Dubai Forum on Sustainable Development to discuss rehabilitation of CBDs

Eng. Abdullah AbdulRahim, Director of Planning and Survey Department at Dubai Municipality, noted that the conference would be attended prominent international experts of urban development, academicians and officials from government departments as well as private institutions concerned with city planning.

AbdulRahim chaired a meeting of the conference organizing committee on Monday that has discussed preparations for the event in detail.

He noted that rehabilitation of CBDs in Deira and Bur Dubai assumes much significance due to their unique architectural characteristics and economic aspects.

"Restoration of their architectural and social characteristic is very important in order to keep pace with the city's fast urban development and its busy economic activities, especially as they are a destination of businessmen, traders and shoppers alike from both inside the country and abroad. Restoring CBDs has become a source of concern for many of the cities worldwide and it has been discussed in detail in planning researches and studies. Because of the emergence of new communities and cities, old cities have partially lost their social and economic characteristics. Knowing other cities' expertise in this field will have a huge impact on finding solutions for local planning issues," he said.

He explained that the Planning and Survey Department at Dubai Municipality has formed a special task force to develop an urban structure incorporating unique positional and environment characteristics of the CBDs in Deira and Bur Dubai. This is done in the form of introducing special planning, building and monitoring legislation for the area as well as by enhancing efficiency of the road net work and beautifying the open areas in between the buildings so that they fit in the modern urban fabric of the area thereby turning it into an ideal environment for work and business activities. This will, in turn, boost the private sector and enable it to play an effective role in accomplishing the municipality's vision of creating an excellent city that provides the essence of success and comfort of living.

AbdulRahim explained that the forum on rehabilitation of CBDs is therefore considered as of a high academic return to those who work in this field.

The forum will see presentation of a select few work papers by some of the best urban development experts from around the world, that deal with the most modern policies for restoring old areas by means of showcasing cities that experienced similar planning issues and the methods they used in dealing with them. Dubai Municipality will present a paper in this regard.