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Urban eco-modernisation and the policy context of new eco-city projects:

Where Masdar City fails and why

Article  in  Urban Studies · May 2015

DOI: 10.1177/0042098015588727

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Article

Urban Studies
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policy context of new eco-city DOI: 10.1177/0042098015588727
usj.sagepub.com
projects: Where Masdar City fails
and why

Federico Cugurullo
University of Manchester, UK

Abstract
The development of projects for new eco-cities is rapidly becoming a global phenomenon.
Alleged eco-cities are being built across a variety of spaces via processes of urbanisation triggering
substantial environmental, social and economic impacts. This article investigates how new eco-city
projects interpret and practice urban sustainability by focusing on the policy context that under-
pins their development. The article argues that projects for new eco-cities are shaped in loci by
policy agendas tailored around specific economic and political targets. In these terms, the ideas
and strategies of urban sustainability adopted by eco-city developers are understood as reflec-
tions of broader policy priorities. The case study employed in this article, Masdar City, reveals
how the Emirati eco-city initiative is the product of local agendas seeking economic growth via
urbanisation to preserve the political institutions of Abu Dhabi. Following the economic impera-
tives set by the ruling class, the Masdar City project interprets sustainability as ecological moder-
nisation and practices urban environmentalism almost exclusively in economic terms. The article
shows how the developers of Masdar City capitalise on sustainability by building an urban plat-
form to develop and commercialise clean-tech products, and concludes that the Emirati alleged
eco-city is an example of urban eco-modernisation: a high-tech urban development informed by
market analysis rather than ecological studies.

Keywords
eco-city, ecological modernisation, Masdar City, Middle East, sustainability, sustainable cities, urba-
nisation and developing countries

Received July 2014; accepted May 2015

Introduction becoming increasingly influential in shaping

the present and future of the planet.
With the expansion of urban fabric across
the world, and the threat of what scholars
Corresponding author:
such as Merrifield (2012) term planetary
Federico Cugurullo, University of Manchester, Geography,
urbanisation, the environmental, social and Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
economic performances of cities are Email: federico.cugurullo@manchester.ac.uk

Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at University of Manchester Library on June 1, 2015

