Difficult to believe for those who venture forth in the city of Abu Dhabi without a car, but the oil emirate - which presently flaunts the worst ecological footprint on the planet - nourishes a firm ambition to become "the capital of sustainable development." And we're not talking here about the high-tech eco-city of Masdar which emerges from the desert on the city's periphery. Beyond that futuristic showcase, the whole city, through the Vision 2030 plan, is preparing its conversion to the canons of "green" urbanism: public transportation, energy-efficient buildings, pedestrian streets, and mixed neighborhoods.

    A revolution for an emirate that underwent high-speed urbanization while the automobile held sway: roads that look like highways separating big clusters of skyscrapers, interminable distances, few to no sidewalks, still less shade, infrequent buses by way of public transportation ...

    That's going to change. In 2007, forty years after oil began to power the growth of a modern city on these sandy shores, the emirate equipped itself with an urban management vehicle, the Abu Dhabi Planning Council, and went to Vancouver (Canada) to look for a team of young urban planners able to design a sustainable future for the city. "The sheikhs understood that, with the emirate's rapid growth, something had to change," opines Michael White, one of those Canadian specialists.

    For Abu Dhabi continues to grow unceasingly: 500,000 inhabitants in 2000, a million today - of whom only 20 percent are Emiratis - 2 million forecast for 2020, 3 million in 2030.... Growth fed essentially by foreigners, who are attracted by the construction sector or the business opportunities in an emirate that, despite its immense gas and oil reserves, has decided to diversify its economy.

    "Urban development is inseparable from the economic plan," asserts Assistant Director of the Abu Dhabi Council for Economic Development Fahad Said Al-Rakbani. "Today, energy represents 60 percent of our income, the rest 40 percent. The goal is to achieve the inverse ratio by 2030, by growing industry, tourism, services and education. That will bring many people here."

    To welcome them, Abu Dhabi is going to provide itself with a new center city of 400,000 residents, the Capital District, 5,000 hectares in area - half the surface area of Paris. There one will discover, around the hub of an immense star-shaped plaza, all the United Arab Emirates' (of which Abu Dhabi is the capital) federal government centers, but also, along the avenues, embassies, universities, office buildings, housing, businesses ...

    "There will be all the ingredients of a city there," Michael White emphasizes. "We will be applying density, compression and diversity principles. We want to promote contemporary Arab architecture around narrow, shaded, livable streets that are welcoming for pedestrians and offer public transportation." A list of the requirements more or less imposed on all the new scheduled mega-neighborhoods on the neighboring islands, such as the Cultural District on Sadiyat Island, where the building for the local branch of the Louvre has just begun. And along the coast that goes north towards Dubai, the emirate promises no continuous stream of concrete, but "eco-villages," interspersed with corridors of desert that preserve the fragile ecosystem of the dunes and mangroves.

    Urban Planning With a Human Face

    A well-orchestrated communication campaign? Undoubtedly. Caution is appropriate. In the past, the emirate has not hesitated to ravage its coasts to build a highway on its cliff which is nonetheless plugged as a "haven of peace." And on one of the islands in the process of urbanization, Yas Island, the project being completed by forced march is no other ... than the luxurious Formula One race course, supposed to welcome its first Grand Prix November 1. We are far from hard-core ecology.

    Nonetheless, Abu Dhabi has developed its own system of environmental norms and sustainable development, Estidama, which is now imposed on real estate developers, including within the existing city, also involved in this return to the fundamentals of urban planning with a human face.

    A stroke of luck: unlike Dubai, which juxtaposes gated enclaves separated by highways, Abu Dhabi has been built on a continuous block plan, like Manhattan or Barcelona. The avenues are too wide and outline blocks that are too big, but nothing is irremediable. "By recreating sidewalks, adding vegetation and cutting new streets into the blocks, we can transfigure the city," deems Michael White.

    To connect former centers, distant suburbs and new neighborhoods, the emirate has scheduled the construction of a 130-kilometer-long subway network, doubled by bus and tram lines. The bill for this greening? It's a mystery. "The real question is how much it will cost if we don't do it, in terms of pollution, congestion...." The Canadian city planner sidesteps the question. He believes that "in the future, competitive cities will be those that have chosen sustainable development."

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    Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.

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