Leaving behind last year’s adventures in the slums and cities of Latin America (LAC) I recently started new adventures in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA). First stop Tbilisi, in beautiful Georgia, second stop Chisinau, in Moldova. Both of these cities welcomed me (on the airport-hotel commute) with rows and rows of Soviet building blocks.

One of the reasons I ‘decided’ to come to this region was because I believed Eastern Europe and Central Asia has TODAY many urban development challenges that other regions will face TOMORROW. While comparing to other developing regions, many would think that there are no slums or informal settlements in Former Soviet Union countries -where the State had more control on urban development- this region has its own kind of ‘slums’[1]. Most interesting it has a lot of vertical slums.

The vertical slums in the ECA region have a couple of things in common with “The Projects”…