The violence of spectacle: Statist schemes to green the desert and constructing Astana and Ashgabat as urban oases

摘要: Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have been home to the most impressive urban development projects in entire post-Soviet world. Their capitals, Astana Ashgabat, now boast uniquely monumental architecture local leaders invested heavily ‘green belt’ surround cities with lush vegetation, as well developing green water-laden public spaces. In doing so, elites drawn on Soviet-era ‘garden city’ idealism, more recent environmental sustainability narratives. Yet these schemes are anything but sustainable. Unfolding arid Central Asian steppe, they depend heavy irrigation, water diverted from rivers that already fail meet regional demands. Employing a comparative approach, I ask why what effect state planners sought craft Ashgabat spectacularly ‘urban oases,’ when their climates should defy logic of sustainability. so doing, consider greening two countries part wider phenom...