ABSTRACT

Presenting the current debate about cities in the Middle East from Sana’a, Beirut and Jerusalem to Cairo, Marrakesh and Gaza, the book explores urban planning and policy, migration, gender and identity as well as politics and economics of urban settings in the region.

This handbook moves beyond essentialist and reductive analyses of identity, urban politics, planning, and development in cities in the Middle East, and instead offers critical engagement with both historical and contemporary urban processes in the region. Approaching "Cities" as multi-dimensional sites, products of political processes, knowledge production and exchange, and local and global visions as well as spatial artefacts. Importantly, in the different case studies and theoretical approaches, there is no attempt to idealise urban politics, planning, and everyday life in the Middle East –– which (as with many other cities elsewhere) are also situations of contestation and violence –– but rather to highlight how cities in the region, and especially those which are understudied, revolve around issues of housing, infrastructure, participation and identity, amongst other concerns.

Analysing a variety of cities in the Middle East, the book is a significant contribution to Middle East Studies. It is an essential resource for students and academics interested in Geography, Regional and Urban Studies of the Middle East.

chapter 1|13 pages

Introduction

Cities in the Middle East: beyond "Middle Easternism"
ByHaim Yacobi, Mansour Nasasra

chapter 2|15 pages

In the Eyes of Some Britons

Aleppo, a cosmopolitan city
ByMohammad Sakhnini

chapter 3|16 pages

The Making of Tehran

The incremental encroachment of modernity
ByReza M. Shirazi, Somaiyeh Falahat

chapter 4|12 pages

Dotting Urban Spaces

Jewish survival politics in current Casablanca
ByAndré Levy

chapter 5|18 pages

Queer Urban Movements in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

A comparative discussion
ByChen Misgav, Gilly Hartal

chapter 6|14 pages

The Home in the Middle Eastern City

A contact zone of contradictory memories and belonging in Jaffa 1
ByTovi Fenster

chapter 7|15 pages

Gaza's Historical Cycles of Prosperity and Destruction

Is the present an aberration?
ByYasmeen El Khoudary

chapter 8|17 pages

Erasing Memories of Palestine in Settler-Colonial Urban Space

The case of Haifa
ByYara Hawari

chapter 9|15 pages

Beersheba and the Dynamics of a Palestinian City

Bedouin networks with Gaza, Jerusalem, and Istanbul
ByMansour Nasasra

chapter 10|17 pages

Understanding the Materiality of Suspicion

Affective politics in MENA cities
ByMark LeVine, Maria Frederika Malmström

chapter 11|12 pages

Borders, Boundaries, and Frontiers

On Jerusalem's present geopolitics
ByHaim Yacobi

chapter 12|12 pages

"A Demarcation in the Hearts"

Everyday urban frontiers in Beirut
BySara Fregonese

chapter 13|19 pages

Tourism and Urbanism in Iran

Top-down and ad hoc developments in the Caspian region
ByPamela Karimi

chapter 14|21 pages

The Politics of Building in Post-Revolution Tehran

ByAzadeh Mashayekhi

chapter 15|20 pages

Revisting Sana'a's Urban Planning and Development Challenges

ByWafa Al-Daily

chapter 16|9 pages

Marrakesh

A fresh perspective - moving from form-based planning 1 to a value-based approach
ByIqbal Khaiy

chapter 17|19 pages

Securitisation of Urban Electricity Supply

A political ecology perspective on the cases of Jordan and Lebanon
ByEric Verdeil

chapter 18|14 pages

The Rise of a Saharan City

Urban development, tribal settlement, and political unrest in Laâyoune
ByTara F. Deubel, Aomar Boum

chapter 19|16 pages

Rethinking "Buliding Resilience"

Conflict and the Middle East city
ByBruce Stanley

chapter 20|24 pages

Erasing Palimpsest City

Boom, bust, and urbicide in Turkey 1
ByKerem Öktem

chapter 21|15 pages

Hebron

Challenging the urbicide 1
ByMarion Lecoquierre

chapter 22|18 pages

The Impact of Internal Displacement in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Internally displaced people, interethnic relations, and social cohesion in Duhok
ByAlex Munoz, Kelsey Shanks

chapter 23|22 pages

Can Integration Offer Iraqi Refugees in Damascus a Durable Solution?

BySalam Arabi Katbi

chapter 24|16 pages

Growth, Aspiration, and Consolidation in Ramallah

ByKareem Rabie

chapter 25|16 pages

Political Economy of Tourism Development in the Gulf

The cases of Muscat and Doha
ByAngeline Turner