2 Urban Studies
Concerns over the unsustainability of con-
temporary patterns of urbanisation have
been raised across a variety of disciplines,
raising important questions with regards to
the interconnections between the evolution
of cities and the transformation of societies,
economies and environmental systems (see,
for instance, Urban Age Project, 2007, 2011;
World Bank, 2010). More recently, the study
of urban sustainability has highlighted the
emergence of projects for new master-
planned cities alleged by their developers to
embody an equilibrium among economic,
social and environmental concerns and repre-
sent a paradigm of sustainable city-making.
Broadly grouped by both developers and
academics under the term eco-city, these
projects have been the subject of several case
studies (Crot, 2013; Cugurullo, 2013a;
Datta, 2012; Pow and Neo, 2013; Wu, 2012).
What this body of research shows is that the
development of projects for new eco-cities is
becoming a global urban trend. New settle-
ments labelled as ‘eco-cities’ are emerging
across heterogeneous geographical spaces,
becoming part of a phenomenon which is
gradually shaping how urban sustainability
is globally understood and practiced.
At the time of writing, critical studies on
the eco-city phenomenon have made impor-
tant contributions to the understanding of
how sustainability is interpreted in new eco-
city projects. Joss and Molella (2013), for
instance, in their analysis of Caofedian, note
how sustainable urbanisation is conceived
and practiced as part of a process of techno-
logical development in which urban sustain-
ability becomes urban technology and vice
versa. In a similar vein, Shwayri (2013) high-
lights the role of technological innovation in
Songdo, and connects the genesis of what
was designed to be the first ubiquitous city
to the intention of the Korean government
to create an exportable, high-tech model of
city-making. Chang and Sheppard (2013), in
the cases of Dongtan and Chongming,
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position the projects at the intersection
between urban sustainability and green
capitalism, showing how the eco-city was
imagined to be a driver of both economic
self-sufficiency and globalism. From a
political-ecologist perspective, authors such
as Hodson and Marvin (2010: 311) reflect on
the elitist character of eco-city projects, and
define eco-cities as ‘ecological enclaves’ in
which protection is granted only to small
sets of actors, and the burdens of climate
change and resource scarcity are unevenly
distributed.
However, much of the literature on
alleged ‘eco-cities’ treats these projects
almost in isolation from their policy context.
Although there are studies which consider
the political milieu surrounding eco-city
initiatives (see, for example, Chang and
Sheppard, 2013; De Jong et al., 2013), scho-
lars in urban studies have tended to pay
marginal attention to the impact that local
policy agendas have on eco-city formations.
What the works of authors such as Brand
and Thomas (2005), Whitehead (2003,
2007), Raco and Lin (2012), suggest is that
conceptualisations and strategies of urban
sustainability are formed in and by specific
loci whose socio-political, economic and
environmental dynamics lead to the produc-
tion of ad hoc policies. Urban sustainability
projects are strongly embedded in broader
policy agendas tailored around particular
spatial realities: agendas which provide the
framework through which sustainability is
interpreted and put into practice to (re)de-
sign urban environments.
The argument advanced in this article is
that projects for new eco-cities are not stan-
dalone urban experiments, but rather tiles of
a broader context-dependent policy mosaic.
The construction of new cities such as
Masdar City, Songdo and Incheon, is part of
policy agendas which are designed according
to specific geographical contexts. In these
terms, the genesis of these settlements can be
Cugurullo
understood only by (a) deconstructing and
contextualising the development agendas of
their region of origin, and (b) looking at the
regional policy targets, seeing how eco-city
projects are used to meet them. Most impor-
tantly, this article contends that ideas of sus-
tainability cultivated and implemented by
eco-city developers are shaped by local pol-
icy frameworks whose analysis is revelatory
of how new eco-city projects interpret and
address urban sustainability.
On the basis of the above considerations,
this article uses Masdar City, a supposed
eco-city currently under construction in Abu
Dhabi, as a case study to explain the ratio-
nale of an eco-city project in relation to its
policy context. First, the article discusses the
methodology employed during the field-
work, and the theory and criticism of ecolo-
gical modernisation, which frame the
analysis of the data. Third, it examines the
context of the Masdar City project and
explores the past and present of Abu Dhabi
from a socio-political and economic perspec-
tive, emphasising how, today, four major
challenges (resource scarcity, population
growth, climate change and the Arab
Spring) are undermining the stability of the
emirate’s institutions. The fourth part intro-
duces the contemporary development
agenda of Abu Dhabi whose economic and
urban targets, including the development of
an eco-city, are discussed in depth across
two sections which show how sustainability
is interpreted and integrated into policy prio-
rities. The article then analyses the imple-
mentation of Masdar City, revealing the
mechanics of the project and explaining how
the new city seeks to meet local policy targets
by providing a real-life environment where
stakeholders can develop, test and commer-
cialise new clean technologies. In this part of
the article, the analysis digs into the concep-
tual underpinnings that drive the Masdarian
practices of sustainability (environmentalism
as consumerism, in particular) and exposes
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3
their limitations. The article ends with a cri-
tique of the Emirati eco-city project, and
develops the concept of urban eco-modernisa-
tion to capture how urban agendas redolent
of the logic of ecological modernisation have
produced a city with weak social and envi-
ronmental performances.
Research design and experience
The argument of this article is built upon
data collected during nine months of field-
work. ‘Context matters’ was the underlying
idea at the basis of the research experience.
