About
45
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Introduction
I am a senior researcher in the Institute of Geography and Sustainability at the University of Lausanne. I study the impact of large-scale urban development projects, including mega-events and flagship cultural institutions, on cities globally. My expertise lies in researching the cities of Central Asia and the South Caucasus, and I am currently extending my focus to the Gulf region. I mix qualitative and quantitative approaches in my work.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
September 2019 - October 2020
Position
- PostDoc Position
Description
- Post-doctoral researcher funded the Swedish Institute.
March 2019 - present
Position
- Principal Investigator
Description
- Principal researcher in the project "Examining the Social Impacts of Large, Private Sector Urban Development in Batumi and Tbilisi". The project examines the social impacts of large, private sector urban development in Batumi and Tbilisi. Socio-Spatial Georgia is funded by the Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia under the grant program for fundamental research (grant number FR-18-862). The project is administered by Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
March 2010 - August 2012
Jumpstart Georgia
Position
- Analyst
Education
May 2016 - September 2016
November 2013 - September 2017
August 2012 - November 2013
Publications
Publications (45)
This article examines the agency of unrealized megaprojects in bolstering economic activity, legitimizing political regimes, and expanding designer’s portfolios. It argues that such proposals serve as a form of “Architectural Rumor,” providing politico-economic agency despite ultimate project infeasibility. Specifically, it looks at two case studie...
Purpose
The paper aims to explore cultural events in a post-disaster town cultural events in a post-disaster town, L’Aquila, Italy, facing a long-term process of adaptation and recovery after the 2009 earthquake.
Design/methodology/approach
A time-based conceptual framework is applied in a case analysis relying on primary and secondary data. In-de...
Since 1991, armed conflicts in regions of Georgia have forced over 300,000 people to become internally displaced persons (IDPs). Many settled on the outskirts of cities in state-provided, non-residential buildings called collective centres, which function as distinct neighbourhoods with their spatial segregation and community networks. This article...
This paper shows how academics from the postsocialist countries of the Global East are increasingly claiming a voice in the publishing space of international geography journals. Based on a longitudinal database of editors, board members and authors of 22 leading English-language geography journals since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it...
Sustainability has become a key concern of major sports events. Yet, the field lacks both a consistent definition and a conceptual model for sustainable major events. This hampers the emergence of a shared theoretical understanding of sustainability as an epistemic object and the building of a practical framework to guide the sector towards greater...
Sustainability has become a key concern of major sports events. Yet, the field lacks both a consistent definition and a conceptual model for sustainable major events. This hampers the emergence of a shared theoretical understanding of sustainability as an analytical object and the building of a practical framework to guide the sector towards greate...
Culture has become a major component of policies to put cities on the global map. This article traces the shifting geographies of urban cultural capital using the lens of major cultural buildings, such as the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum and the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which cities often mobilise to compete for attention, reputation, tourists and investment....
Mega-events such as the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cups pose major financial and management risks to the public sector. To better understand and anticipate these risks, this paper examines the determinants of revenues, costs, and profitability of these events. In a longitudinal analysis of 43 events between 1964 and 2018, our study found a po...
This paper examines the growth of the Olympic Games against that of former host cities to understand whether this mega-event may have ‘outgrown’ its hosts. The increasing hosting requirements and governments’ expansive use of mega-events as tools for urban development would suggest that the ‘Olympic city’ – a term we use for describing the size of...
In the face of the climate crisis and societal pressure, mega-event organizers and their international rights holders increasingly promote their sustainable credentials. Sustainability is now a commonplace term in mega-events, from the introduction of an environmental dimension into the planning of the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, to the va...
A large part of the contemporary built environment of Tbilisi, the capital of the Republic of Georgia with around 1.2 million residents (GeoStat 2020), came together during the 70 years of the Soviet urban planning and architectural practice. During this period, Tbilisi grew from a small or medium-sized city of about 240,000 people, at the beginnin...
As part of the orchestrated effort to promote the Republic of Azerbaijan internationally as well as to promote political regime of Azerbaijan, Baku has been part of the Formula 1 Championship since 2016, and will continue to host the Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix until at least 2024. With the F1 Grand Prix taking place in the downtown area of the...
This paper tracks the growth of two of the largest tourist events: the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup, drawing on a dataset containing all events between 1964 and 2018. Overall, the size of the three events has grown about 60-fold over the past 50 years, thirteen times faster than world GDP. We identify an S-shaped growth curve and four d...
The Olympic Games and the Football World Cups are among the most expensive projects in the world. While available theoretical explanations suggest that the revenues of mega-events are overestimated and the costs underestimated, there is no comprehensive empirical study on whether costs exceed revenues. Based on a custom-built database from public s...
Although events such as the Olympic Games and World’s Fairs are among the largest of mega-projects, there is little systematic data to evaluate their outcomes over a longer period of time and across multiple sites. This research note describes the first longitudinal database on mega-event outcomes. It lays out the rationale and major goals of the d...
Urban transformation in the postsocialist Global East was heavily determined by the mass privatization of state assets and by a dramatic increase in car ownership. Tbilisi, Georgia, has experienced these significant changes. The upsurge in private vehicle ownership was brought about by failing public transit, ineffective planning, suspended vehicle...
What is driving spectacular urban development in Central Asia? How havethese processes evolved and taken on new forms over time? What is the role of novel technologies? Canspectacularurbandevelopment bebeneficial to citizens? If so, in what ways? How might sites of spectacle be co-opted by everyday citizens to better serve their needs? Whatopportun...
