| Sumario: | This book describes diverse urban planning projects in Turkey, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates - Dubai and Sharjah - Kuwait, Afghanistan, Albania, Syria and Yemen. One thing in common between these countries is that the author has personally worked on all these projects, and thus the book is a partial professional autobiography. Each chapter tackles not only a different country but also a different aspect of urban planning and development, as follows: Upgrading or improving recent illegal or informal slums, including detailed local planning and strategic planning; Urban conservation of Al Muharraq, a historic Gulf city; Traditional building construction as reference point for modern design; Urban design of new city centre areas in three prosperous Gulf cities - Kuwait, Dubai and Sharjah; The recreation - post-war - of an urban planning system in Kabul; A historical account of urban planning in the Zog-Mussolini period in Albania, which is contrasted with the currently collapsed system; An account of urban economic regeneration in Syria; Local planning aiming at economic revival in Aden. These essays articulate eight themes, which are listed here: Tradition versus Modernism; Regionalism and Identity; The property market in the urban economy; Privacy, the family/tribe etc.; Arts and crafts, Industrialised construction; Impact of the motor car, and urban infrastructure; The courtyard house; Public administration, local politics and corruption. The book may be of interest to urban and regional planners, infrastructure engineers, urban economists, architects, urban managers and local government experts as well as those with an interest in the region itself. The book may be useful as an academic textbook in the region, because it presents a wide spread of views of the topic and a widespread of countries or backgrounds.
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