Table Of ContentPLANNING ABU DHABI: AN URBAN HISTORY • i
PLANNING ABU DHABI
Abu Dhabi’s urban development path contrasts sharply with its exuberant neighbour, Dubai. As Alamira
Reem puts it, Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates since 1971, ‘has been quietly devising its own plans
… to manifest its role and stature as a capital city’.
Alamira Reem, a native Abu Dhabian and urban planner and researcher who has studied the emirate’s
development for more than a decade, is uniquely placed to write its urban history. Following the introduction
and description of Abu Dhabi’s early modern history, she focuses on three distinct periods dating from
the discovery of oil in 1960, and coinciding with periods in power of the three rulers since then: Sheikh
Shakhbut bin Sultan Al Nahyan (1960–1966), Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (1966–2004), and Sheikh
Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan (2004–). Based on archival research, key interviews and spatial mapping, she
analyses the different approaches of each ruler to development; investigates the role of planning consultants,
architects, developers, construction companies and government agencies; examines the emergence of
comprehensive development plans and the policies underlying them; and assesses the effects of these many
and varied influences on Abu Dhabi’s development. She concludes that, while much still needs to be done,
Abu Dhabi’s progress towards becoming a global, sustainable city provides lessons for cities elsewhere.
Alamira Reem Bani Hashim has a PhD in City and Regional Planning from the University of California,
Berkeley. She is the first Emirati woman to be awarded a PhD in Planning.
ii • PLANNING ABU DHABI: AN URBAN HISTORY
Planning, History and Environment Series
Editor:
Ann Rudkin, Alexandrine Press, Marcham, UK
Editorial Board:
Professor Arturo Almandoz, Universidad Simón Bolivar, Caracas, Venezuela and Pontificia
Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
Professor Nezar AlSayyad, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Professor Scott A. Bollens, University of California, Irvine, USA
Professor Robert Bruegmann, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
Professor Meredith Clausen, University of Washington, Seattle, USA
Professor Yasser Elsheshtawy, UAE University, Al Ain, UAE
Professor Robert Freestone, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Professor John R. Gold, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
Professor Michael Hebbert, University College London, UK
Selection of published titles
Planning Europe’s Capital Cities: Aspects of nineteenth century The Making of Hong Kong: From vertical to volumetric by Barrie
development by Thomas Hall Shelton, Justyna Karakiewicz and Thomas Kvan (paperback
Selling Places: The marketing and promotion of towns and cities, 2014)
1850–2000 by Stephen V. Ward Urban Coding and Planning edited by Stephen Marshall
The Australian Metropolis: A planning history edited by Stephen Planning Asian Cities: Risks and resilience edited by Stephen
Hamnett and Robert Freestone Hamnett and Dean Forbes (paperback 2013)
Utopian England: Community experiments 1900–1945 by Dennis Staging the New Berlin: Place marketing and the politics of reinvention
Hardy post-1989 by Claire Colomb
Urban Planning in a Changing World: The twentieth century City and Soul in Divided Societies by Scott A. Bollens
experience edited by Robert Freestone Learning from the Japanese City: Looking east in urban design, 2nd
Twentieth-Century Suburbs: A morphological approach by J.W.R. edition by Barrie Shelton
Whitehand and C.M.H. Carr The Urban Wisdom of Jane Jacobs edited by Sonia Hirt with
Council Housing and Culture: The history of a social experiment by Diane Zahm (paperback 2014)
Alison Ravetz Of Planting and Planning: The making of British colonial cities, 2nd
Planning Latin America’s Capital Cities, 1850–1950 edited by edition by Robert Home
Arturo Almandoz Healthy City Planning: Global health equity from neighbourhood to
Exporting American Architecture, 1870 –2000 by Jeffrey W. Cody nation by Jason Corburn
The Making and Selling of Post-Mao Beijing by Anne-Marie Good Cities, Better Lives: How Europe discovered the lost art of
Broudehoux urbanism by Peter Hall
Planning Middle Eastern Cities: An urban kaleidoscope in a The Planning Imagination: Peter Hall and the study of urban and
globalizing world edited by Yasser Elsheshtawy regional planning edited by Mark Tewdwr-Jones, Nicholas
