Urban Problems of Yerevan: Thoughts about the Unthinkable

DOI: https://doi.org/10.34680/urbis-2021-1-37-76

Yervand Margaryan
Russian-Armenian University, Armenia
[email protected]

ORCID: 0000-0001-7396-2399

Abstract

Being an invitation to a discussion, the article is not just a declaration of the author’s ideological position, but rather an appeal to direct all resources to turning our cities into a life-affirming habitat for people. The author’s dominance is based on the awareness of the need for methodological development of ways to solve this problem, both in a global and specific local context. The topic choice of the article is not just of purely academic interest, but that of concern about the fate of Yerevan city, and its future. The author sees one of his tasks in attracting interest in urbanism and the city as a phenomenon in temporal and spatial dimensions. Another equally important task is to identify the patterns of development of a modern city, the desire to fully understand how the mechanisms of self-regulation and self-defense of the city work, where the resources and possibilities of immunity end and after which there must be an indispensable intervention from outside, from below or from above, in order to stop the self-destruction of the city. The ultimate goal is to identify the urban problems of Yerevan, and search and discover methods and mechanisms for their solution. The article uses micro-historic, macro-sociological, descriptive, and comparative methods, as well as the anthropological method of urban research. The article identifies three types of cities: 1) cities that arose spontaneously, without a single plan and concept; 2) cities that arose by a strong-willed decision of a charismatic leader, by synoecism, or as a result of the collective creativity of passionaries, but, necessarily, according to a well-thought-out plan and with messianic goals in the future development; and 3) mixedtype cities that arose as a result of spontaneous development or spontaneous merger of settlements, the development of such cities over time takes more meaningful forms, combining elements of “nakhalstroy” and “general plan”. The article examines the modern urban problems of Yerevan and how they were solved (or not solved) by the municipal authorities and the country leaders. The spontaneous processes of gentrification and suburbia are described. The main results of the study are the proposal to create an urban zone around Yerevan, consisting of a small number of specialized, primarily small-bourgeois cities and towns. The creation of such a zone will solve a number of urban, ecological, anthropological, demographic, and social problems, will help the republic overcome the crisis, and provide an answer to the challenges of 2020.

Keywords: urban studies, types of cities, bilingualism as a phenomenon, population dispersal, hyper-centralized capital, agglomeration of cities and towns, modernization of urban space.

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About author

Yervand Margaryan

Dr. Sci. (in History), Professor

Head of the Department of World History and Foreign Regional Studies

Russian-Armenian University, Armenia
[email protected]

For citation:
Margaryan Ye. H. Urban problems of Yerevan: Thoughts about the Unthinkable. Urbis et Orbis. Microhistory and semiotics of the city. 2021. 1. P. 37–76. DOI:  https://doi.org/10.34680/urbis-2021-1-37-76