Engaging with Contradictions - New Possibilities for Planning Large-Scale Infrastructure Projects

Abstract

This paper dissects one of the most explosive tension fields of the post-industrial society, the increasingly complex relationship between production and place by looking at the development of a special economic zone in the periphery of the city of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The research focuses on contradictory processes, their spatial effects and the possibilities for transformative change by examining a typical capital-led development - a special economic zone. Special economic zones are service landscapes, mainly driven by capital accumulation processes, designed to provide cities with products. The study looks into the way this particular economic zone in Plovdiv developed from one cherry processing factory into the biggest investment project of the country hosting numerous global manufacturing companies and maps the resulting socio-urban transformations in the region. The research highlights four contradictions that arise when these developments are framed as non-city and reduced to a mono-functional infrastructure space, while their social, environmental and urban impact on their region are neglected. By actively engaging with the contradictions and the various stakeholder shaping them, the research aims to reveal latent forces and tensions of the relation between global production and local space, to expose hidden narratives and to re-construct a different meaning of a capital-led infrastructure development. Through revealing and interacting with contradictions, the research aims to identify the opportunities those conflicts present, and methods to imagine these spaces as a product of common understanding and transform them from an extractive economy to an economy that creates local value.