The Role of Agriculture in the Urban and Semi-Urban Landscape of Yerevan, Armenia
by Diana Ter-Ghazaryan

   
     My research deals with the changes that have taken place in the urban landscape of Yerevan in the years since Armenia became independent in 1991. Fueled by the rapid injection of capital, Yerevan's downtown neighborhoods are being transformed into sleek modern districts that cater to foreign investors and the newly rich local Armenians. Construction sites dot the city and the forces of commercialization and privatization appropriate the city's green parks and other public spaces for private uses. In order to streamline Yerevan's post-Soviet development a new Master Plan for the city was passed by the Armenian Parliament in 2005. Outlining the city's development for the next 15 years, the master plan's explicit goal is "to develop a strategy for urban construction aimed at creating a favorable living environment and ensuring sustainable development" (Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe, 2005, p.6). One of the objectives in line with this goal is "to re-profile or remove agricultural facilities from the city", despite the fact that many of Yerevan's residents depend at least partially on this urban and semi-urban agricultural production. My project will investigate this situation with the help of the following questions:

     1. What is the overall significance of urban and semi-urban agriculture in Yerevan?

     2. What steps are taken in the direction of re-profiling/removing agricultural sites from the city? What are the effects of these steps on the socio-economic status of Yerevan's residents?

     3. What innovative decisions can be implemented in order to balance the needs of those residents to whom agricultural production has been important with the goals and objectives of the new Master Plan?

     I will use diverse methodologies for this research, including archival and documentary research and semi-structured open-ended interviews with key informants. The abovementioned questions will dovetail into a comprehensive 4-month study of the urban transformations afoot in Yerevan. I will use GIS and GPS technology in order to document the physical changes that have taken place in Yerevan, particularly the shrinking and near disappearance of urban green parks. I will use landscape-level analysis in order to compare the amount of urban green space in Yerevan prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union to the amount of green space today.

This project has been made possible by a funding support under the USDA CSREES ISE Grant Program.
USDA-CSREES Grant Number 2006-51160-03409.