Introduction

Gentrification generated by successive investment cycles is a commonplace occurrence in cities today. Social displacement and loss of housing options often follows attempts to redevelop neighbourhoods. Scholars in the field of urban planning have long recognised and critiqued this trend. Brenner and Theodore (2005), MacLeod (2002), Harvey (1978, 2006, 2010) and Smith (1982, 1996, 2010), among others, have argued that gentrification is not merely a by-product of neoliberal planning, but rather a quintessential part of it – a strategy for successive cycles of investment and accumulation. Few studies, though, have examined gentrification in the emerging cities of the Arabian/Persian Gulf region. Urban planning in Abu Dhabi is reconfiguring the city, and, in the process, displacing some segments of the population.

This chapter examines recent policies causing the gentrification of Abu Dhabi's city centre. These include a Revitalisation Plan, together with policies regulating the spatial practices and housing options of the low-income population. Given a paucity of options, the displaced low-income groups are likely to become isolated in remote locations. Although there are stark differences between the planning cultures of Abu Dhabi and those of cities in Western Europe or North America, there are similarities in how the ‘spatial fix’ is administered. This study sheds light on the causes of the housing affordability problem in Abu Dhabi, and through an analysis of current policies and realities on the ground, it is argued that ongoing development plans are likely to lead to a significant demographic change in the city centre and further squeeze the housing options for the city's less wealthy residents.

Understanding the Abu Dhabi housing market

Rapid social and economic change

Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has expanded dramatically in terms of wealth, urban growth and infrastructure development over the course of a relatively short history of urbanisation. Located on the Arabian/Persian Gulf, the city grew from a small port on the trade routes passing through the Suez Canal (as late as the 1960s) to a million-plus metropolis, supported by oil wealth and littered with mega-projects. The Urban Structure Framework Plan, a part of Abu Dhabi's plan for the year 2030, promulgated by the Urban Planning Council (UPC), projects that the ‘city's population may grow to three million or it may exceed five million by 2030’ (UPC, 2007).