Globalizing Taipei: The political economy of spatial development Phelps and Robert Freestone
edited by Reginald Yin-Wang Kwok Garden Cities of Tomorrow? A new future for cottage estates by
New Urbanism and American Planning: The conflict of cultures by Martin Crookston (paperback 2016)
Emily Talen Sociable Cities: The 21st-century reinvention of the Garden City by
Remaking Chinese Urban Form: Modernity, scarcity and space. Peter Hall and Colin Ward
1949–2005 by Duanfang Lu Modernization, Urbanization and Development in Latin America,
Planning Twentieth Century Capital Cities edited by David L.A. 1900s–2000s by Arturo Almandoz
Gordon Planning the Great Metropolis: The 1929 Regional Plan of New York
Planning the Megacity: Jakarta in the twentieth century by and Its Environs by David A. Johnson (paperback 2015)
Christopher Silver Remaking the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge: A case of
Designing Australia’s Cities: Culture, commerce and the city beautiful, shadowboxing with nature by Karen Trapenberg Frick (paperback
1900–1930 by Robert Freestone 2016)
Ordinary Places, Extraordinary Events: Citizenship, democracy and Great British Plans: Who made them and how they worked by Ian
urban space in Latin America edited by Clara Irazábal (paperback Wray
2015) Homeland: Zionism as a housing regime, 1860–2011 by Yael
The Evolving Arab City: Tradition, modernity and urban development Allweil
edited by Yasser Elsheshtawy Olympic Cities: City agendas, planning and the world’s games 1896–
Stockholm: The making of a metropolis by Thomas Hall 2020, 3rd edition edited by John R. Gold and Margaret M.
Dubai: Behind an urban spectacle by Yasser Elsheshtawy (paper- Gold
back 2013) Globalizing Seoul: The city’s cultural and urban change by Jieheerah
Capital Cities in the Aftermath of Empires: Planning in central and Yun
southeastern Europe edited by Emily Gunzburger Makaš and Planning Metropolitan Australia edited by Stephen Hammnet
Tanja Damljanović Conley (paperback 2015) and Robert Freestone
Lessons in Post-War Reconstruction: Case studies from Lebanon in the Trajectories of Conflict and Peace: Jerusalem and Belfast since 1994
aftermath of the 2006 war edited by Howayda Al-Harithy by Scott A. Bollens
Orienting Istanbul: Cultural capital of Europe? edited by Deniz Planning Abu Dhabi: An urban history by Alamira Reem Bani
Göktürk, Levent Soysal and İpek Türel Hashim
Olympic Cities: City agendas, planning and the world’s games 1896–
2016, 2nd edition edited by John R. Gold and Margaret M.
Gold
PLANNING ABU DHABI: AN URBAN HISTORY • iii
PLANNING ABU DHABI
An Urban History
Alamira Reem Bani Hashim
iv • PLANNING ABU DHABI: AN URBAN HISTORY
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Alamira Reem Bani Hashim
This book was commissioned and edited by Alexandrine Press, Marcham, Oxfordshire
The right of the author has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of
the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability
for any errors or omissions that may be made.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record of this book has been requested
Typeset in Aldine and Swiss by PNR Design, Didcot
ISBN: 978–1–138–30030–9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978–0–203–73241–0 (ebk)
PLANNING ABU DHABI: AN URBAN HISTORY • v
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgements xi
Chapter 1 The Construction of an Urban Past 1
The Scope of the Book 5
Existing Literature and Contribution 8
Structure of the Book 12
Chapter 2 From the Hinterland to the Coast: Origins of an Urban Identity
(1761–1960) 15
Early Settlement 15
Tribes in the Sheikhdom 20
The Traditional Economy 23
Increasing British Interests 24
Chapter 3 Maintaining the Status Quo (1960–1966) 31
Shakhbut’s Abu Dhabi: A Bedouin Town 32
The Foundations of Modern Governance 35
Plans of the Experts: An Oil Export Station 48
Arish Village 65
New Era, New Man 81
Chapter 4 The Emergence of a Modern City (1966–2004) 85
Sheikh Zayed’s Abu Dhabi: Green, Modern, and for the People 85
New Government 92
Plans of the Experts: Human City, Modern City 107
The Modern City Built Twice Over 138
Son of a Bedouin, Father of a Nation 159
Chapter 5 Building the Global, Sustainable Arab Capital City (2004–2016) 165
Sheikh Khalifa’s New Vision for Abu Dhabi and the Sharing of Responsibilities with
Sheikh Mohamed 165
Abu Dhabi’s New Economy and Government Restructuring 170
Plan Abu Dhabi 2030: The Smooth-Flowing Human Eco-City 195
Abu Dhabi Metropolitan 219
