The Elusive Dubai Lessons in planned development for fast growing cities A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of The University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Community Planning in the School of Planning of the College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning by Venkata Krishna Kumar Matturi B.Arch. Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur June 2012 Committee Chair: Mahyar Arefi, Ph.D Committee Member: Udo Greinacher, M.Arch Abstract Increase in urbanization through globalization and population explosion has resulted in rapidly growing cities in the past few decades. Driven by market forces and moneyed interests, cities are placing larger emphasis on economic development. This increasing trend had resulted in a dramatic change in urban morphology and vernacular urban fabric is being replaced by a ‘global urban form’ that has become a commonplace around the world. Dubai, a regional financial hub and a global city, rose to prominence in a matter of few decades. Started as a mere fishing village, it has managed to modernize and build itself to global prominence. Its meteoric rise has resulted in a dramatic transformation in its physical form through single minded determination and careful planning. This research explores the impact of rapid growth on Dubai's urban form and its implications on creating an ‘Elusive Dubai’. This research also investigates the phenomenon of elusiveness in major land uses of Dubai through the analysis of surveyed data collected prior to this research. Furthermore, it attempts to draw lessons for planned rapid urban growth in cities through Dubai’s model of urbanization. ii © Copyright by Venkata Krishna Kumar Matturi, 2012 All Rights Reserved iii Acknowledgements I am gratefully indebted to my committee chair, Dr. Mahyar Arefi for the excellent support he has extended throughout this research. I express my heartfelt gratitude to him for giving an opportunity to work on this challenging research and for standing by my side as a friend and a teammate in all my difficulties and molding this work into a brain stimulating experience. I am indeed privileged to work with him in bringing out this thesis work. I would like to thank my committee member, Prof. Udo Greinacher for taking time in evaluating this research and providing me with valuable suggestions. I am grateful to Jamie C Lemon for her help, support, and motivation throughout this process and being such an unselfish friend in making my stressful moments bearable. Additionally, the friendship extended by my classmates and DAAPmates, especially Grace Ford, Yoonsun Chang, and Mike Westrate, is affectionately acknowledged and thank all of them for their valuable insights. Finally, the love and support given by my parents and brother Kiran is invaluable, as they have always given me strength and support to follow my dreams and turned my doubts of failure into desires of success. iv Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................. iv Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................viii 1. Dynamics of Modern Cities ......................................................................................................................... 1 Globalization and Urban Change ................................................................................................................... 3 Rapid Growth in Cities ....................................................................................................................................... 6 The Singapore Experience ............................................................................................................................. 10 History .......................................................................................................................................................... 11 Urban Renewal Program ...................................................................................................................... 13 Modernization, Rapid Urban Growth and Impacts ................................................................... 15 2. Emergence of Dubai .................................................................................................................................... 19 Sands of Time ....................................................................................................................................................... 19 Oil and Economy ................................................................................................................................................. 23 The City of Ambition ......................................................................................................................................... 26 3. The Elusive Dubai ......................................................................................................................................... 31 The Concept of Elusiveness ........................................................................................................................... 32 Research Methodology .................................................................................................................................... 34 Framework for Elusiveness ........................................................................................................................... 36 Malls vs. Souqs .......................................................................................................................................... 37 New Residential Neighborhoods vs. Old Residential Neighborhoods .............................. 38 New Public Spaces vs. Old Public Spaces ....................................................................................... 39 Types and Scales of Elusiveness ........................................................................................................ 40 4. Types of Elusiveness ................................................................................................................................... 41 Behavior ................................................................................................................................................................. 42 Conflict .......................................................................................................................................................... 42 Cooperation ................................................................................................................................................ 44 Competition ................................................................................................................................................ 46 Activities ................................................................................................................................................................ 48 Types of activities .................................................................................................................................... 49 Demographics ............................................................................................................................................ 50 Time of Day ................................................................................................................................................. 52 v Form ......................................................................................................................................................................... 54 Authentic ..................................................................................................................................................... 55 Fake ................................................................................................................................................................ 57 Global ............................................................................................................................................................ 58 5. Scales of Elusiveness .................................................................................................................................. 61 Built Environment ............................................................................................................................................. 61 Grain of the fabric .................................................................................................................................... 62 Density .......................................................................................................................................................... 64 Diversity ....................................................................................................................................................... 66 Relationships ....................................................................................................................................................... 68 Physical / Spatial ...................................................................................................................................... 68 Social / Individual .................................................................................................................................... 70