The Evolving Arab City: Tradition, Modernity & Urban Development (Planning, History and Environment)

329 Pages·2008·9.2 MB·English

by  Yasser Elshesht

THE EVOLVING ARAB CITY: TRADITION, MODERNITY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT (cid:127) i
THE EVOLVING ARAB CITY
Tradition, Modernity and Urban Development
ii (cid:127) THE EVOLVING ARAB CITY: TRADITION, MODERNITY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
Planning, History and Environment Series
Editor:
Emeritus Professor Dennis Hardy, Poundbury, UK
Editorial Board:
Professor Arturo Almandoz, Universidad Simón Bolivar, Caracas, Venezuela
Professor Nezar AlSayyad, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Emeritus Professor Gregory Andrusz, London, UK
Professor Robert Bruegmann, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
Professor Meredith Clausen, University of Washington, Seattle, USA
Professor Jeffrey W. Cody, Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles, USA
Professor Robert Freestone, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Professor Sir Peter Hall, University College London, UK
Professor Peter Larkham, University of Central England, Birmingham, UK
Emeritus Professor Anthony Sutcliffe, Nottingham, UK
Technical Editor
Ann Rudkin, Alexandrine Press, Marcham, Oxon, UK
Published titles
Selling Places: The marketing and promotion of Remaking Chinese Urban Form: Modernity,
towns and cities, 1850–2000 by Stephen V. Ward scarcity and space, 1949–2005 by Duanfang Lu
Changing Suburbs: Foundation, form and function Planning Twentieth Century Capital Cities edited
edited by Richard Harris and Peter Larkham by David L.A. Gordon
The Australian Metropolis: A planning history
edited by Stephen Hamnett and Robert Titles published 2007
Freestone Olympic Cities: City agendas, planning, and the
Utopian England: Community experiments 1900– world’s games, 1896–2012 edited by John R.
1945 by Dennis Hardy Gold and Margaret M. Gold
Urban Planning in a Changing World: The Planning the Megacity: Jakarta in the twentieth
twentieth century experience edited by Robert century by Christopher Silver
Freestone Designing Australia’s Cities: Culture, commerce
Twentieth-Century Suburbs: A morphological and the city beautiful, 1900–1930 by Robert
approach by J.W.R. Whitehand and C.M.H. Freestone
Carr
Titles published 2008
Council Housing and Culture: The history of a
Ordinary Places, Extraordinary Events:
social experiment by Alison Ravetz
Citizenship, democracy and urban space in Latin
Planning Latin America’s Capital Cities, 1850–
America edited by Clara Irazábal
1950 edited by Arturo Almandoz
The Evolving Arab City: Tradition, modernity
Exporting American Architecture, 1870 –2000 by
and urban development edited by Yasser
Jeffrey W. Cody
Elsheshtawy
Planning by Consent: The origins and nature of
Stockholm: The making of a metropolis by
British development control by Philip Booth
Thomas Hall
The Making and Selling of Post-Mao Beijing by
Urban Coding and Planning edited by Stephen
Anne-Marie Broudehoux
Marshall
Planning Middle Eastern Cities: An urban
The Making of Hong Kong: From vertical to
kaleidoscope in a globalizing world edited by
volumetric edited by Barrie Shelton, Justyna
Yasser Elsheshtawy
Karakiewicz and Thomas Kvan
Globalizing Taipei: The political economy of spatial
Dubai: An emerging urbanity? by Yasser
development edited by Reginald Yin-Wang Kwok
Elsheshtawy
New Urbanism and American Planning: The
confl ict of cultures by Emily Talen
THE EVOLVING ARAB CITY: TRADITION, MODERNITY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT (cid:127) iii
THE EVOLVING ARAB CITY
Tradition, Modernity and Urban Development
edited by
Yasser Elsheshtawy
First published in 2008
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 2008 Selection and editorial material: Yasser Elsheshtawy: individual chapters: the contributors
This book was commissioned and edited by Alexandrine Press, Marcham, Oxfordshire
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised 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.
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
Elsheshtawy, Yasser.
The evolving Arab city : tradition, modernity and urban development / edited by Yasser
Elsheshtawy.
p. cm. — (Planning, history and environment series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–415–41156–1 (alk. paper)
1. City planning—Arab countries. 2. Cities and towns—Arab countries. I. Elsheshtawy, Yasser.
HT147.5.E86 2008
307.1’21609174927—dc22
2008001567
ISBN 0-203-69679-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0–415–41156–4 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–69679–4 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–41156–1 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–69679–8 (ebk)
THE EVOLVING ARAB CITY: TRADITION, MODERNITY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT (cid:127) v
Contents
Preface vii
Illustration Credits and Sources ix
The Contributors xi
1 The Great Divide: Struggling and Emerging Cities in the Arab World 1
Yasser Elsheshtawy
2 The New Arab Metropolis: A New Research Agenda 27
Fuad K. Malkawi
Part I The Struggling Arab City
3 Amman: Disguised Genealogy and Recent Urban Restructuring and
Neoliberal Threats 37
Rami Farouk Daher
4 From Regional Node to Backwater and Back to Uncertainty: Beirut, 1943–2006 69
Sofi a T. Shwayri
5 Rabat: From Capital to Global Metropolis 99
Jamila Bargach
Part II The Emerging Arab City
6 Riyadh: A City of ‘Institutional’ Architecture 118
Mashary A. Al-Naim
7 Kuwait: Learning from a Globalized City 152
Yasser Mahgoub
8 Manama: The Metamorphosis of a Gulf City 184
Mustapha Ben Hamouche
9 Rediscovering the Island: Doha’s Urbanity from Pearls to Spectacle 218
Khaled Adham
10 Cities of Sand and Fog: Abu Dhabi’s Arrival on the Global Scene 258
Yasser Elsheshtawy
Index 305
vi (cid:127) THE EVOLVING ARAB CITY: TRADITION, MODERNITY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
From our thousand year old sleep
From our crippled history
Comes a sun without ritual
To the country that’s dug into our lives like graves
To the drugged and murdered country
And kills the shaikh of the sand and locusts
Time grows on its plains
Time withers on its plains
Like mushrooms
A sun that kills and destroys
Appears over the bridge
Adonis, Prophecy
If I had in my dreams and mirrors
a haven
If I had a ship
If I had the remains
of a city
If I had a city
In a country of children and weeping
I’d have made out of all this for the wound
A song like a spear
Piercing trees, stones and heaven
And soft as water
Amazing and overpowering like a conquest
Adonis, The Wound
THE EVOLVING ARAB CITY: TRADITION, MODERNITY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT (cid:127) vii
Preface
The Tate Modern restaurant in London seems an unusual setting for contemplating
the fate of Arab cities but this is where Ann Rudkin – the technical editor of
the Planning, History and Environment series – suggested I work on a second
volume to accompany Planning Middle Eastern Cities (Routledge, 2004). The idea
was to include cities that were not part of the initial collection. While the fi rst
book received positive reviews, my reservations centred around fi nding qualifi ed
authors from the Arab world. As is the case with any endeavour in this region there
are numerous diffi culties and hurdles to consider. These thoughts were, however,
soon forgotten while trying to decipher, and enjoy, the culinary presentations.
Yet ultimately and during the IASTE (International Association for the Study of
Traditional Environments) 2004 conference in Sharjah and after consulting with
several colleagues, I decided to go ahead. Many of the authors in this collection
are in fact colleagues whom I met during various IASTE conferences – and the
theoretical orientations, themes and constructs evoked during these different
meetings have shaped some of the approaches that they have taken.
While working on the introduction to the present book and trying to elaborate
on common themes, I was invited by the UN-ESCWA (Economic and Social
Commission of Western Asia) to write a report on the status of the Arab city. This
proved to be particularly timely since being involved in this endeavour helped
me to crystallize some thoughts which are refl ected in my introduction here.
Specifi cally, the emergence of a ‘great rift’ in the Arab world, which is currently
intensifying with potentially disastrous consequences, proved to be a narrative
thread linking the chapters. As part of that effort I was also invited to participate
in a regional meeting in Kuwait in December 2007 dealing with ‘Equitable Cities’.
The presence of American soldiers in full gear in the arrival hall of Kuwait Airport,
as well as the discussions of the meeting itself which brought together social
scientists, policy-makers and activists, highlighted the contradictions, problems
and denials which exist to varying degrees in the Arab world’s urban centres
– which one participant characterized as a ‘crisis’.
I would like to thank all contributors for their efforts in writing these chapters,
and in their timely response to my queries. Also, the social policy team from
ESCWA for giving me an opportunity to share my views with a wider Arab
audience. I also would like to thank some of the commentators on an early draft
of this book, particularly Janet Abu-Lughod whose poignant comments pointed
viii (cid:127) THE EVOLVING ARAB CITY: TRADITION, MODERNITY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
me to some alternative venues with regard to global cities. In addition, special
recognition should be given to the United Arab Emirates University and my
colleagues at the Department of Architecture for their support and help during
the writing of this book. And fi nally, my particular thanks and deep appreciation
to Ann Rudkin for her diligent effort in editing this collection, and for keeping
everyone on ‘track’.
Yasser Elsheshtawy
Al-Ain, January 2008
THE EVOLVING ARAB CITY: TRADITION, MODERNITY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT (cid:127) ix
Illustration Credits and Sources
The editor, contributors and publisher would like to thank all those who have
granted permission to reproduce illustrations. We have made every effort to
contact and acknowledge copyright holders, but if any errors have been made we
would be very happy to correct them at a later printing.
Chapter 1
1.1–1.14 © Yasser Elsheshtawy
Chapter 3
3.1–3.5 © Rami Daher
3.6 © Ahmed Humeid
Chapter 4
4.1 © Sofi a T. Shwayri
4.3 By courtesy of Middle East Airlines
4.4–4.5 Source: Les Libanais et La Vie au Liban
4.7 By courtesy of AlHayat Newspaper
4.8 © Stavro Jabbra
4.9 By courtesy of Solidere
4.10 © Sofi a T. Shwayri
Chapter 5
5.1–5.5 © Jamila Bargach
Chapter 6
6.1–6.2 By courtesy of Saudi Aramco
6.3 By courtesy of the Saudi Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs
6.4 Source: Palgrave (1865)
6.5–6.6 By courtesy of Arriyadh Development Authority
6.7 By courtesy of the Saudi Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs
6.8–6.9 © Mashary A. Al-Naim
6.10–6.20 By courtesy of Arriyadh Development Authority