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University of Oxford
School of Geography and the Environment

 School of Geography and the Environment

Dr Oleg Golubchikov

Academic Profile

Dr Oleg Golubchikov is a Lecturer in Urban Resilience in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences of the University of Birmingham and a Visiting Research Associate in the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford.

Oleg gained his D.Phil. in Human Geography from the University of Oxford (as a Clarendon Scholar). He also has a Master Degree in Environmental Geography from Moscow State University and an MSc in Land Management from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Prior to his appointment as a Lecturer in Urban Resilience in Birmingham, he was an ESRC Research Fellow and Research Associate at the School of Geography and the Environment at Oxford. He has also held visiting research posts in University College London (UCL), World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University in Helsinki (UNU-WIDER), Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (KTH) and serves as a Consultant for the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).

Current Research

Dr Golubchikov's research interests and publications are broadly concerned with post-socialist urbanisation, spatial justice and inequality, and low-carbon urbanism.

The political economy of post-socialist cities

Dr Golubchikov's main research project in recent years has interrogated conditions governing social and economic transformation of Russian cities under post-socialism. This research delves, in particular, into the nexus between the new spatial political economy, Soviet legacy/path dependence, and the resultant patterns of: (a) urban economic adaptation and inter-urban economic disparities, and (b) class transformation and intra-urban social polarisation. Dr Golubchikov invites a (re)conceptualisation of post-socialist urban change as an inherently political and ideological process. At the national scale of analysis, the research provides critical assessments of the national institutions of spatial governance, urban planning and housing policy in Russia, while case studies on Moscow, St Petersburg, and smaller cities/towns surrounding these metropolitan areas allow a more grounded interpretation of change in inner city, urban periphery, and inter-urban systems. This research contributes to, or develops, a number of general concepts, such as world-city-entrepreneurialism, gentrification, edge city/post-suburbia, as well as urban resilience in the context of transitional challenges.

Energy and the built environment

Dr Golubchikov is also interested in sustainable urbanism, especially in the interface between climate change, cities and energy demand. This work has a strong knowledge transfer element as it explores what policies can make cities less carbon intensive and more resilient to climate challenges. Dr Golubchikov has recently assisted the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) with a formulation of multidimensional policies for the promotion of energy-efficient housing and low-carbon cities. He has authored a number of policy reports, including the Action Plan for Energy Efficient Housing in the UNECE Region, adopted by UNECE Member Governments in September 2010.

