1st Edition
Routledge Handbook on Middle East Cities
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.
1. Introduction: cities in the Middle East: beyond "Middle Easternism" Haim Yacobi and Mansour Nasasra 2. In the eyes of some Britons: Aleppo, a cosmpolitan city Mohammad Sakhnini 3. The making of Tehran: the incremental encroachment of modernity M. Reza Shirazi and Somaiyeh Falahat 4. Dotting urban spaces: Jewish survival politics in current Casablanca André Levy 5. Queer urban movements in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem: a comparative discussion Chen Misgav And Gilly Hartal 6. The home in The Middle Eastern city: a contact zone of contradictory memories and belonging in Jaffa Tovi Fenster 7.Gaza’s historical cycles of prosperity and sestruction: Is the present an aberration? Yasmeen El Khoudary 8. Erasing memories of Palestine in settler-colonial urban space: the case of Haifa Yara Hawari 9. Beersheba and the dynamics of a Palestinian city: Bedouin networks with Gaza, Jerusalem and Istanbul Mansour Nasasra 10. Understanding the materiality of suspicion: affective politics in MENA cities Mark Levine and Maria Frederika Malmström 11. Borders, boundaries and frontiers: on Jerusalem’s present geopolitics Haim Yacobi 12. "A Demarcation in the Hearts": everyday urban frontiers in Beirut Sara Fregonese 13. Tourism and urbanism in Iran: top-down and ad hoc developments in the Caspian region Pamela Karimi 14. The politics of building in post-Revolution Tehran Azadeh Meshayekhi 15. Revisiting Sana’a’s urban planning and development challenges Wafa Al-Daily 16. Marrakesh: a fresh perspective – moving from a form-based planning to a value-based approach Iqbal Khaiy 17. Securitisation of urban electricity supply: a political ecology perspective on the cases of Jordan and Lebanon Eric Verdeil 18. The rise of a Saharan city: urban development, tribal settlement, and political unrest in Laâyoune Tara F. Deubel and Aomar Boum 19. Rethinking "building resilience": conflict and the Middle East city Bruce Stanley 20. Erasing palimpsest city: boom, bust and urbicide in Turkey Kerem Öktem 21. Hebron: challenging the urbicide Marion Lecoquierre 22. The impact of internal displacement in the Kurdistan region of Iraq; internally displaced people, interethnic relations and social cohesion in Duhok Alex Munoz and Kelsey Shanks 23. Can integration offer Iraqi refugees in Damascus a durable solution? Salam Arabi Katbi 24. Growth, aspiration, and consolidation in Ramallah Kareem Rabie 25. Political economy of tourism development in The Gulf: the cases of Muscat and Doha Angeline Turner
Biography
Haim Yacobi is a Professor of Development Planning at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London. In 1999 he formulated the idea of establishing "Bimkom – Planners for Planning Rights" and co-founded this NGO that deals with human rights and planning in Israel\Palestine. His research interest in relation to urban space are social justice, urban health, migration, and colonial planning. His latest books are Rethinking Israeli Space: Periphery and Identity (2011 with Erez Tzfadia) and Israel and Africa: A Genealogy of Moral Geography (2016).
Mansour Nasasra is a lecturer in Middle East politics and international relations at the Department of Politics and Government, Ben Gurion University of the Negev. He was a research fellow at the Council for British Research in the Levant and has been a recipient of British Academy grants. Nasasra is the author of The Naqab Bedouins: A Century of Politics and Resistance (2017). He is also co-editor of The Naqab Bedouin and Colonialism: New Perspectives (2015).
"This volume offers valuable critical perspectives on the complexities of cities in the Middle East and North Africa. Centering on the production of knowledge about the region, the authors address thorny topics, ranging from geopolitics to the continuing impact of colonial policies, memory, ethnicity, religion, everyday life, and violence. The Handbook is comprehensive, useful, and provocative." – Zeynep Çelik, New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA
"The many critical essays in this volume restore the status of the Middle Eastern cities on their own terms, instead of measuring them by the Western ‘model’. The critical approach and the wide-ranging issues discussed in the book—from space, culture, cosmopolitanism, to social movements, colonialism, and Tourism—offer a productive lens to understand the urban reality of the Middle East while engaging with the field of urban studies in general. A valuable resource book." – Asef Bayat, University of Illinois, USA
