AUD partners with Dubai Municipality for rehabilitation of Dubai's central business district areas

This international forum will discuss various planning issues facing the Emirate of Dubai with the active participation of officials from related governmental departments and institutions, as well as representatives of the private sector in a bid to identify practical and valid solutions for resolving contemporary planning issues.

In consultation with professors from the American University in Dubai, Dubai Municipality decided to organize the first forum as a means to discussing the rehabilitation of the Central Business Districts (CBD) in Deira and Bur Dubai.

Architect and Professor at AUD, Dr. John Alexander Smith said

"This Forum would be the first of its kind in Dubai and had been convened to specifically address some of the issues associated with the tremendous urban growth of the city in recent years. Dubai has become one of the hot spots of the modern world attracting prodigious levels of investment directed through various business sectors such as trade, tourism and construction. Nevertheless, as a consequence of its unprecedented rapid growth as well as its uncompromising quest for excellence, some planning and urban issues have been raised recently. In this context, the Forum will initially examine the options for improving the Central Business District associated with Deira and Bur Dubai."

For many years these districts have been a destination for businessmen, traders and shoppers alike from both inside the country and overseas. However, the phenomenon of the conurbation and the emergence of new communities and satellite cities have had a detrimental effect on the original older cities. Thus old cities have become residential neighborhoods for low income workers as tenants.

Consequently recognizing and understanding other cities' expertise in this field can have a huge impact on finding valuable solutions to these local planning issues. In this context, the Planning and Survey Department at Dubai Municipality has formed a special task force charged with developing an urban structure incorporating unique positional and environmental characteristics of the CBDs in Deira and Bur Dubai.

It follows that the first 'Dubai Forum for Sustainable Urban Development' by dealing with the rehabilitation of the CBD, should be considered a high academic return for those who work in the this field.

The forum will consist of three main activities; audio-visual presentations by six acknowledged international experts who will focus on various cities of the globe that have confronted and successfully overcome significant planning issues, in addition to a round table televised discussion involving specialists in the field of urban design and planning.

The third activity within the forum is an international students' competition featuring notable universities from North America, Europe, the Middle East, the Far East and Australia. Consequently students from universities around the globe will present their own case study based on research projects dealing with the rehabilitation of CBDs of old towns in their own country and will analyze the urban logic of the city of Dubai in order to find solutions for the CBD area which is under many challenges.

Such challenges include traffic and transportation problems, scarcity and misuse of open public spaces, visual 'pollution' caused by the absence of a coherent civic advertising and signage policy, limited tourism services, limited space available to ease the supply of goods to shops and the poor visualization and mental mapping of public spaces due to insufficient media exposure.

The Forum is intended as the first of a series that will not only complement the continuing success story of Dubai, but will also actively involve governmental and private sector bodies in a consultative context over the years ahead.