Muscat’s Vision: A Practical Model for Urban Development
While many countries in the Middle East are building extravagant developments that seem to shoot for the sky, the Omani capital has worked to maintain a local identity even as it builds. Muscat’s skyline is low-rise and humble, despite a helicopter view that would also take in the palaces and large courtyards that define the historic Islamic architecture that makes Oman one of the more beautiful countries in the region. Yet, Oman and Muscat in particular are not content to leave well enough alone. They are in the midst of planning and investing in some ambitious projects that truly aim to redefine urban life in the capital and along the coast for the next generation. Sultan Hayam City is the biggest of these projects, and it is instructive for a number of reasons—chief among them that it offers a tangible vision of what the sometimes-austere local planners and architects think urban life should look like.
Demographic Challenges and Housing Solutions
The claim of this article is that Sultan Hayam City, while offering much promise as an urban development model for the Middle East, entails serious risks along the crucial axis of modernity versus tradition. In what was a crucial decision early in the design process, the Sultan Hayam City project team opted for a contemporary architectural language. The project’s success will depend on its ability to create a human scale, an inviting public realm, a sustainable community, and, most importantly, an identity for the project that does not simply rehash the look and feel of hyper-modern cities such as Dubai.
Sultan Hayam City, projected to house 250,000 people, appears in Oman’s urban development strategy documents as something more than just a real estate project. The strategy is part of a broader push to cover housing shortcomings in the country. Oman anticipates a population increase of 5.2–7.7 million by 2040, and the World Bank predicts that urbanization will continue to accelerate throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council region, with urban populations projected to double by 2050. Sultan Hayam City reflects not only Oman’s housing ambitions but also a broader set of contemporary challenges and choices faced by several nations in the region.
Balancing Local Identity with Modernization Efforts
Specialists such as Dr. Yasser Elsheshtawy, an urban planner and academic, point out that the principal difficulty facing Muscat and cities like it is to devise a design for their built environment that ensures two conditions are satisfied. First, the built environment must meet the basic requirements for it to be a livable space. Second, and just as important, the built environment must reflect the cultural and social fabric of the communities that exist within it.
Positioned uniquely between the Gulf of Oman and the Hajar Mountains, Muscat has received stunning natural gifts. Yet, poor urban planning and a historical preference for an outmoded “suburban”-type development have led to sprawling low-density, single-family home communities, with massive traffic jams as the unfortunate byproduct. The government has a housing lottery system to address the burgeoning need, but it deals with long waits and terrible luck when it comes to distant land allocations. Sultan Hayam City promises to reverse the trend with a preference for community-centric design and living in denser terms.
The project is a reaction to the economic troubles now afflicting Oman. As oil revenues decline, the sultunate must look to tourism and sustainable urban development to diversify its economy and generate new wealth. Just how much new wealth, though, might Sultan Hayam City generate? It aims to attract locals and expatriates, offering a hefty dose of both residential and commercial space (the Hays experience so far suggests that there are great opportunities for commercial development and even greater incentives to develop a mindset for such ventures). Hayam City isn’t being developed on the scale of other regional megaprojects—like the Line in Saudi Arabia or the New Administrative Capital in Egypt, both of which promise more space for more people. So, is there even space in the marketplace for Sultan Hayam City?
The Risk of Inequality Amidst Rapid Development
The urban living in Sultan Hayam City is being shifted to a more dense form, but it must hold on to the cultural identity that makes Muscat, Muscat. This is a pretty standard issue in modern urban development: how to create a modern city while respecting the traditional values of the place. An Omani I spoke with put it this way: “We want progress, but we don’t want to lose what makes our city special.”
Oman can boast a homeownership rate of 89%. The Sultanate has prided itself on providing housing for its citizens. Yet, the complexities of urban density and, now, the fresh appearance of affordability as a necessary precondition for homeownership in the cities mandate that the government consider more than one contour in this topography of housing policy. The risk of wealth disparity looms large if the next developments cater primarily to wealthy foreigners.
Sultan Hayam City’s proposed mass transit system is of critical importance and a key element in overcoming traffic congestion. However, as H. David Kotz and Jennifer B. Nuss explain, “Public transportation is a struggle in many Middle Eastern cities and a sobering reminder of how difficult it can be to get people out of cars and into buses.”
Oman has a wealth of history and natural beauty that makes it an attractive target for tourism. Still, the Sultanate’s not-so-hidden desire to draw lots of visitors must not cause it to overlook the needs of the locals, especially as development marches on. Oman needs to ensure that the local population really shares in the tourism pie.
Some critics argue that Sultan Hayam City is too small to make a significant impact on Muscat’s urban landscape, especially when compared to the development seen in other Gulf cities, like Dubai. They assert that it is necessary for Muscat to adopt a more aggressive approach to development if it wishes to avoid stagnation. But this perspective overlooks something more important: the necessity of sustainable growth.
In addition, the focus on keeping a low-rise skyline conserves the character of Muscat and could boost its attractiveness as a tourist target. The risk comes from aping the ‘Dubai model’ without thinking, which would prioritize short-term gains through high-end, often transitory, developments over the kind of community-engaged local identity that can put down roots and grow.
Sultan Hayam City has many lessons to teach, and they are relevant not just for Oman but for the whole region and for urban centers around the world. At the moment, it is hard to imagine a more modern, of-the-century, sustainable development endeavor than Sultan Hayam City. From the middle of the last decade and onward, what urban planners, architects, and developers have been proposing for this new city in Oman has looked like a runaway train of ideas (and not always good ones) headed straight for “identity crisis.” Yet, Oman is in the midst of not just a crisis but an opportunity to figure out how to manage the frenetic growth of urban centers and the massive influx of people and ideas into them.
To sum up, Sultan Hayam City represents a vital crossroads for Oman. The dual aims of the Omani government with this project—despite the challenges it faces—are to provide affordable housing to its citizens and to create a community where these citizens can live and thrive. Sultan Hayam City manifests what Oman wants out of a 21st-century community: a place that balances the traditional with the modern.
As Muscat sets out on this bold adventure, the eyes of the world will be fixed upon it. Will the Omani capital succeed in establishing a new urban story that puts people over profit? The answer may well set the tone for the “middle” Middle East and how its cities balance the difficult tightrope of tradition and modernity in a time of rapid change. In a region where the past is often a defining characteristic, Oman has the chance to look forward and, with its beautiful capital, establish a path that resonates with heritage but also embraces the possibilities of tomorrow.