Under Construction: Logics of Urbanism in the Gulf Region

Wippel, Steffen; Bromber, Katrin; Steiner, Christian; Krawietz, Birgit

doi:10.4324/9781315549323

Cited by 23 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…WIT Transactions on Ecology and The Environment, Vol 226, © 2017 WIT Press natural environment [28], [31], [32], the After-oil strategies and development of tourism [33] the socio-economic transformations and their effect on land price [11], polarization of social classes in the city [34], or even the effect of shopping malls on the transformation of the traditional retail [12].…”

Section: State Of the Research About Urbanization In Omanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Development in Oman: An Overview

Benkari

2017

WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment

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During the past two decades, the Gulf countries have experienced the most rapid urban growth in the world. The traditional societies in this region have been guilelessly opened on the market economy and western lifestyle. In spite the progress realized at many levels, these societies became victims of its consumerist style. This article aims to present an overview of the urban development in Oman since it started its 'modernization'. This study is not only interested in how the country has been developing since its "renaissance" in the 1970s, but also how does this development appear, compared to its traits in the neighboring Gulf countries. Based on the assumption that urban research is a tool of analysis that can enlighten future decisions and actions in the domain of urban development, this study is also a critical review of the published research about the urbanization in Oman since the 1970s. This research showed that, although it shares several aspects with what the other Gulf cities have witnessed, urbanization in Oman was slower, less drastic and relatively more controlled. The scrutiny of the published research on this topic also revealed that the urban studies about Oman, and the GCC countries in general, were insignificant before the rise of leading cities such as Dubai, then Doha, to the international scene. It concluded that even if these urban studies have progressively broadened in their topics, disciplines and case studies, their effect on the new orientations chosen for the future developments in these countries remains negligible.

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Section: State Of the Research About Urbanization In Omanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Development in Oman: An Overview

Benkari

2017

WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment

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“…Such high‐level diplomatic relationships and the subsequent involvement of government‐related developers seem even more important in the case of TREDs, especially in authoritarian, semi‐authoritarian, and state‐led capitalist contexts (e.g., Ballard & Harrison, 2020; Clerc & Hurault, 2010; Dixon, 2010; Koelemaij, 2019; Percival & Waley, 2012; Wippel et al., 2014). However, Shannon (2019a) shows that more democratic countries such as the Netherlands have recently also shifted their international development strategies towards more overt, self‐interest driven business‐oriented approaches (following ‘the Chinese model', see also Power and Mohan [2010], resulting in (post)aid‐related TREDs in Africa on behalf of the Dutch government).…”

Section: Who?mentioning

confidence: 99%

21st‐century transnational real estate development: What, where, who, how and why?

Koelemaij

Derudder

2021

Geography Compass

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In this paper, we review the emerging geographical literature dealing with large‐scale transnational real estate development projects (TREDs). Predominantly geared towards (often imagined) upper middle classes through eye‐catching and mixed‐use projects, the distinctive feature of TREDs is that they are facilitated by a formative transnational investor/developer. Based on a literature review and an analysis of fDi Markets data, we discuss the nature of TREDs, where they can be found, which actors and companies are mainly responsible for them, how they emerge and materialize (or not), and why they are so relevant in contemporary economic geography. It is argued that TREDs are both characteristic of and contribute to the rise of authoritarian urban development practices. We furthermore show that both fictitious and symbolic capital play a role and that real estate and geopolitical strategies are inextricably linked with one another. Given that interscalar dynamics between the main facilitators of TREDs are still relatively understudied within economic geography, we end with a call to develop more in‐depth perspectives on these matters.

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“…The project of 'globalizing the local and localizing the global' -that is, purchasing and borrowing canonized artworks, as well as replicating internationally renowned architectural sites -encourages a consumerist local culture which has already given birth to a Khaliji individual who adopts an ontological motto that reads, as Wippel, Bromber and Krawietz wittily put it with reference to René Descartes, 'I shop therefore I am.' 76 At the heart of this developmental project, which is meant to provide an economic alternative to the post-oil period, is a peculiar notion of the future. Such a future is not an aspired project that draws its substance from a local cultural trajectory and dynamism, but rather 'was already prescribed, premediated and integrated as a temporal infrastructure'.…”

Section: Imaginary Spatialities Spatial Knowledge and Gulf Futurismmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Globalizing the Local, Localizing the Global’: Writing Space in the Arab Gulf Region

Oukhzame¹,

Stasiowski²

2021

Architecture_MPS

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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar are taking the lead in the urbanization boom that is drastically transforming the spatial fabric of the Arab Gulf region. Embedded in the ambitious urban development projects launched by the UAE and Qatar is an endeavour to ‘bring the world to the Arab Gulf region’. To this end, these two states are engaged in a process of collecting and borrowing antique objects and canonized artefacts, as well as reproducing and duplicating some internationally celebrated architectural sites and spaces. While some consider these projects to be ‘part of strategies to prepare for the post-oil era’, others hold that ‘Arab Gulf States aim to strengthen or … creatively (re)construct identitarian patterns’.1 It can be argued that Arab Gulf cities should be looked at as ‘political actors’ due to ‘the functions they fulfill as spatial command posts for globalized capitalism’.2 The production and organization of social space, in this sense, cannot be seen as a ‘dead’ or passive category with no influence over various dimensions of lived experience, including thought, politics and economy. Juxtaposing the UAE’s and Qatar’s urbanization projects with the nineteenth-century phenomenon of world exhibitions and fairs, this article takes the Louvre Abu Dhabi and Villaggio Mall as case studies to investigate the modalities of knowledge generated through processes of cultural and spatial (re)production and the impact of the latter on the construction of personhood and lived experience in the Arab Gulf region.

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Under Construction: Logics of Urbanism in the Gulf Region

Cited by 23 publications

References 0 publications

Urban Development in Oman: An Overview

Urban Development in Oman: An Overview

21st‐century transnational real estate development: What, where, who, how and why?

‘Globalizing the Local, Localizing the Global’: Writing Space in the Arab Gulf Region

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