Towards Abu Dhabi Vision 2030 234
Chapter 6 Conclusion 239
A Lesson in Planning 241
Appendix A: Methodology 247
Appendix B: Interview List 249
vi • PLANNING ABU DHABI: AN URBAN HISTORY
Appendix C: Al Nahyan Family Tree 251
Appendix D: Abu Dhabi Areas Map 252
Appendix E: New and Upcoming Developments (2004–present) 253
References 254
Index 265
PLANNING ABU DHABI: AN URBAN HISTORY • vii
Preface
I could not resist writing this book. When I was a graduate student of urban
planning – a field that was relatively unpopular and unfamiliar to many in my
community at that time – I landed an internship in the entity that was later to
become the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC), the first of its kind
in the Arab Gulf region. As one of the first eight employees of the council, one
of my responsibilities was unboxing and filing pile upon pile of development
project documents. As I did so, it quickly became evident that there was a unique
planning history to unearth – Abu Dhabi’s built environment did not come out of
nowhere. Planning future urban development, the task faced by the leadership and
the small planning team, depended on understanding the past: the origins of the
city’s physical form; who the most influential decision-makers were; what urban
policies and institutions directed growth; and what political, economic, social and
environmental factors dictated the course of planning the emirate.
I spent the next ten years studying and writing the urban history of Abu Dhabi.
For most of that time I was a PhD candidate at the University of California,
Berkeley, which gave me greater understanding of many aspects of urban planning,
design and governance. I continued to spend my summers as an intern at the
UPC, working on the development review with urban design teams and engaging
in workshops with developers, reviewing project proposals and contributing to
design guidelines for some of the city’s most significant sites.
In 2015, I joined the UPC as a fulltime employee and became involved in
larger master plans such as Al Maryah Island, Reem Island and Saadiyat Island.
This gave me insight into the planning system and culture that was slowly coming
to life in Abu Dhabi.
As an Emirati, I felt connected to the story. Growing up in Abu Dhabi, I
witnessed first-hand the changes in its built environment as a result of changing
rulers, policies and economic strategies, particularly during the latter part of
Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan’s rule and that of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al
Nahyan. My family lived in one of the oldest residential areas in Abu Dhabi along
the city’s main waterfront, the Corniche. The residential compound belonged to
the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (ADCO) where my father
was employed for over thirty years. ADCO, now ADNOC Onshore, which was
previously Abu Dhabi Petroleum Company or Petroleum Development (Trucial
Coast), a subsidiary of Iraq Petroleum, had built the compound for its oilmen and
viii • PLANNING ABU DHABI: AN URBAN HISTORY
their families in 1966. (The compound was redeveloped in 1997, but still retains
some its older features.) In 2014, almost 25 years after watching the city grow
from my bedroom window, my family moved to our newly built home in Khalifa
City. Our move illustrates the changes that have taken place in Abu Dhabi over
the last decade, as urban development expanded from Abu Dhabi Island onto the
mainland.
While this book is, in essence, a qualitative account, the framework guiding it
emerged from the three different approaches I employed to examine Abu Dhabi’s
urban history: archival research, key interviews, and spatial mapping. Further
information on my methodology is given in Appendix A, but in short, I used a
number of primary archival sources such as letters and reports written by British
political agents and tribal sheikhs, public documents, and archival images, as well
as complementary sources including historic maps, official planning documents,
print materials (information pamphlets, newspapers and magazines) and online
resources. To provide an insight into the process that could not be gained from
archival records alone, I conducted in-depth interviews with forty key figures
linked to Abu Dhabi’s urban development since the 1960s, returning to some of
them more than once. These interviews gave me greater insight into the planning,
politics, and ‘ways of doing’ things in Abu Dhabi over the last five to six decades.
