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URBAN PLANNING IN THE MIDDLE EAST Half of the population of the Middle East and North Africa lives in an urban setting, and yet the subject of urban planning and the future of cities in these regions is barely discussed in the media, or even in academic circles. Large-scale migration and globalization make the topic of cities even more important: it is in cities that these issues are discussed and governmental decisions are made to solve problems. It is important, also, to understand that “cities in the Middle East share much in their past and present development,” and therefore studies of specific cities can be applied—albeit cautiously—to understanding the dynamics of many other Middle Eastern cities.

Urban planning in the Middle East extends beyond the idea of the “Islamic city,” which can be thought of as a city defined by the “noticeable but limited impact of religion on spatial form.” In fact, issues to be dealt with in thinking about planning a Middle Eastern city can be extrapolated to city planning in other regions throughout the world: “Middle Eastern cities manifest the same tensions as cities of other regions between global markets and informal economies, state collectivism and privatization, tradition and modernity, religiosity and secularism, nationalism and universalism.”

HISTORY EARLY HISTORY The planning of Middle Eastern—and predominantly Muslim—cities was historically based on the location of water sources, a trait typical of most cities before the industrial revolution. The traditional Middle Eastern city sited the “Kasbah, citadel, or princely residence that was surrounded by ramparts or a city wall” based on the building’s relationship to the water. Agriculture served as the main economic support structure, and the main functions of the city were all located at the city center: “Through the center, with the mosque and adjoining schools and hospices there ran a market, or souk, traditionally with artisan crafts as well as commerce and public bathhouses.” An important characteristic of these cities, especially when compared with the traditional plan of a Western city, is that there was very limited outdoor public space for gathering. The traditional residential area was located on the periphery of this central zone, with inward-facing homes clearly delineating the transition between public and private space. It is also during this pre-industrial period that the traditional Arab religious buildings with “Arab-arched architecture, calligraphic decoration, and domed roofs,” were constructed. Because many of these buildings still exist today, we can understand that Islam has had and continues to have an effect on the visual—and therefore cultural and social—Middle Eastern city and its architectural identity. LATE OTTOMAN ERA The late Ottoman era can be considered the time period between the very end of the 18th century through the early years of the 20th century. During this period, European nations exercised a high level of influence—and even sometimes control—in the Middle East. “As a result, local cityscapes were envisioned through processes of adoption, adaptation, or resistance to increasingly global (European) models.” As the region became more integrated into the global economy, the development of port cities became a necessity, and cities like Alexandria, Beirut, and Izmir were established as important business and trade hubs. This resulted in a new elite class, and the members of the elite invested their newly acquired wealth in the development of “novel districts,” which also tended to reflect European styles of the late 19th century. THE RISE OF THE NATION-STATE As regions gained autonomy from the West, nation-states began to emerge throughout the Middle East. Local governments demonstrated a new consciousness of the importance of the urban environment, and they used the construction of national iconography, including various public monuments, to promote their new influence and power. The need for places to house new government and public service entities also led to new construction and expansion of cities throughout the Middle East. “Urban planning in this phase was often applied as a positivistic tool that modern societies use to organize space, distribute resources and to balance different interests for the benefit of society at large.” The introduction of practices like zoning and creation of more open public space was the physical manifestation of this new approach to the city. Autonomy from Western influence and colonial practices also led to a higher level of differentiation among Middle Eastern cities that reflected the wide range of identities that the extremely varied peoples and cultures were seeking to define. Scholars have written somewhat substantially on this subject, and it seems that there are at least four ‘modes of production’ that distinguish how Middle Eastern countries urbanized: First, in neocolonial states like Tunisia and Morocco, with primate ports, outsourced exports—a ‘new international putting-out system’—and tourism remained heavily dependent upon Europe. Second, state socialist or Baathist states like Algeria, Syria, and Iraq radically broke with past colonizers and instead developed command economies. Third, ‘charity cases,’ including Jordan, Egypt…Lebanon Israel, and Palestine, became dependent upon foreign aid, causing development to follow political considerations as much as the economic logic of tourism, finance, and culture. Fourth, the “Oil and Sand” states of the Gulf and Libya urbanized with the labor of “rent-a-slave’ guest workers, more South Asian than Palestinian, who are ethnically segregated from the natives and from the Westerners.

OIL AND GULF CITIES The relatively recent influx of money due to oil exportation in cities located on the gulf has led to uncontrolled, unplanned, and often unethical urban development. These cities, most notably Dubai and Abu Dhabi, could be considered display cases of modern architecture, and have a very apparent lack of consideration for the actual users of the cities. The goal of this development is in no way about cultural awareness, but rather about promoting an image of wealth and grandeur. The apparent level of carelessness with which the cities are actually planned and built becomes apparent when considering the socio-economic discrepancies between the upper class and the working class: “Stark inequalities between citizens of the Gulf states and foreign nationals, and class and ethnic differences among citizens shape urban social life in the gleaming new cities of the Arab emirates.”

