This was an initiative of the FAU-USP, LAB / HAB Center for Metropolitan Studies (CEM), Cebrap, Graduate Program in Human Geography at USP, and Mira Central (Free study group on central areas)

The lecturer is a professor at the Université de Paris I - Panthéon Sorbonne and a visiting professor from the University of Barcelona.

Greek architect and geographer, Petsimeris is an expert in the rehabilitation of downtown areas, socio-spatial segregation and migration processes in Europe. His research deals with the impact of major urban projects in countries like Spain, United Kingdom, Greece, Poland, Czech Republic, Italy and France.

The lecture was hold on December 1 2010, at FAU-USP, Cidade Universitária (University City).

Athens and the Olympic games 

In his presentation, the architect Petros Petsimeris approached aspects of his researches about the Olympic Games as a way to understand the geography and planning in some urban centers. His lecture was mostly about Athens’ case and making a comparative analysis from 1896 to 2004, when the city has hosted the event. He took basic elements such as size, population, density, economic base, urban structure, social geography, politics, infrastructure among others.

His presentation was halted on key-elements connected to the Olympic Games’ chronology in aspects related to urban transformations, because there’re linked to the production of important elements related to the city's infrastructure, and also with the geopolitical and geographic changes, besides of those related to ownership of space (Pax Olímpica, Pax Aedificativ, Pax Urbanística and Pax post-Olímpica). He raised some hypothesis about the production of new space in correlation with social space (direct relationship between social structure of space and ethnic changes).

He detached some differences between the Barcelona and the Athens’ cases, especially about the privatization process, fragmentation and role of the builders who participated in the project. He also stressed the catalyst role and production of public works in Athens whose demand in some cases dated back to 100 years. He adressed certain issues related to experience, perception and imagination opposite to accessibility, appropriation and the uses of the spaces, its domination and control, like lifting actions in some areas, unification of the archeologist spaces, rehabilitation of the historic downtown areas (where a big part of the population needs to leave their houses to give space to luxury places), the importance of immigrant workers (many illegal) to carry out the labour and also the surveillance, which consumes three or four times the amount spent with the infrastructure of the event.

The researcher also reported that there’re been detected an increase number of immigrants during the construction/transformation of the area, as well as transportation and communication facilities, besides the central redistribution of the metropolitan space, and the increasing accessibility, among others, positives and negatives issues. His findings are related with the impact of the Olympic Games (Athens) in orders of urban problems, its value as a means of control and at the same time as the catalyst of change without control, lamenting the fact that there were no alternative plans. According to Petsimeris , the plan for Athens was linked more to the myth than to reality and it was characterized by lack of transparency and dissemination actions.