify the factors that are the target of indirect investments affecting the quality of human capital in industrial cities of Russia. © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences.