Published!

Now for a bit of self-congratulatory news...

Last December, I wrote a review of Christopher Davidson's Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond as a final project for a class at Harvard. A little while later, I submitted it to the Middle East Policy Council, which publishes the Middle East Policy Journal. They liked it and agreed to print it in their next issue (and also sent me an unexpected $100 check).

The print version has been out for some time, I believe, but the Summer issue of the journal was just posted on a brand new MEPC website. The review was written in December, so a little bit of the content has become dated by August. But I am now officially a published author!

Those of you with any interest in the region can read the review here. Everyone else can feel free to ignore, for the moment, the fact that book reviews are at the bottom of the publishing world's totem pole!

License Plate Tag

When my siblings and I were young, my parents devised an interesting way to keep us occupied on long car trips. Each child got a checklist with the names of the fifty US states, as well as DC and a few Canadian provinces. The first child to see and check off license plates from all of the listed locations won - as did my parents, who experienced a more bearable trip.

Yesterday, while walking around the neighborhood, I saw an Omani license plate on a late-model black Mercedes sedan. While I hadn't officially been keeping track, that sighting completed my checklist for all license plates in the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman). I'm sure I'm way ahead of my siblings on this scorecard.

I was warned by the woman who owns my apartment that summer in Amman was "Saudi Season" - traffic becomes unbearable as GCC nationals pour into Jordan to escape the oppressive Gulf summers. She was indeed correct. It seems there are just as many foreign cars on the road as Jordanian ones, and what's worse, they are usually large SUV's fueled by cheap (and local) Gulf
petroleum. I've had several taxi drivers complain that the GCC cars are driven by maniacs, who "think they own the road" and "dont understand basic traffic laws." I could probably say the same about Massachusetts drivers, but I certainly agree with these guys. Traffic has multiplied recently and trips have become slower and longer, just as a terrible heat wave has made these waits in cars more uncomfortable. Saudis may be escaping the Gulf heat by coming to Amman, but they are dooming me to experience far more of the Jordanian heat than I would like!

Beyond the GCC, I'm doing quite well with license plates too - I've checked off every Arab country east of Egypt, with the exception of Yemen. I've also gotten three different provinces in Iraq and four different emirates in the UAE. So far, I haven't seen any Gulf license plates on an old or beat-up car, though... I may see an Israeli license plate in Amman before I see a poor-looking car from the GCC!

Urbanism in the Gulf

Once upon a time, I planned to go into a career in urban planning and architecture. I read treatises on New Urbanism and Smart Growth like it was my job. I interned at a DC-area planning agency in the summer of 2008. I even wrote my senior thesis at Amherst on architecture and urbanism in Cairo and Dubai. The 2008 recession led me to reevaluate my career goals, but I'm still very interested in this sort of stuff, especially when it overlaps with my current studies in the Middle East. So I've been very happy over the past few days, as I've read a number of articles about urban planning developments in Dubai and the UAE.

I visited Dubai in March of 2008 to do research for my thesis, which focused extensively on how Dubai had imported the car-dependent model of the US.  My trip certainly reinforced that view; Dubai was a pedestrian hell. My grant wasn't large enough to cover car rental or taxi fare, so I got around either on foot or by bus. But sidewalks were incomplete, intersections were not safe, and the average weather made me sweat after just a few minutes of walking. Buses were crowded, slow, and unpredictable; I remember waiting 45 minutes in the sun for a bus to the Burj al-Arab, only to watch it whiz past the station without stopping because it was too full to fit any more passengers. Everyone needed a car, and so traffic was horrible at many hours of the day. The metro was under construction at the time of my visit, but it did nothing to alleviate the pain of traveling yet.

I havent been back since that trip, but the articles I've seen certainly suggest that the situation has changed considerably. The Red Line line of the Dubai Metro is up and running, with a second (Green) line expected to open soon. Total ridership of the system, which opened less than a year ago, recently surpassed 23 million people. Daily ridership has reached as high as 130,000, out of a population of about 2.2 million. This number will almost certainly rise as additional stations and lines are completed.

It's not just about ridership, though. Gulf news sources are reporting on the more subjective aspects of the Metro system as well. GulfNews published an extensive article about the trendiness of the new system, and how it is successfully enticing people to leave their cars behind. Dubai residents, including the affluent, are choosing to ride rather than drive - the Metro is becoming a part of Dubai's urban culture. The stations are gorgeous - and considering the beautiful DC Metro is my home system, my standards are pretty high. I also saw a very interesting report on the rigorous maintenance, cleaning, and inspection that goes on behind the scenes. DC's metro has seen nothing but maintenance problems, service cutbacks, and several tragic fatalities in recent months, but it seems Dubai is seriously trying to turn the tide against auto dependency. There's much left to do - don't get me wrong. There are shortcomings with regard to pedestrian connections, network redundancy, sustainability, and other issues. Dubai is a linear city, so it's much easier to design an effective rail system there. Gulf newspapers are far more hesitant to publish criticism of a government project such as the metro. I don't want to sound like I believe Dubai has vanquished its problems forever - it hasn't. But it is making great progress in the right direction.

There is also good news beyond the Metro. Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital, is implementing a plan to curb speeding, reduce illegal parking, and undertake significant improvements for pedestrian safety. The UAE as a whole recently increased the price of gasoline, in part to reduce the appeal of driving and the negative environmental consequences that accompany it. Cheap oil might seem like a birthright in the world's 3rd largest oil exporter, and one might expect a lot of grumbling to accompany the increase. But this article takes a look at the long-term benefits of the price hike, instead of simply complaining about the additional cost. Conversely, the United States, with a crippling oil addiction and declining domestic sources of fuel, hasn't raised fuel taxes since 1993. With inflation factored in, the gasoline tax is at its lowest level since 1929. The UAE is schooling America in forward-thinking transportation policy.

Finally, though no ground has been broken yet, the GulfRail has been making some noise in the papers as well. This 1,205-mile proposed system would link Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, and Oman, with a possible link to Yemen. The system would be high-speed, using Europe's rail network as a guide. America refuses to invest enough in its own rail system to do better than the "high-speed" Acela service in the Northeast. Kuwait, Mecca, Medina, and other cities are also planning rail systems.

Despite this flurry of funding and building activity, you wont see US companies winning any contracts. America doesnt have any companies with enough experience in this industry. The multi-billion dollar projects are being completed by Asian and European firms, whose countries have invested significantly in rail domestically and thus given their companies a significant technical edge in the world market. Even the biggest oil exporters in the world are getting behind mass transit, better urban planning, and inter-city rail networks as they realize that gasoline, petroleum, and auto-dependency are unsustainable in the long term. It's immensely frustrating that America can't seem to get its act together.

However, on the bright side, I now know I will have a much easier time getting around during my next trip to Dubai.

NB: All images lovingly stolen from http://dubaimetro.eu/ - I just can't get them to link back to the site.