MIDEASTENVIRONET - The Middle East Environmental Network

Amman, the Jordanian capital for instance, has very little vegetation and shocks you with its suffocating urban development, which ate up its surroundings and some agricultural lands. One does not even need years away to realize the change of scenery in entire areas.
These new districts are not equipped with proper sewage systems, roads, communications grids, transportation or public transports. Instances such as these are known to have catastrophic repercussions on the environment because of the infiltration of chemicals from the waste left by homes, offices, stores, auto repair shops and others into the agricultural lands and subterranean waters, eve if they are far from buildings. It is also known that such a leakage would render the latter unusable, and causes diseases that burden the budgets of individuals and states.
The scene is not much different in Damascus, where buildings have eaten up its famous fertile oasis, and the only pieces left of it are the vestiges of once green spaces surrounding the city until the late seventies of last century. As a result, these spaces can only respond to 25% of the needs of its inhabitants in food, having previously covered 75% of them, less than 40 years ago according to the information supplied by the merchants in the old markets.
As for Dubai, Doha and Bahrain, urban expansion there reached the waters of the Gulf, filled with earth to create artificial islands whose negative repercussions on the maritime life in that area during the next few years are still hard to configure. Expansion continues to consume the land like fashion trends in clothing, despite the concerns expressed by experts about this ecosystem. It also goes forth, free of any preliminary planning or execution of infrastructure in the right time, especially when roads, bridges, public transports like subways and fast trains, are concerned. Dubai is a fine example of this, where the weak interest in the means of transportation has led to severe traffic jam problems which are increasing daily, burdening the inhabitants, tourists and businessmen alike. The latter are therefore forced to take refuge in the neighboring Emirates while visiting their partners or doing business.
Contrary to the experience of urban expansion in the Arab world, the European experience, namely the German one is considered a successful example of respecting the vital historical and environmental elements. In the capital city Berlin per example, the spaces allotted to agricultural, construction spaces and green spaces, which represent a third of the city, have been delimited for a hundred years now. Even the infrastructure, established around a century ago, took into consideration the possible expansion of the city in later years. Thus, any later expansion represents a continuity of the existing infrastructure and a historical as well as architectural enrichment of it. As for urban housing, offices and commercial buildings in Germany as a whole, it is confined to areas whose infrastructure was built in advance on a long term basis. The strict conditions to preserve green spaces and use water are noteworthy in this context.
Construction inside cities and housing communities also has to answer these conditions, especially when it is a matter of reconstructing an old building or a building a new one adjacent to it. In such cases, conditions are strict to preserve the historical cachet. One also notices how uniquely attached German cities and villages are to reserving this aspect. The German experience is also unique for its fine tuning between the new and the old in a way that deserves to be examined and used in the urban expansion of the Arab world, where History and the components of our daily lives are neglected.

* A mediatic figure and an economic expert based in Berlin

http://english.daralhayat.com/business/07-2007/Article-20070714-c4ce2b5a-c0a8-10ed-0169-5e9910a70571/story.html