Paper short abstract:

To conceptualize the spatial dimensions of urban transition in particular late socialist residential district, we analyze how cultural infrastructure was sacrificed in favor of new housing and how changed the perception and image of the urban space among various social groups of its residents.

Paper long abstract:

Post-socialist Kyiv is experiencing great social and spatial transformations. In the conditions of uneven development of the different parts of the city, late soviet residential districts on the urban periphery however experience visible spatial decline and became targets for new commercial developments, such as shopping malls and high rise residential building.

The specificity of 'Vynogradar' district is that it was not finished properly during soviet time - its main public and recreational spaces, including cultural complex and pedestrian thoroughfares were not built. Neglected for decades, now some of these voids in the district fabric became parking lots, dumps, street markets, while other were built up with new, unplanned previously housing. This means not only that Vynogradar could not be finished according to the initial master plan, but also that new housing and therefore new residents exceed capacity of the district social infrastructure, causing further decline of public space and overcrowding of public amenities..

Our paper is the case study of the social and spatial dimensions of urban transition in this former socialist residential district. By studying plans and soviet planning norms, we analyze how cultural infrastructure was sacrificed in favor of new housing and what outcomes did it call now, after the collapse of USSR. We study the perception and image of the district among various social groups of its residents, both old tenants and newcomers (in-depth interviews), in order to conceptualize and describe the change in social practices of production of space and time in former socialist residential district.