The New Arab Urban

Gulf Cities of Wealth, Ambition, and Distress

Harvey Molotch, Davide Ponzini, Harvey Molotch, Davide Ponzini

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781479897254
• eBook ISBN:
  9781479855773
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Social Sciences

Cities of the Arabian Peninsula reveal contradictions of contemporary urbanization

The fast-growing cities of the Persian Gulf are, whatever else they may be, indisputably sensational. The world's tallest building is in Dubai; the 2022 World Cup in soccer will be played in fantastic Qatar facilities; Saudi Arabia is building five new cities from scratch; the Louvre, the Guggenheim and the Sorbonne, as well as many American and European universities, all have handsome outposts and campuses in the region. Such initiatives bespeak strategies to diversify economies and pursue grand ambitions across the Earth.

Shining special light on Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha—where the dynamics of extreme urbanization are so strongly evident—the authors of The New Arab Urban trace what happens when money is plentiful, regulation weak, and labor conditions severe. Just how do authorities in such settings reconcile goals of oft-claimed civic betterment with hyper-segregation and radical inequality? How do they align cosmopolitan sensibilities with authoritarian rule? How do these elite custodians arrange tactical alliances to protect particular forms of social stratification and political control? What sense can be made of their massive investment for environmental breakthrough in the midst of world-class ecological mayhem?

To address such questions, this book's contributors place the new Arab urban in wider contexts of trade, technology, and design. Drawn from across disciplines and diverse home countries, they investigate how these cities import projects, plans and structures from the outside, but also how, increasingly, Gulf-originated initiatives disseminate to cities far afield.

Brought together by noted scholars, sociologist Harvey Molotch and urban analyst Davide Ponzini, this timely volume adds to our understanding of the modern Arab metropolis—as well as of cities more generally. Gulf cities display development patterns that, however unanticipated in the standard paradigms of urban scholarship, now impact the world.

INDEX

Page numbers followed by f indicate photographs; page numbers followed by m indicate maps; page numbers followed by t indicate tables, charts, or graphs.

Abadan, Iran, 40–42, 44

Abdul Aziz (king of Saudi Arabia), 281

Abdullah (king of Saudi Arabia), 280, 291

A blocks (NYU Abu Dhabi), 164–166

Abu Dhabi: Aldar Properties, 89–91; automobiles as consumption item in, 259–260; consumption adjustments and outcomes, 268–269; consumption in, 256–269; free zones, 285; housing as consumption item in, 258–259; jobs in, 261–262; large-scale cultural imports, 262–264; museums, 50, 288–289; NYU Abu Dhabi (see NYU Abu Dhabi); skyline as seduction, 260–261; unskilled/semi-skilled labor, 267–268; urban planning in, 50. See also Masdar City

Abu Dhabi Global Market, 285

Abu Dhabi Investment Council, 15

Abu Dhabi National Bank, 112, 113, 114f

Abu Dhabi Plaza (Astana), 89–91

Abu-Lughod, Janet, 302–303

ACA (Arab Center for Architecture), 67–69

actor network theory (ANT), 11, 132–133, 215

Adjaye, David, 74

Africa, 223

Agbar Tower. See Torre Agbar

agriculture, 5

Ahmadi, Kuwait, 40–43

AIF (Arab Image Foundation), 67–68

Aishiti Foundation (Beirut), 74–75, 74f

Ak Maktoum airport (Dubai), 179

Al Bandar (Abu Dhabi), 119, 120f

alcohol, 264, 266

Aldar Properties (Abu Dhabi), 89–91

Al-Futaim, 245, 246

Al-Futtaim Carillion, 156

Alissa, Reem, 42–43

Al Sayegh, Ahmed Ali, 90

al-Wasl (Dubai), 248

American University of Cairo, 163, 167

Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, 42

Anglo-Persian Oil Company, 47

Anker, Peder, 197

ANT. See actor network theory

Apollo space program, 210n22

Arab architecture, 302

Arab Center for Architecture (ACA), 67–69

Arab city, concept of, 58–59

Arab Image Foundation (AIF), 67–68

Arab nationalism, 67

Arab Spring: in Abu Dhabi, 268; and Arab cities, 58; and investment in Dubai, 241; Saudi response to, 268; and visions of Islam, 66–67

Arabtec, 289

Arab Village (Ahmadi), 41–43

Ara...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Introduction: Learning from Gulf Cities
• Section I. The Gulf as Transnational
• Section II. Assembling Hybrid Cities
• Section III. Urban Test Beds for Export
• Section IV. Audacity, Work-Arounds, and Spatial Segmentation
• Conclusion: From Gulf Cities Onward
• Acknowledgments
• About the Contributors
• Index