The thesis is devoted to urban geography research of intra-urban patterns of socio-spatial transformation in Ukraine. On the basis of the analysis of previous studies, the conceptual and terminological apparatus of urban geography research of socio-spatial transformations in Ukrainian large cities has been improved. The concept of “post-communist city” is systematized, approaches to understanding the concepts of “post-communist transformations” and “post-communist (intra-)urban transformations” are considered. Positive and negative consequences of post-communist (intra-)urban transformations are highlighted, common and distinctive features of post-socialist metropolises are identified. The place of Ukrainian cities in the world of post-communist cities is characterized. Different scales of post-communist transformations studies are defined: (1) post-communist transformations at the level of urban settlement systems and (2) post-communist transformations at the urban and intra-city level. It has been established that the urban geography research of (intra-)urban patterns of socio-spatial transformations should be carried out from the standpoint of geographical, systemic and historical approaches.
Contemporary concepts of (intra-)urban socio-spatial transformations within the framework of the global urban-geographical theory are analyzed, especially in relation to the generalization of the experience of socio-spatial transformations in post-socialist cities and the nature of their manifestation at different scales.
The methodology of urban geography research of intra-urban socio-spatial transformations in post-socialist metropolises is formulated in the manner of a coordinated combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods. It is proposed to distinguish four research stages (conceptual, fieldwork, analytical-statistical and analytical-synthetic) and corresponding research procedures. The methods of systemic analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, literature review, the method of field research, the method of researching archival materials (to identify patterns of social inequality in the process of Soviet housing allocation), the method of in-depth interviews (when studying the practice of housing allocation in Soviet Dnipropetrovsk and studying the IDPs’ socio-economic situation in Ukrainian metropolises), comparative-geographical method, cartographic method, formalization method and index method, normalization method, ranking method, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, factor analysis, cluster analysis, the weighted sampling method (to calibrate the survey results in Kharkiv and Dnipro) and the binomial logistic regression method were used for the urban geography research of intra-urban patterns of socio-spatial transformations in Ukraine.
It was found that in Ukrainian metropolises, under the influence of post-communist transformations, a new intra-urban mosaic of the capitalist city is being formed, with all its positive and negative features. The main common features of post-socialist metropolises are their stay in the process of multiple post-communist transition. In general, the post-communist transition is accompanied by quite common factors of socio-spatial and socio-economic changes, such as de-industrialization, tertiarization, marketization, globalization, domestication of neoliberalism, commodification, deregulation, privatization, etc. The main distinguishing features of post-socialist metropolises are various manifestations of “similar factors” of post-communist socio-spatial and socio-economic transformations in the urban space due to the different duration of the reign of communist regimes, different historical paths of development of individual countries and their metropolises before communism, different economic-geographical and geopolitical situation of cities and countries, the difference in ideological approaches to cities, and the different communist legacy in certain countries of the former social camp.
