A mega-event in a small city: community participation, heritage and scale in the case of Pafos 2017 European Capital of Culture

Evanthia Dova, Angeliki Sivitanidou, Natia R. Anastasi and Julia Georgi-Nerantzia Tzortzi

European Planning Studies, 2022, vol. 30, issue 3, 457-477

Abstract: Pafos’s ‘Open Air Factory’ strategy for the 2017 ECoC was a simple yet imaginative concept born out of a strong desire to re-draw the city’s small-town character, diversify its economy, and steer social and cultural development along new paths. In order to counter the city’s limited economic resources and cultural infrastructure, the event’s vision was based on the two assets that Pafos has in abundance: a rich cultural heritage and a community eager for change. This paper tracks the uneven path of community involvement during the ECoC bidding, planning, implementation and post-implementation stages, and looks at urban heritage as the shared field of convergence for the multiple modes and degrees of participation in the realization of a mega-event. The city’s small size allows for original insights into the opportunities and limitations of the intersections between community, heritage and scale in the case of mega-event-based urban regeneration.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09654313.2021.1959721 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eurpls:v:30:y:2022:i:3:p:457-477

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CEPS20

DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2021.1959721

Access Statistics for this article

European Planning Studies is currently edited by Philip Cooke and Louis Albrechts

More articles in European Planning Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().