Agatino Rizzo

Declining, transition and slow rural territories in southern Italy Characterizing the intra-rural divides

ABSTRACT As metropolitan areas around the world keep expanding, behind them, rural areas continue to be affected by greater rates of depopulation. This is not a new phenomenon: rural to urban migration has been reported in the developed world at least from the period between the two world wars. However, recent rural depopulation trends have dramatically intensified in both the developed and the developing countries worldwide. In planning literature, greater emphasis is placed on the “urban–rural” divide, that is, people leaving the countryside to look for better opportunities in urban areas. However, a growing body of literature points to the fact that not all rural areas are declining at the same rate. Indeed, some rural towns have managed to retain population and even to grow. Therefore, at least in developed countries, an “intra-rural” divide notion is emerging. To exemplify this notion, we have studied rural towns in Southern Italy.

Conceiving transit space in Singapore/Johor: a research agenda for the Strait Transnational Urban Region (STUR)

Between Singapore and Johor Bahru (JB) about 30,000–50,000 people cross the Johor Strait during weekdays to enjoy better wages in Singapore; vice versa during the weekends Singaporeans enjoy the high purchasing value of the Singaporean dollar over Malaysian goods and entertainment. These cross-border dynamics affect many strata of the local social geography and, therefore, the economic dynamics of this region. Johor–Singapore is indeed a rapidly emerging transnational urban region in Southeast Asia. Recent plans are being implemented in Johor to move up the value chain from the industrial to the knowledge sector. Iskandar Malaysia is a vision which aims to reinvent JB as a centre for leisure, high-tech production and the knowledge industry. But to what extent can urban planning contribute to achieving at least part of such targets is the focus of this article, set in the frame of a wider transnational urban region? With the intensification of planned gated communities, extensive land privatization and increasing infrastructure investment to support a car-based urban development, the risk for JB is to move away from its original, noble purposes. To unfold the transnational urban issues of this region, we propose investigating its transit space. In a comparative manner, in this article we show how problems such as perceived lack of safety, ineffective public transport, splintered urban developments, scarce environmental sustainability and extreme privatization of land and services are all aspects which can be better managed by planning a good transit space. Last but not the least, improving Malaysian transit space will facilitate intercultural dialogue among the different, Malaysian ethnic groups in the spirit of the recent governments motto of ‘1Malaysia’.

Why Knowledge Megaprojects Will Fail to Transform Gulf Countries in Post-Carbon Economies: The Case of Qatar

ABSTRACT In the last two decades, resource cities of the Arab Gulf Region have been known to urban scholars and the general public for their extravagant, large-scale urban developments. These so-called megaprojects have allowed Gulf governments to both brand their nations globally and compete regionally and internationally with other global economic centers. However, as oil-rich Gulf countries have attempted to diversify their revenue stream away from fossil fuels, a new urban typology has emerged in their capitals to facilitate the transition to the knowledge-intensive economy. In continuity with previous research on megaprojects in the Gulf and Asian countries, we have called this new typology Knowledge Megaprojects (KMs). In this paper, by using as a reference point for comparisons the existing literature on knowledge developments in the West, we set to exemplify KMs in the Gulf region by analyzing the case of Education City—a large knowledge campus being developed by the Qatari government in Doha. One main result of this study is that KMs replicate the same shortcomings of other more mundane, extravagant megaprojects and thus are unlikely to provide the right urban setting to foster a sustainable transition to the post-carbon economy in the Gulf.

Sustainable urban development and green megaprojects in the Arab states of the Gulf Region: limitations, covert aims, and unintended outcomes in Doha, Qatar

ABSTRACT Over the last decade, governments of the small Arab emirates in the Gulf region have invested billions of dollars in an attempt to foster rapid growth in their capital cities: the results have been truly dramatic and many of the urban centres in the region have been physically transformed. One interesting aspect of this growth is the fact that rhetoric about sustainability has apparently gained traction in the region, as evidenced by a plethora of urban megaprojects that are all carefully branded as green and sustainable. Urban developments in the Gulf have stimulated a spate of scholarly literature in a number of disciplines, and the debates are ongoing; this article will contribute to the discussion in several ways. It begins with a description of recent economic developments in the Gulf, and goes on to explore and expand the modern phenomenon of ‘instant urbanism’ as it applies to the region. We then compare two notable megaprojects in Doha and one in Abu Dhabi, closely analysing the rhetoric of sustainable urban development that surrounds each. We show the limitations of this rhetoric and uncover the covert aims of these projects, and suggest some of their unintended outcomes.

Predatory cities: unravelling the consequences of resource-predatory projects in the global South

ABSTRACT In this paper, we outline a framework to study what we have termed “Predatory Cities”, using the artificial offshore island of The Pearl in Qatar as a case study. By focusing on the nexus between urbanisation and resources, we will argue that the master-planning of new cities in the booming global South implies both the access and cheap exploitation of a set of, on the one hand, intangible and, on the other hand, tangible resources that exceed the traditional boundaries. Our point of departure is that the cheap appropriation and exploitation of alien architecture images and resource networks for the making of new, master-planned cities has become a necessary, but highly unsustainable, strategy to survive an increasingly competitive global offering of new destinations.