The Evolving Arab City Tradition, Modernity and Urban Development

"This outstanding collection, written by sophisticated and engaged Arab architects/urbanists, is a stunning sequel to Planning Middle Eastern Cities (2004) Like its predecessor, it does three things: effectively demolishes the monopoly ‘orientalists’ had over the topic; integrates grounded Arab scholarship with mainstream ‘western’ critical urban theory; and, by detailing the diverse ways Arab cities are responding to globalization, challenges oversimplified debates on ‘The Global City’. Studies of Arab/Islamic cities used to be the province of ‘outsiders’ who not only prematurely generalized to a genre, but encapsulated it in timelessness. In contrast, the case studies included in the earlier volume (Dubai, Sana’a, Baghdad, Algiers, Tunis, and Cairo), now supplemented in this volume by three older cities (Amman, Beirut, and Rabat) and five newer oil cities (Riyadh, Kuwait City, Manama, Doha and Abu-Dhabi), focus, often critically, on their rapid transformations. Each case study traces its colonial and post-colonial history, the evolution of its distinctive social and physical structures, and its intersection with the region and the world. It pays particular attention to, inter alia, the effects of recent wars, migration patterns, petroleum prices, noting the increased role of ‘rulers’ in city planning/real estate investment both within and between Arab countries. Each traces the increased interactions between multinational firms and local developers as they strategize and compete to elevate themselves to global city status. Neoliberalism and State-sponsored advanced capitalism are all implicated in the painful task of balancing identity and post-modernity. A must read!" - Janet Abu-Lughod, Professor Emerita, Northwestern University and The Graduate Faculty, New School for Social Research, USA Winner of The International Planning History Society (IPHS)Book Prize.

1. Introduction: The Great Divide: Struggling and Emerging Cities of the Arab World Yasser Elsheshtawy 2. Prologue: The New Arab Metropolis Fuad MalkawiPart I: The Struggling Arab City 3. Amman: Disguised Genealogy, Recent Urban Restructuring and Neo-liberal ThreatsRami Farouk Daher 4. From Regional Node to Backwater and Back to Uncertainty: The Refashioning of Beirut, 1943–2006 Sofia Shwayri 5. Rabat: From Capital to Global Metropolis Jamila BargachPart II: The Emerging Arab City 6. Riyadh: A City of ‘Institutional’ Architecture Mashary A. Al-Naim 7. Kuwait: Learning from a Globalized City Yasser Mahgoub 8. Manama: The Metamorphosis of a Gulf City Mustapha Ben Hamouche 9. Rediscovering the Island: Doha’s Urbanity from Pearls to Spectacle Khaled Adham 10. Cities of Sand and Fog: Abu Dhabi’s Arrival on the Global Scene Yasser Elsheshtawy

Yasser Elsheshtawy is Associate Professor of Architecture at theUnited Arab Emirates University. His most recent publication is an edited book published by Routledge (2004) titled Planning Middle Eastern Cities: An Urban Kaleidoscope in a Globalizing World. He has lectured at Harvard Design School, Tianjin University, China, and Virginia Commonwealth University, Doha.