Finally, I created spatial maps depicting Abu Dhabi’s urban fabric. These enabled
me to conduct systematic spatial observation of significant urban interventions.
Comparative analysis of these maps allowed me to assess, fifty years after the
discovery of oil, the imprint of these transformations to the city’s landscape.
The range of resources on which I drew was intended to provide the greatest
possible accuracy and insight. However, as with any historic review, there are
limitations. First, most of the archival records of the Trucial States, the first period
reviewed in the book, are the product of foreigners (mainly British) who came
to the Arab Gulf for a few years and reported on events as they saw them. Many,
if not all, depended on translators for their written communication with tribal
rulers and their civil servants, which alone lends itself to some bias. Also, illiteracy
was rampant in the region at that time, thus there are few records written by Abu
Dhabians.
For the period covering Sheikh Shakhbut’s regime and the early part of
Sheikh Zayed’s, a considerable amount of planning-related information was
either destroyed or left undocumented. From the 1970s onwards, record-keeping
frequently involved handwritten, ‘unfiled’ paperwork. Only in the early 2000s,
when the Abu Dhabi government announced its aspirations to become one of
the top governments in the world, was the significance of databases appreciated.
Even then, however, it was still difficult to gain access to information. Perhaps, as
some of the government employees I interviewed indicated, the decentralization
of planning and the emergence of new governing bodies created competition
between them in which information became a protected resource. Acquiring GIS
layers and specific project information, which would have significantly added
PLANNING ABU DHABI: AN URBAN HISTORY • ix
to my spatial mapping exercises, was especially problematic. As a result, I had to
create all the morphological maps included in this book from scratch by overlaying
and tracing the different maps I managed to obtain.
More importantly, as a voice from within the local culture, I acknowledge that
there may be some limitation regarding whether I have sufficient critical distance as
a researcher. I would argue that the questions posed in this book are not the result of
a long-distance, detached inquiry, but of my long-time personal relationship with
the city, not only through work experience but also, and essentially, as a citizen and
resident of Abu Dhabi. Moreover, as an Emirati researcher, I was able to gain access
to documents and interviewees more easily than if I had been an outsider. This is
because many interviewees said they were keen to see Abu Dhabi’s urban history
written by an Emirati national and were therefore more forthcoming than they
might have been to ‘outsiders’. Many, particularly those who provided information
on the most recent period, were people who knew me and so were comfortable
discussing matters openly with me. At the same time, I am aware that as an Emirati
national writing about Abu Dhabi there will be questions about my objectivity and
ability to disentangle my own voice from those of the participants. Indeed, at times
I found myself confronted with role duality, as I struggled to balance my insider
and researcher roles. As an Emirati planner familiar with the setting and with some
of the interviewees, it was a challenge to analyse the data from a solely research
perspective, but throughout I have attempted to do so.
Also, it is common knowledge that some issues are taboo and criticism of those
in positions of power may lead to unfavourable consequences. Although I veered
away from in-depth investigation of controversial topics, I make mention of some of
them (e.g. labour camps, and the fact that Abu Dhabi comprises a large proportion
of expatriates) throughout the book, if only to show that I am aware of them. I
have attempted to analyse the three main periods of Abu Dhabi’s development
by presenting facts and allowing the historical accounts to speak for themselves
through a narrative built up from documentation of the actions and statements of
the officials and experts involved, including those presented by my interviewees.
This was difficult to achieve in the more recent era, particularly because outside
the state-controlled media, there is sparse information on the current leadership:
whatever material I discuss in relation to this is gathered from official speeches,
websites and documents. While I try to analyse these as impartially as possible,
I may have unintentionally lost my own voice and become an advocate for the
ideological frameworks represented. To remedy this, I rely on the critiques drawn
out by my informants with regard to implementation of plans and policies and
attempt some critical reflection of my own.
I have shared parts of my research in book chapters or articles published
during the last few years. Parts of Chapters 2, 3 and 4 were published as ‘The
history of planning residential neighbourhoods in Abu Dhabi: 1961–1990’, in
Elsheshtawy, Yasser (ed.) Transformations: The Emirati National House. La Biennale di
Venezia: National Pavilion United Arab Emirates, 2016. Sections of Chapter 5
