Paper short abstract:

Urban planning in post-socialist cities is chaotic because so much has been in play: changing property rights and employment patterns, social and political status, shifting lines of authority, and sharply divergent visions of a good city. Almaty's unsettled planning is both symptom and hopeful sign.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will describe the chaotic planning process in contemporary Almaty as both a symptom of the profound tensions of post-socialist transition and a positive sign that Kazakhstan, though hardly a democracy, has some space for genuine contention over public space, affordable housing, access to the city, and livability. I will draw on textual research and fieldwork conducted in the city on seven trips between 2009 and 2024.

Socialist Almaty was famously a "garden city," planned with abundant parks, tree-lined boulevards, and pleasant neighborhoods. Given that Soviet internal passports (propiska) limited who could move there, the city was famously livable for urban workers and party elites alike. It was both the political and cultural capital of the Kazakh SSR.

Political and financial elites in Almaty today want to transform it into a global city on the steppe, with a leading role in Central Asian finance and business. Developers have thrown up increasingly expensive luxury towers and built shopping malls for the monied and middle classes, unhousing many longtime residents. Meanwhile, preservationists lobby, mostly fruitlessly, to preserve the architectural character and distinctive neighborhoods of the urban core. Urban activists struggle to protect public spaces, keep affordable housing from being torn down - or simply falling down, since muchwas built in the 1950s with an expected lifespan of 25 years - and keep outlying _mikroraions_ (working-class suburbs with huge concrete housing complexes) from turning into slums or ghost towns, or both at once.