As the following sections illustrate, the
Masdarian understanding and practice of
sustainability has been shaped by several
contextual factors connected to the geogra-
phy and political economy of the United
Arab Emirates (UAE). Developing an
understanding of the ideas of sustainability
cultivated and practiced in Masdar City,
therefore, demanded a socio-political and
economic exploration of the Emirati terri-
tory: a task which was pursued, from
September 2010 to May 2011, via in-depth
empirical research. The core of the fieldwork
took place in the emirates of Abu Dhabi
and Dubai. From a geopolitical perspective,
Masdar City is part of Abu Dhabi.
However, geographically, the new city is
close to the northeast borders of Abu Dhabi
and approximately 100 km from Dubai
where a number of key actors (developers,
planners and architects, in particular) were
based.
The article benefits from two main
research methods. First, the analysis of the
policy context of the Masdar City project
draws on a critical documentary and dis-
course analysis of key policy documents pro-
duced by the Government of Abu Dhabi
and two local councils: the Abu Dhabi
Urban Planning Council (UPC) and the Abu
Dhabi Council for Economic Development
(ADCED). The pool of documents takes
4 Urban Studies
into account more than 20 publications
including Abu Dhabi’s economic and plan-
ning agendas and material produced by the
developers of Masdar City, the Masdar
Initiative, such as economic and environ-
mental reports and master plans. Second, the
article refers to 19 semi-structured and 15
unstructured interviews conducted with pol-
icymakers involved in the development of
the Emirati policy agenda, members of the
Masdar Initiative, and planners and archi-
tects from Foster and Partners, responsible
for the design and master-planning of the
new settlement. The interviewees were
selected according to their position and role
within their respective organisations.
Members of the UPC and ADCED, for
example, were interviewed in order to shed
light on the links between the development
of Masdar City and the development of the
economic agenda of Abu Dhabi, while repre-
sentatives from the Masdar Initiative and its
main business partners (Siemens, Schneider
and Mitsubishi) were interrogated about the
conceptual underpinnings and mechanics of
the Emirati eco-city project. Owing to the
authoritarian political and civil climate that
surrounded the field research (see Freedom
House, 2011), anonymity was granted to all
participants in order to protect them.
Therefore, in the following sections, intervie-
wees will be referred to by their role (such as
‘spokesman from the Masdar Initiative’) as a
way to maintain their privacy.
The eco-city phenomenon
through the lens of moderate
relationalism
The article’s theoretical basis is positioned
within recent ontological and epistemologi-
cal debates on space and its production.
More specifically, the article engages with
theories of relationality: a corpus of works
which has set in the 21st century an estab-
lished theme in the social sciences,
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particularly in geography and urban studies
(see Jones, 2009). The core of relational
thinking is based on the idea that space is
open, unfixed and constantly in the process
of becoming (Massey, 2005). For advocators
of relational approaches, such as Amin
(2004, 2007) and Thrift (2004), topography,
understood as a form of spatial representa-
tion in which spaces are depicted as struc-
tured and closed entities marked by fixed
boundaries, fails to portray the multitude of
mobilities, interconnections and circulations
underpinning spatial formations. Through
relational thinking, space stops being cate-
gorised according to bounded hierarchies.
Instead, it is stretched beyond pre-given
political boundaries and associated with
images of an increasingly globalised world,
criss-crossed by heterogeneous flows of
material and immaterial beings (such as
ideas, capital and persons).
This article recognises the value of rela-
tional thinking in urban studies and
acknowledges the impact of globalisation on
the eco-city phenomenon. Internationally,
projects for new eco-cities appear to mani-
fest similar traits in terms of ideas, planning
and policy strategies, architectures and spon-
sors. As shown in the work of Rapoport
(2014a: 4), the development of large-scale
urban projects such as new eco-cities is
framed by master plans produced by a
homogeneous network of international engi-
neering, architecture and urban planning
firms: a condition leading to the cultivation
and implementation of ‘a fairly uniform and
consistent set of ideas for enhancing the sus-
tainability of urban development’. Across
geographical locations, technology, in par-
ticular, emerges as a common denominator
among eco-city initiatives. As emphasised in
recent surveys, ‘eco-cities are most often
conceived of or delivered primarily in terms
of technological innovations’ (Joss et al.,
2011: 4). More specifically, master plans for
eco-cities feature the implementation and
Cugurullo
integration of clean technologies, such as
wind turbines, concentrated solar power sta-
tions, automated transport systems and
smart grids, designed to produce renewable
energy, minimise energy waste and, ulti-
mately, reduce the environmental impact of
the new settlements.
In this sense, the eco-city phenomenon
reflects one of the most international mani-
festations of the ideology of sustainability:
ecological modernisation. Also referred to as
eco-modernisation, ecological modernisation
rejects environmental concerns as antitheti-
cal to economic priorities, and advances
technological innovation as the equaliser of
economic growth and environmental preser-
vation (Andersen and Massa, 2000; Harvey,
1996). In eco-city initiatives, the array of
high-tech clean devices varies from project
to project, mostly according to regional
environmental specificities, such as climate,
hydrologic cycles and soil qualities. What
homogenises these projects is the perception
and employment of technological develop-
ment as an environmentally friendly medium
of economic regeneration and/or extra-
capital absorption. More specifically, the
cutting-edge technology employed by eco-
city developers is both a commodity which
can be commercialised through emerging,
global clean-tech markets, and a tool of dec-
arbonisation meant to decrease the carbon
emissions that the urbanisation of capital
