MIRACLE URBANIZATION: Spatial Production and Political Legitimation in the Sochi 2014 and Beijing 2022 Olympics

From desert ski resorts to subtropical Winter Games, there is a global proliferation of ‘mission-impossible’ mega-projects. The prevailing frameworks of city branding and urban entrepreneurism fail to explain the political logics behind these seemingly irrational projects. To address this gap, we advance the concept of ‘miracle urbanization’ to explain how authoritarian-leaning regimes deploy mega-events tied to rapid, large-scale urban transformations that defy conventional limits for the purpose of legitimizing and consolidating charismatic authorities. Through a comparative analysis of the 2014 and 2022 Winter Olympics and longitudinal fieldwork (Sochi 2007–2017; Beijing/Zhangjiakou 2017–2024), we explore three defining features of miracle urbanization: aspiration as a strategic objective to manufacture consent for extraordinary state intervention; exception as a governance mechanism to bypass normative constraints; and Potemkinism as a contradictory aftereffect that showcases real progress while obscuring systematic neglect. By recentring coercive statecraft and charismatic legitimation, this article challenges neoliberal readings of mega-events and extends debates on urban authoritarianism, post-neoliberal governance, and comparative urbanism. Miracle urbanization offers a toolkit for understanding the endless global appetite for spectacular state-led projects in an era of democratic backsliding and ascendant authoritarianism.

The authors would like to thank a number of friends and colleagues for their support: Christian Schmid; the members of the SPUR group at ETH Zurich; the members of the Institute of Geography at the University of Neuchâtel; the anonymous interviewees who shared their time and expertise; the Editors at IJURR, and the anonymous reviewers for their invisible work and helpful feedback. This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione Grant PZ00P1_208764. Open access publishing facilitated by Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich, as part of the Wiley - Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich agreement via the Consortium Of Swiss Academic Libraries.