Selected Publications

  • Golubchikov, O. and Phelps, N. (in press, 2011) The political economy of place at the post-socialist urban periphery: governing growth on the edge of Moscow. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.
  • Golubchikov, O. (2010) World-city-entrepreneurialism: Globalist imaginaries, neoliberal geographies, and the production of new St Petersburg. Environment and Planning A, 42(3): 626-643.
  • Golubchikov, O., Makhrova, A. and Phelps, N. (2010) Primeneniye kontseptsii "okrainnogo goroda" dlya analiza sovremennykh protsessov urbanizatsii v RF (na primere goroda Khimki) (The application of the concept of edge city for the analysis of the contemporary processes of urbanisation in Russia - the case of the city of Khimki), Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta: Seriya 5 Geografiya (The Moscow University Herald – Geography Series), 2010(3): 48-54. In Russian.
  • Golubchikov, O., Makhrova, A and Phelps, N. (2010) Sovremennye protsesy urbanizatsii v Podmoskovye: fenomen "okrainnogo goroda" (The contemporary processes of urbanisation in Moscow city-region: the edge city phenomenon). Academia. Arkhitektura i Stroitelstvo (Academia. Architecture and Construction – Journal of the Russian Academy of Architecture and Construction Sciences), 2010(3). In Russian.
  • Golubchikov, O., Phelps, N.A., and Makhrova, A. (2010) Post-socialist post-suburbia: growth machine and the emergence of "edge city" in the metropolitan context of Moscow. Geography, Environment, Sustainability, 1(3): 44-55.
  • Golubchikov, O. (2009) Green Homes: Towards Energy Efficient Housing in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Region. Geneva: United Nations, Economic Commission for Europe. Also published in Russian as Голубчиков, О. (2009) Зеленые Дома: Обеспечение Энергоэффективности Жилья в Регионе Европейской Экономической Комиссии Организации Объединенных Наций, Нью Йорк и Женева: Организация Объединенных Наций.
  • Thornbush, M.J. and Golubchikov, O. (2009) On shaky ground: Arctic communities in uneasy transition to a new climatic order. In, Ferrari, D.M. and Guiseppi, A.R. (eds.) Geomorphology and Plate Tectonics. New York: Nova Publishers, pp. 85-96.
  • Golubchikov, O. (2007) Re-scaling the debate on Russian economic growth: regional restructuring and development asynchronies. Europe-Asia Studies, 59(2): 191-215.
  • Golubchikov, O. (2006) Interurban development and economic disparities in a Russian province. Eurasian Geography and Economics, 47(4): 478-495.
  • Golubchikov, O. and Badyina, A. (2006) Conquering the inner-city: urban redevelopment and gentrification in Moscow. In, Tsenkova, S. and Nedović-Budić, Z. (eds.) The Urban Mosaic of Post-Socialist Europe: Space, Institutions and Policy. Heidelberg and New York: Springer, pp. 195-212.
  • Golubchikov, O. (2006) Do sikh por... ne stupala noga ekologa? (No sign of an environmentalist as yet?). Svet – Priroda i Chelovek, 3(March): 22-23. In Russian.
  • Badyina, A. and Golubchikov, O. (2005) Gentrification in Central Moscow - a market process or a deliberate policy? Money, power and people in housing regeneration in Ostozhenka. Geografiska Annaler B: Human Geography, 87(2): 113-129.
  • Golubchikov, O. (2004) Urban planning in Russia: towards the market. European Planning Studies, 12(2): 229-247.
Selected Conference Papers
  • Golubchikov, O. 'Tackling energy efficiency in housing.' Scene-setter presentation for the International Social Housing Summit, the Hague, Netherlands, 13-14 October 2010.
  • Golubchikov, O. 'Action plan for energy efficient housing in the UN Economic Commission for Europe Region.' Presentation for the Green Buildings Workshop, International Energy Efficiency Forum, Astana, Kazakhstan, 28-30 September 2010.
  • Golubchikov, O. 'Climate neutral city: how to make UNECE cities less carbon-intensive and more resilient to climatic challenges.' Presentation for the Seventy-First Session of the Committee on Housing and Land Management, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, United Nations Offices, Geneva, Switzerland, 20-21 September 2010.
  • Golubchikov, O. 'Draft Action Plan for Energy Efficient Housing in the UNECE Region.' Presentation for the Seventy-First Session of the Committee on Housing and Land Management, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, United Nations Offices, Geneva, Switzerland, 20-21 September 2010.
  • Golubchikov, O. 'The landscape of inequality: path dependence and path creation in the economic transformation of Russian cities.' Paper presented at the Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting (also a discussant in the session on 'New Path Shaping in Post-Socialist City'), Washington DC, USA, 14-18 April 2010.
  • Golubchikov, O. 'Urban governance in Russia under the conditions of neoliberalism.' Paper presented at the regional workshop of the Cities after Transition international research network 'Urban Socio-Spatial Change in the Caucasus and Other Post-Soviet Areas', Tbilisi, Georgia, 15-18 February 2010.
  • Golubchikov, O. 'The draft Action plan for energy efficient housing in the UNECE region.' Presented in the Opening Session of the International Forum 'Towards an Action Plan for Energy Efficient Housing in the UNECE Region', Vienna, Austria, November 2009.
  • Golubchikov, O. 'World-city-entrepreneurialism: new geometries of spatial governance and post-socialist St Petersburg.' Paper presented at the Urban Geography Research Group of the RGS-IBG Annual Conference 'Global Cities Now? Current Perspectives in "Global Urban Studies"', Swansea University, UK, November 2009.
  • Golubchikov, O. and Phelps, N. 'Post-socialist post-suburbia? Growth machine and the emergence of "edge city" in the metropolitan context of Moscow.' Paper presented at the 3rd International Workshop on Post-communist Urban Geographies 'Actors Shaping Urban Change', Tartu, Estonia, September 2009.
  • Badyina, A. and Golubchikov, O. 'The contradictions of dealing with the housing question in Russia.' Paper presented at the Conference of the International Sociological Association Research Committee 21: Sociology of Urban and Regional Development (ISA-RC21) 'Inequality, Inclusion and the Sense of Belonging', Sao Paulo, Brazil, August 2009.
  • Golubchikov, O. and Phelps, N. 'From closed city to edge city? The case of Khimki.' Paper presented at the Workshop on Governing Post-Suburban Growth, University College London, UK, May 2009.
  • Golubchikov, O. 'Towards energy efficient housing: prospects for UNECE Member States.' Background paper presented in the Opening Session of the First UNECE Workshop on Energy Efficiency in Housing, Sofia, Bulgaria, April 2009.