Identity Reframing and Transformation Trajectories in Post-Socialist Mono-Functional Urban Formations: Reference Cases for Piatykhatky (Kharkiv, Ukraine)

Post-socialist monotowns and mono-functional urban districts face interrelated economic, spatial, institutional, and identity crises, yet their transformation trajectories vary. Building on the previously developed methodological framework, the study implements its second stage by selecting reference cases and reconstructing transformation trajectories in Central and Eastern Europe. Seven weighted criteria—identity reframing, multi-level governance and actors, cultural vitality, economic diversification, heritage and architectural significance, positive physical transformation, and regional connectivity—were applied to nine purposively selected cases in Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Scores ranged from 1.40 to 4.05; five cases were retained, comprising a stable four-case core and a weight-sensitive fifth case selected for typological and target-context complementarity. Cross-case analysis identified four overlapping contours: crisis-adaptive, institutional-spatial, heritage-symbolic, and cultural-everyday. Transformation was asynchronous and non-linear: symbolic, institutional, cultural, spatial, and economic changes unfolded in different sequences, while economic diversification remained limited or moderate in most cases. Given theory-informed, author-assigned weights and a regionally bounded, typologically heterogeneous sample, the ranking is a case-selection tool rather than a measure of transformation success. The reconstructed trajectories provide the analytical basis for the subsequent assessment of their transferability to Piatykhatky (Kharkiv, Ukraine).