Abstract
Abstract This paper explores the interplay between urban planning and growth machine politics within the evolving neoliberal urbanism in Central Asia’s paradigmatic city of Almaty. Pressured by its environmental vulnerability and the urge to compete globally for capital investment, Almaty, located in a valley of the Tien-Shan mountains, has committed to the agenda of sustainable growth that often implies the balance of economic development, nature conservation, and social equity. Drawing on the theoretical framework of authoritarian neoliberalism, the authors conclude that the power of urban planning has been overridden in favor of growth interests. The authors also visited the evolution of a growth control sentiment formed as a result of public resistance to the adverse effects of growth-driven urbanization. It is found that the authoritarian state in Kazakhstan seems to tolerate and accommodate different forms of resistance as long as they do not put direct political power claims.