BINARY CITIES With the influence of European colonization in the Middle East, a new type of city emerged. Already existing were the structures deemed necessary by the peoples and cultures that had been established in cities throughout the region over what was often hundreds—or more—of years. This idea of the old city was encroached upon by new structures and plans for what Westerners and local planners thought the city could become, creating a binary city wherein old was forced to mix with new. “The ‘old city’ stood for ‘tradition’ and ‘local’ life, [and] the new public buildings, commercial centers, and residential neighborhoods created an urban iconography of the imported ‘modern.’” However, the ‘modern’ never succeeded in replacing the ‘old city,’ as was the goal of some planners, but rather became integrated into what can best be described as “an amalgam of old and new, and as a mélange of global and local architectural tastes.”

CAIRO Cairo is an important case study of the development of the Middle Eastern city from the time of European ‘colonialism’ through the present day. “From the 1860s, modernization and Westernization under Ismail followed Haussman’s model, and new neighborhoods, public buildings, and public spaces resembled the latest Parisian fashion.” Cairo today is often seen as “the megacity of the Middle East.,” and embodies on a large scale many of the issues that other Middle Eastern cities are confronted with today. Cairo is one of many Middle Eastern cities greatly influenced by religious fundamentalists. Beginning in the 1970s, Islamicist group al Gamaa al Islamiya took a political interest in the Imbaba neighborhood of Cairo, and it took over the neighborhood by the 1980s. The reasons for this included the depressed state of the neighborhood: “Comprised of dilapidated public housing projects and squatter settlements, in the late 1970s, Imbaba was the site of bread riots triggered by IMF policies.” Al Gamaa al Islamiya provided many—almost all, in fact—social services that the community was lacking, including health care and education. In terms of the planning of the city, though, scholars argue that it had a negative impact in that it split the neighborhood into 10 sections, “each ruled by an ‘emir’ governing according to fundamentalist interpretations of Islam.” In 1992, after many years of governance, the Egyptian army invaded and ended the rule of al Gamaa al Islamiya.

BEIRUT The spatial, social, and political environment of Beirut in recent years is one that can be extrapolated and applied to other large Middle Eastern cities, including Cairo. In the case of Beirut, the Hezbollah, a group high on the US’s post 9-11 list of terrorist organizations, serves as the “de facto” state. In this role, it has greatly influenced the urban context of the city: “Its development programmes in the southern suburbs of Beirut include the provision of housing through its Jihad for Construction, education, medical services, water, sewage systems, and electricity.” It has also supported large scale and incredibly elaborate urban projects such as Solidere and Elyssar. Hezbollah has also adopted the role of “main mediator of housing rights for the Shiite poor,” meaning the organization has its hands in urban planning of the city on many scales and in many contexts.

ISRAEL/PALESTINE “Jewish settlements strategically located in the West Bank occupy the places on the hill, suburban enclaves separated from the much poorer Palestinian neighbours but also enjoying a vertical sovereignty of surveillance and infrastructure networks provided to them by the military apparatus of the Israeli state.” This implies what some scholars refer to as a “spatial governmentality.,” a structure made up of many gated enclaves that are basically governed by independent bodies. This organization of the West Bank urban/suburban environment is also a clear physical and spatial manifestation of the deep-rooted conflict between the two groups, and is reflective of the socio-economic hierarchy of this small region of the Middle East. JERUSALEM Jerusalem is one of many cities that was greatly influenced by their region’s past status as a British mandate. The British used ideas about space in the urban context of Jerusalem to demonstrate political control. Throughout the time that Jerusalem and Israel as a whole had its mandatory status, five master plans were designed by architects and planners around the world. The goal of these plans was to “enhance the city’s ‘holy’ appearance,”

RESPONSES TO DISPLACEMENT/MIGRATION In recent history, the trend toward globalization has uprooted the poorest members of the world’s community: “Scholars tracking the rise of neo-liberalism, the free market ideologies that took hold in the 1980s, draw attention to how the entrepreneurial redevelopment of cities is accompanied by a set of vicious policies that speed up the displacement of the urban poor.” This displacement has led to the development of expansive slums on the periphery of cities and/or the migration of family members to cities that promise more lucrative employment. Scholars, in discussing this phenomenon, have come up with a useful working definition of displacement and the resulting resettlement of peoples: “the process of collective dislocation and/or settlement of people away from their normal habitat by a superior force. The dislocation and settlement can be a permanent or temporary one; ‘normal habitat’ must be determined by investigating the subjective definition of the people involved; and the superior force can act directly or indirectly to cause this process.” The more recent boom in oil exporting in the Middle East has resulted in huge amounts of new construction, especially in the cities that benefit most from the oil-based economy. This has led to a multitude of problems, and the necessity of careful urban planning for the future has become very apparent. It has also led to large-scale migration of single family members from nations that export little or no oil to these cities, and the workers’ remittances they send home have resulted in higher rates of land purchasing and building and therefore the expansion of cities and development of rural areas.