surpluses and the construction of new settle-
ments generate.
The parallel between the eco-city phe-
nomenon and the thesis of ecological moder-
nisation can also be observed in the criticism
that surrounds them. From a social justice
perspective, for instance, Caprotti (2014)
denounces the stark inequalities that charac-
terise the development of eco-city projects
whose material incarnations depend on
injections of migrant labour and deny access
to low-income workers. Similarly, Pepper
(1998) critiques the technocratic character of
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5
eco-modernisation whereby scientific and
economic experts put a price on the environ-
ment, tending to exclude large community
segments. In her review of the eco-city as an
urban planning model, Rapoport (2014b:
142) highlights how, in eco-city projects,
‘economic concerns consistently take prior-
ity over environmental ones’, mirroring the
secular divide between the preservation of
natural environments and the preservation
of capitalist economies. In a similar vein,
Foster (2002) raises concerns over the ecolo-
gical potential of eco-modernisation strate-
gies, pointing out that ecological
modernisation does not change the tradi-
tional capitalistic patterns of production and
consumption, and thus replicates the same
environmental issues intrinsic to capitalism.
From a relational perspective, eco-city
projects inspired by the thesis of ecological
modernisation can be seen as formed by net-
works of ideas, capital and actors eluding
conventional topographic categorisations.
However, the studies of geographers such as
Jones (2009), Paasi (2004) and Whitehead
(2003, 2007) show that the recognition of
the impact of liquid, global networks does
not necessarily imply the neglect of fixed
geopolitical entities such as states and
regions. Specifically in relation to strategies
of sustainable urban development, the work
of Whitehead (2007: 7) demonstrates that
‘states continue to provide important legal,
moral, political and cultural contexts within
which different forms of sustainability are
emerging’. Adopting what Jones (2009: 487)
terms ‘moderate relationalism’, this work
interprets eco-city initiatives as the product
of syncretisms: processes characterised by a
dialectical relationship, which merge local
and international elements, forming the soil
where ideas of urban sustainability are culti-
vated and implemented. The aim is to show,
through the lens of moderate relationalism,
that the understandings and practices of sus-
tainability of new eco-city projects such as
6 Urban Studies
Masdar City, depend upon context-
dependent policy agendas which apply the
thesis of ecological modernisation to urbani-
sation, in order to tackle local political, eco-
nomic and environmental challenges. In the
next section, the article begins to empirically
verify its theoretical propositions by looking
at the geographical context of the case
study.
The context of Masdar City
The geographical focus of the article is Abu
Dhabi: the largest and most influential state
of the UAE. Abu Dhabi is located on the
southern cost of the Persian Gulf, in an area
rich in oil and natural gas. Vast reserves of
petroleum were discovered in the 1960s and
gave to the local political forces the financial
power to achieve independence in 1971, after
almost a century of British rule. Capitalised
by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company,
oil triggered an economic boom which,
under the hegemony of Sheik Zayed, led the
country to unprecedented conditions of
wealth for the local population. After the
death of Zayed in 2004, his son, Sheik
Khalifa, further developed the oil industry
and positioned Abu Dhabi among the top
ten global oil producers. In 2008, it was cal-
culated that the export of oil was generating
an average of US$90 billion per year (Abu
Dhabi Government, 2008). Part of this reve-
nue was translated into a series of regional
and overseas investments supported by one
of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds:
the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Over
the years, the country has built a global
portfolio of financial assets, acquiring stakes
in Barclays, Virgin Galactic and Manchester
City Football Club, for an estimated total of
US$300–875 billion (Sovereign Wealth Fund
Institute, 2013; The Economist, 2008). The
benefits of this golden era were equally
spread among the locals. Policymakers
developed a strong welfare system, thus
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granting to the nationals (around 15% of
the total population) luxurious standards of
living. In 2008, GDP per capita increased by
20% and, despite the global credit crunch,
there was no apparent sign of recession in
Abu Dhabi (International Monetary Fund,
2013; World Bank, 2013).
Politically, Abu Dhabi is characterised by
an authoritarian government which, because
of the absolute power of its ruler, the sheik,
falls under the category of sultanism: a sys-
tem in which everyone is subject to the
unquestionable authority of the leader on
whose discretion politics operates (Linz and
Stepan, 1996; Weber, 1964). In Abu Dhabi,
UAE nationals have few or no political
rights, and live in what, after Ali (2010), can
be described as a gilded cage made of gener-
ous economic benefits and incentives. The
situation of the nationals is diametrically dif-
ferent from what is experienced by most of
the expatriates who form the bulk of the
labour force of Abu Dhabi. Originally from
the Indian Plate and Southeast Asia, the
majority of migrant labourers, as pointed
out by several organisations monitoring
human rights (see, for instance, Human
Rights Watch, 2012; The Guardian, 2013),
live and work in poor conditions charac-
terised by low levels of political, economic
and physical security. This consistent share
of the total population of the emirate, it has
been reported, often work in dangerous
environments, such as unsafe construction
sites, for an average of 14 hours per day,
receiving extremely low salaries compared
with those earned by workers with Emirati
citizenship.
Today, after decades of economic and
political stability, Abu Dhabi is experiencing
a situation of transition, dictated by four
key, interconnected challenges: natural
resource depletion, population growth, cli-
mate change and the Arab Spring. First, as
a result of the exponential exploitation of
the local oil reserves, the economy of Abu
Cugurullo 7