The Olympic Games claim to be exemplars of sustainability, aiming to inspire sustainable futures around the world. Yet no systematic evaluation of their sustainability exists. We develop and apply a model with nine indicators to evaluate the sustainability of the 16 editions of the Summer and Winter Olympic Games between 1992 and 2020, representing...
Mega-events are global affairs with profound effects across a variety of scales, and are the focus of a large and growing body of academic inquiry. This special section in Sports in Society centers on the urban and economic impacts of mega-events on the societies that host them, offering an examination of individual cases and emerging patterns. The...
In the context of urgency-filled mega-event preparations, contested urban projects can be fast-tracked to completion in the name of event. This leads to deviations from the existing urban agenda and undermines democratic decision-making processes – all while having longer-term socio-economic and physical influences. Since its post-industrial transi...
This paper tracks the growth, and recent crisis, of two of the largest tourist events on earth: the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup. It draws on a unique longitudinal dataset that contains 43 events since 1960, with a total cost exceeding USD 120 billion. Overall, the size of the three events has grown about 60-fold over the past 50 years...
This article examines the ten-line cable car network of Tbilisi, Georgia, constructed by the Soviet government between 1953, 1988, then decommissioned in the 1990s after independence and partially reactivated since 2012. During the Soviet era, Tbilisi’s cable cars played an important role in the city’s mass mobility, particularly in areas of steep...
City of the Future: Built Space, Modernity and Urban Change in Astana by Mateusz Laszczkowski documents a crucial period in the formation of the capital of Kazakhstan – Astana (renamed to Nur-Sultan in March 2019).1 Since 1997, when the first president Nursultan Nazarbayev relocated the capital from Almaty to Astana (former Akmola and Tselinograd),...
Since the 1960s, both mega-events and special economic zones have gained global prominence as agents of urban development. Often relying on extra-legal measures for their realization, these two initiatives further create areas of spatial exclusion in cities. This paper examines their coming together in Tbilisi, Georgia, where costs for the city's h...
Details regarding the chapter and the book:
https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-4533-0/georgien-neu-buchstabiert/
After the collapse of the USSR and the regaining of independence, Georgia has experienced a dramatic set of political, economic and social changes which have had marked impacts on Georgian cities that further intensified with the early 2000s, political and economic stabilization and the greater role assumed by the state in leading urban restructuri...
The panoramic view of Rose Revolution Square from Alexander Griboyedov Street would be perfect, were it not for the unsightly presence of a large, abandoned concrete column still extending metal rebar and wrapped in wooden construction formwork. Closer attention reveals a larger unsightly construction site at the base: a rugged enclosure of sheet-m...
Mega-events are large-scale cultural, political, religious or sporting events of mass media appeal and international significance. They are typically temporary affairs yet have permanent and costly outcomes. They have also become valuable tools for multi-layered processes of urban transformation. Mega-events are frequently presented by governments...
In a post-industrial era where cities across the globe have taken an entrepreneurial approach to urban territorial management, mega-events have become a prominent part of urban policies (Harvey, 1989). The Olympics and the Formula 1 World Championship are examples of internationally-significant mega-events, typically with an abundance of visitors a...
After the Second World War the Soviet Union became a prolific producer of low budget social housing schemes. As in some Western European social democracies, social housing in the former Soviet Union used to be a public service. Under General-Secretaries Khrushchev and Brezhnev millions of high-rise prefab apartments were built according to similar...
This paper explores new-build developments in Tbilisi, Georgia. Based on interviews with developers and with residents and neighbours of new-build developments, we examine the burgeoning of new-build housing projects in a lower middle income post-Communist country. By doing so, we respond to Lees’ (2012) recent call for the exploration of new horiz...
The issue of forced displacement has been one of the distinctive features of Georgian cities over the last two decades since regaining independence. Internally displaced persons (IDPs) emerged as a separate vulnerable group due to violent ethno-political conflicts in the territories of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Owing to...
Internationalization in graduate education has created diverse trends in different regions. Higher mobility of international students and increased variety of university programmes on offer has resulted in new challenges for the management of Italian university doctoral programmes. A reflection of the experiences of PhD students is useful at this t...
This paper explores new-build developments in Tbilisi, Georgia. Based on interviews with developers and with residents and neighbours of new-build developments, we examine the burgeoning of new-build housing projects in a lower middle income post-Communist country. By doing so, we respond to Lees’ (2012) recent call for the exploration of new horiz...
Internally displaced persons (IDPs) emerged since the early-1990s as a result of violent ethno-political conflicts on the territory of Georgia. They represent a distinct social group in terms of identity and role in the society, and are labeled as one of the most vulnerable population groups. Almost half of IDPs (more than 113,000 persons) reside c...
Questions
Questions (2)
I am currently studying works on olympic legacy in its urban aspects, especially concerning "non-infrastructural"..."soft" impacts of such a mega-events in its city. I would like to see more information on how local governments in the host (or candidate) cities approach this issue and how are this aspect integrated in the planning stage as well as post-olympic period. all the works and suggestions on post-olympic legacy issue will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Hello,
I am currently working on my research proposal for the phd thesis. One of the idea/interest that I currently have is related to refugee camps. I am interested in the process of refugee camp transformation from a "blank" settlement to urban areas... something very close to city. local economies and survival strategies that refugees develop in displacement.
I'd appreciate any help or advise. Thanks! :)
