New cities for a ‘new Kuwait’: planning for national continuity and stability

ABSTRACT

An unprecedented new city-building boom is unfolding in Kuwait, with 12 new cities currently underway. As an oil-rich country, Kuwait faces imminent challenges, including peak oil and climate change, which threaten national wellbeing, continuity, stability, and even survival. As a welfare state guaranteeing housing to citizens, Kuwait shares oil wealth, fundamentally shaping urban planning and spatial development. The current national city-building strategy aims to address housing shortages while reducing reliance on oil. Despite the resources allocated to these projects, Kuwait's city building and its relationship to national economic development strategies has received little scholarly attention. This article introduces the 12 new city projects underway, and examines the main actors driving this trend, how new cities connect to the state's development logic for future-proofing the country, and how national sustainability goals and the state's Vision 2035 for a ‘new Kuwait’ shape these projects. Finally, we reflect on the challenges these projects face.

KEYWORDS:

• New cities
• national development
• post-oil economy
• urban planning
• state entrepreneurialism

Acknowledgements

The research on which this paper was based has been supported by a SSHRC Canada Graduate Doctoral scholarship (#767-2021-0105). We would like to thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments and the New Cities Lab for support and insights. We also express our sincere thanks to all participants who generously shared their time and expertise through interviews that inform this research. Last, we thank Abdulkareem and Nazima for their encouragement and support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We define ‘new cities’ as urban mega-developments that aspire to be geographically and administratively distinct from established cities (see Moser and Côté-Roy 2021).

2 Kuwait Municipality hired DAR Consulting and Perkins&Will to draw up The Fourth Kuwait Master Plan in 2016, initially intended to be completed in 2018, but it is presently ongoing. A series of Draft Fourth Kuwait Master Plan technical and working papers were released and shared with other Ministries and Authorities in Kuwait. It has not yet been officially adopted by Amiri Decree.

3 The body of water along which Kuwait is located is referred to as the ‘Persian Gulf’ by English-language organizations and most maps, and as the ‘Arabian Gulf’ by the GCC states (Levinson 2011). Google Maps provides both terms.

4 The strategic development of Kuwait’s urban landscape has been guided by several significant planning documents over the last four decades:

• 1983 Second Kuwait Master Plan Review (2KMPR): This was the first national plan to identify the need for urban expansion outside the Kuwait Metropolitan Area (KMA), proposing the establishment of new cities such as Subiya, later referred to as Silk City, located north of Kuwait Bay, and Khiran, situated near Kuwait's southern border with Saudi Arabia.

• 1997 Third Kuwait Master Plan (3KMP): This plan provided a more detailed framework for urban growth, land use, and development policies, including the proposal of three new satellite towns – Al Mutlaa, Rahiya, and Amghara – to the west of Kuwait City. The strategy emphasized decentralizing growth from the KMA to new urban centers, which were to be integrated through planned road networks and infrastructure.

• 2005 Third Kuwait Master Plan Review (3KMPR): The 3KMPR expanded the vision for Kuwait's urban development, plotting out a detailed national expansion plan that included new cities like Al Salmi, Al Naayim, North Al Mutlaa, Al Abdali, Umm Al Niqa, Subiya, Sabah Al Ahmed, Wafra, and Al Zur. It aimed to extend and enhance the highway network, facilitating better connectivity between these new urban developments and the existing metropolitan area.

5 2018 Statistic, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

6 According to the priority registration of applications at PAHW and the law, housing welfare shall be provided to Kuwaiti families, however the (male) head of family must not already own or co-own real estate suitable for his family (Article 14 of Law no. 47 of 1993; Public Authority for Housing Welfare 2011).

Additional information

Funding

This research has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada through a Canada Graduate Doctoral scholarship [#767-2021-0105], as well as awards from McGill University’s School of Urban Planning and Department of Geography.