For a long timepost-socialist countries served as a space for interaction between multiple transformations, urban policy changes and urban planning adjustments on the one hand, and challenging institutional and socio-cultural legacy, on the other. What are the outcomes of these interactions and how the urban space is changing? How effective aretraditional (“old”) and newly established planning and participation tools? To what extent does the current system meet the expectations of different stakeholders? These are the main issues to discuss in the paper. For this aim we use the experience of Ukrainian planning system changes in (post)transitional perspective, focusing on several planning and participation tools and their performance both on the national and local level.
The impact of the main planning and participation tools on the urban transformations in Ukraine is critically considered in the paper, discussing their outcomes from different perspectives. The local context of using particular tools is discussed through the cases of two cities - Kryvyi Rih and Kherson; this allows to trace the logic of the planning process and practices of urban restructuring, notably by using the tools ofparticipation. Using in-depth interview data,the paper is aimed at revealing how different stakeholders perceive the main planning and participation tools as well as evaluate their effectiveness. Thus, we rethink the changes of planning and participation tools in (post)transitional perspective, their role in urban development processes,their performance in various local contexts and also their compliance with the declared goals and interests of different stakeholder groups.