Since the beginning of the 1990s, Soviet urban residential communities have experienced rapid inflows of new urban functions. In this research project, two post-Soviet urban areas - Vilnius and St. Petersburg - are examined to indicate contrasting development paths over the last 30 years. The term “retail sprawl” describes correctly one of the important processes which have reshaped the former socialist microdistricts. We used data from the years 1987-1989, the last years of the socialist economy, and 2016 for 36 comparable research areas. By 2016 the structure of these formerly monofunctional areas made them functionally very similar to that of the urban core, including them in the intra-urban circulation of goods and capital, redirecting flows and making the city centre’s service burden much lighter. The results of the study provide a controversial contribution to the virtual discussion on universalism vs. uniqueness in post-socialist urban development. On the one hand, irrespective of contrasting “path-dependent” impacts, the structural results of retail development turned out to be generally identical in the studied cities at present, as well as in a prototypical North-American city 25 years ago. On the other hand, we found very pronounced differences compared to international patterns in morphological outcomes.

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Two dimensions of post-socialist urban transformation -socio-spatial restructuring and changes in urban morphology -are still present in the urban cores of such cities as St. Petersburg. The process of transformation has produced certain peculiarities concerning general modernization trends. Unlike in the majority of cities, the historic center of a post-transformation metropolis has witnessed the simultaneous struggle of two trends: residential gentrification and social degradation. None of the processes became dominant over the studied period; nor was a balance reached between the two trends. Fundamentally, different types of spatial behavior among social groups prevailed in the center. It is likely that this social contrast affected the closing of space within and around the buildings especially among those with higher income status who lived in these buildings. This example shows that the two dimensions of ongoing post-socialist urban transformation mentioned above are closely interrelated -social shifts are actively changing physical urban landscape.

Urban redevelopment in the Russian largest cities during last 30 years was driven by universal modernization trends as well as by specific "path-dependent" changes. This study discusses the role of commercial, and specifically retail trade and services redevelopment as the major indicator of recent redevelopment trends in the periphery of Russian cities under effects of different above mentioned factors. Two most specific inner-city post-socialist zones-socialist time industrial and socialist time residential belts were in the