Valga city center (Valga, Estonia) is a shrinking border city and former railway hub, with a mix of Soviet-era high-rise housing blocks, historic wooden housing, and high-quality public spaces. Biomass district heating is present, yet vital interventions are needed in retrofitting and urban downsizing, which is challenged by high energy poverty rates.

Kohtla-Järve (Kohtla-Järve, Estonia) is a post-war Stalinist urban ensemble in a former mining town, where public spaces have been recently renovated, housing has depreciated, and energy poverty rates are high. Here, district heating energy is based on residual heat from oil shale processing. There is a call for stronger public interventions in the framework of just transition.