CRRC, ARISC and American Councils are pleased to announce the 4th talk of the Spring 2023 Tbilisi Works-in-Progress series!
********This week’s WiP session will be virtual only, please register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/…/tZMpcu…
From Chaotic Construction to Co-Evolution: Tbilisi’s 2018 Master Plan and the Right to the City in the Post-Socialist Planning Revival
Evangeline Linkous, University of South Florida
A cautious revival for planning is emerging in some post-socialist cities, a response to diminished quality of life after decades of “investor urbanism” policies. In Tbilisi, the 2018 Master Plan takes a pragmatic right to the city approach—emphasizing human rights to urban mobility and green space but in cooperation with market processes and detached from ideological narrative. The adoption and implementation of Tbilisi’s plan is yielding a co-evolution of local governance institutions, now oriented for the first time to administer long-term urban policy. While full implementation of the plan vision will likely be limited by existent processes of state capture, especially the lack of judicial independence, the plan offers a promising new framework for the rule of law and decentralized governance. Although Georgia exhibits troubling signs of democratic backsliding, Tbilisi’s plan asserts alignment with international best practices including European Union accession criteria—thus serving as a potent geopolitical tool.
Evangeline Linkous, PhD, AICP is an Associate Professor in the Master of Urban and Regional Planning program at USF. She studies the fiscal and legal instruments used to manage land in areas of growth and change. Her research has been published in journals including the Journal of the American Planning Association and Land Use Planning. She has a Ph.D. and Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in English from New College of Florida. In 2022, she was awarded a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to study planning policy and institutions in the Republic of Georgia.
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Works-in-Progress is an ongoing academic discussion series based in Tbilisi, Georgia, that takes place office of CRRC at Liziko Kavtaradze St. 1 and online. It is co-organized by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), the American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS, and the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC). All of the talks are free and open to the public.
In observation of the spirit of the Chatham House Rule, the talks will not be recorded and we courteously request that the other participants refrain from recording and/or distributing recordings as well. The opinions expressed in WiP talks are those of the speakers alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC, ARISC or of American Councils.