Stephen J. Ramos - Dubai Amplified: The Engineering of a Port Geography

The Engineering of a Port Geography

STEPHEN J. RAMOS
Harvard University, USA

First published 2010 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright Stephen J. Ramos 2010

Stephen J. Ramos has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

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Ramos, Stephen J.

Dubai amplified : the engineering of a port geography. -- (Design and the built environment series)
1. Urbanization--United Arab Emirates--Dubayy (Emirate) 2. City planning--United Arab Emirates--Dubayy (Emirate) 3. Free ports and zones--United Arab Emirates--Dubayy (Emirate) 4. Economic development projects--United Arab Emirates--Dubayy (Emirate) 5. Infrastructure (Economics)-- United Arab Emirates--Dubayy (Emirate) 6. Dubayy (United Arab Emirates : Emirate)--Economic conditions.
I. Title II. Series
307.1'416'095357-dc22

Ramos, Stephen J.

Dubai amplified : the engineering of a port geography / by Stephen J. Ramos.

p. cm. -- (Design and the built environment)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4094-0822-2 (hbk) -- ISBN 978-1-3155-7824-8 (ebk) 1. Harbors--United Arab Emirates--Dubayy (Emirate) 2. Infrastructure (Economics)--United Arab Emirates--Dubayy (Emirate) I. Title.

HE560.D76R36 2010

387.1095357--dc22

2010020552

ISBN 9781409408222 (hbk)
ISBN 9781315578248 (ebk)
ISBN 9781317147602 (ebk-ePUB)

In writing this book, I reviewed the historic planning documents and literature on Dubais urban development, in which I identified important moments of this history that were missing from the extant literature. I conducted interviews over three trips to Dubai between February 2006 and April 2009 with those involved in this history, which also included trips to the archives of the Halcrow Group at their London and Swindon offices to conduct primary research. Halcrow has been involved with Dubais city building since its first engineering project of dredging the creek during the late 1950s, and continues to be an important player in its planning and development scenario.

The dearth of specific digital cartographic material and general socio-economic data was a challenge during the research, but one not uncommon to the region. As I explore in greater detail in Chapter Four, the Balkanization of planning in Dubai has created a series of semi-public regulatory agencies that now compete with one another, and in this competition, information becomes an important and protected resource. Many have discussed the challenges within the public sector of how to increase information sharing through information technology and trust (Salem and Jarrar 2009). Needless to say, if the challenge of information sharing occurs within agencies of the same public sector, acquiring such information as an external researcher becomes all the more problematic. The result has meant that the book was pushed toward a more qualitative methodology rather than an argument that relies heavily on quantitative information. The objective is that the arguments stand as a conceptual framework; sturdy and convincing enough to a point where additional quantitative and cartographic information would fit well and potentially reinforce it.

During the writing of this book, the international financial crisis greatly impacted and altered the development pace in Dubai. CityScapes, Dubais realestate trade show where it had grown accustomed to announcing its next grandiose project, as if to lay pioneering claims on the future, was noticeably calmer in 2009. Dubais pre-eminent real-estate developers, Nakheel and Emaar, even considered skipping the event altogether, which marked a clear change from previous years where they were billed as the main event.

As such, Dubai Amplified now becomes a way not only to understand its business and territorial development strategies over the past decade, but also how these strategies played a role in leading up to the present financial challenges. The enormous amount of online built environment in the buildings that line Sheikh Zayed Road are now orphaned until further notice. With the continued beneficence of Abu Dhabi, its capital neighbor, Dubai will resume its development, though likely in a more humbled, deferential fashion, at least for a while. The present moment offers an opportunity to look back at those elements, patterns, and infrastructural components that Dubai produced and that produced Dubai. Exactly what the future holds is particularly hard to predict, because such a demure Dubai is hard to imagine, as the confidence that anchored its previous borrowing and building have been significantly shaken. Dubais resilience to international economic downturn helped it through the 1980s, with the added benefit of luck of location. Conflict in the northern Gulf and Lebanon brought trade and business to its safer harbors, which happened to be located strategically along the route connecting Southeast Asian production with European markets. Many projects were then shelved that are only now being completed, including the new Al-Maktoum International Airport. It is possible that those projects announced so boldly at previous CityScapes but are now on hold may also returnpotentially in altered, more amplified iterations (see Dubai Metro). I will visit this issue more in the Conclusion, and I suggest readers be mindful of questions concerning Dubais future as they go exploring through its past.

Stephen J. Ramos
Cambridge, MA
September 30, 2010

This book was written with the help and input of more people than it is possible to thank here.

I would like to thank the members of my doctoral committee, Hashim Sarkis, Peter G. Rowe, Joan Busquets, and Roger Owen for their continued guidance, support, and advice, and for the many conversations that weve had over the past five years.