A building boom in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe -- one that has given rise to Central Asia’s largest library, tallest flagpole and the soon-to-be most spacious teahouse – is prompting some residents to joke that the city is becoming a showcase for a new-ish architectural style, “dictator chic.”
In the wake of two devastating earthquakes, the Turkish government has unveiled ambitious plans to rid Turkey of all unsafe and illegal housing. But analysts say shoddy building practices are likely to continue unless Turkey also ends light-touch regulation of its construction industry.
With nine months to go before Baku hosts the Eurovision pop-music competition, transparency concerns are arising about Azerbaijani government expenditures on the event.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appears to see the construction of a canal near Istanbul that would link the Black and Marmara seas as a lynchpin of his political legacy. But political experts and economists are viewing the project with caution, worrying that it could have a destabilizing impact on existing energy and security arrangements.
It’s as if Robert Moses, the New York City powerbroker who over a five-decade span in the mid-20th century reshaped the US metropolis in his own image, has come back to life and has set his sights on Samarkand – Uzbekistan’s second city.
The announcement that American real estate mogul Donald Trump intends to build in Tbilisi has many Georgians hoping that the country’s foreign-investment woes are over.
On September 22, Trump signed a letter of intent with the Silk Road Group, a multinational development company founded by Georgians, covering the construction of a residential building in Tbilisi.
It started with chic shops and restaurants, and a hipster modern art museum. Now, in a bid to lure international conferences and events, Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, is experiencing a luxury hotel building boom.
