Conflicts around urban development and planning: dispute resolution from a legal lens
Abstract
Conflict, arguments, and change are natural parts of our lives in contemporary cities, and they have sprung up and have become more challenging in the past decades. The state of the art in this area of research is composed by scholars from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines (Geography, Sociology, Political Science, Architecture, etc.). My recent research is mainly focused on what does different type of urban conflicts around urban development entail in legal terms, and how we may, through interdisciplinary research, strengthen and expand judicial control over city administration to better meet the needs of citizens. This is particularly relevant to issues of expropriation, public hearings, public property, urban heritage, and a possibility to protect non-statutory rights (the right to a view from the window, place naming disputes).
I also consider the various prohibitions and types of legal responsibility as factors significantly affecting urban space and triggering urban conflicts. In this regard, it is particularly important to discuss the question of how to articulate and enforce citizens’ rights in the face of authoritarian urbanism. A focus on some Russian cases would help me to illustrate these larger conceptual points.
Speaker
Ivan Medvedev - University of Trento - SIS
Bio
Ivan Medvedev holds a PhD degree in civil procedure & arbitration from the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law (Moscow, 2008). For the last five years, he has held the position of Associate Professor of the Faculty of Urban and Regional Development (Higher School of Economics University in Russia). Prior to coming to HSE, he has had extensive experience as a practicing lawyer in courts at various levels on housing, land-use, urban planning, real estate and construction matters. He is the author of the course “Theory and Practice of Dispute Resolution in Urban Planning” (including the video course on YouTube (~11 hours)) and of the book “Resolution of Urban Conflicts” (2017). He has also published around 45 papers, 5 volumes of the Russian Supreme Court’s precedents’ collection and 2 monographs on evidence law and comparative civil procedure.
As an expert, he has consulted different developers and other corporations, mayors of Russian cities and local officials on the issues of stakeholder relations, negotiations and resolution of urban conflicts, female-friendly cities, sustainable urban development (UN SDGs) and regulatory landscape.
His current research interests include the “right to the city” and its implementation into the legislation worldwide, the challenges of citizen participation in urban planning through the lens of authoritarian urbanism, community benefits agreements, inclusive cities, and the field of different urban struggles in comparative and interdisciplinary perspective.