ABSTRACT
Shortly after declaring its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, the government of Kazakhstan decided to break with its Soviet past and relocate its capital from the city of Almaty on the country’s southern border to a more central location. Accompanying this geographic change were the aspirations of a new beginning for the nation and its people in a place that could be designed and planned as a new Kazakh capital city. This chapter argues that the powerful forces shaping the city would benefit from greater public participation in the planning process – a more community-based approach to planning future development. Urban planning is used as a tool to deliberately organize humanity’s domination over the environment in ways that provide humans with living and working spaces that are functional and attractive. In affluent democratic societies, urban planning is typically considered to be a part of the dialogue among planning professionals, the people, and their elected representatives.