Dhabi, largely founded in the production Economic Vision 2030

and export of oil, may gradually deteriorate
In order to face the challenges examined in
over the next five decades. This is not the
the previous section, the government of Abu
place to enter the peak oil debate, but it is
Dhabi has designed a long-term develop-
worth emphasising how several recent stud-
ment agenda: Vision 2030. The agenda was
ies suggest that oil scarcity is more than just
politically imposed by the sheik in 2008, and
a conjecture (Chapman, 2014; Leeb, 2004).
presented to the local population as the
Moreover, even if unproven oil reserves
dying wish of Sheik Khalifa whose post-
might still be found in Abu Dhabi, as noted
mortem authority continues to exert a strong
by The Economist (2012), the interests of oil
influence over the nationals. It is divided into
companies are now shifting towards the
two parts linked by an overarching policy
Arctic regions which, because of global
framework which sets key development tar-
warming and the shrinking of the ice caps,
gets and strategies. The first part, Economic
are becoming more and more accessible.
Vision 2030, focuses on the economy of the
Second, owing to injections of foreign work-
emirate and introduces the concept of sus-
force, the total population of the emirate is
tainability, framing it from an economic and
expected to triple by 2030 and reach 3 mil-
environmental perspective. The second part,
lion (UPC, 2008, 2013). This is a critical
Urban Planning Vision 2030, addresses the
issue inasmuch as Abu Dhabi does not pos-
urbanisation of the region and defines what
sess enough natural resources, fresh water in
planning strategies the emirate will adopt
particular, to sustain this growth. A growing
over the next 30 years, including the develop-
population would imply an increasing reli-
ment of new urban settlements such as
ance on desalination which, in turn, would
Masdar City.
lead to an increasing consumption of oil
The bulk of Vision 2030 consists of
whose exhaustion appears only to be a mat-
Economic Vision 2030: a policy roadmap,
ter of time. In addition, this problem could
designed by a multinational taskforce, ‘to
be further exacerbated by climate change.
guide the evolution of the Abu Dhabi econ-
As Luomi (2009) observes, because of cli-
omy through to the year 2030’ and ‘build a
matic shifts, Abu Dhabi could face migra-
sustainable economy’ (Abu Dhabi
tions from countries prone to disasters:
Government, 2008: 1, 17). The concept of
migrations which would further impact on
sustainability underpins the entire agenda
the regional scarcity of natural resources.
and the adjective ‘sustainable’ is used exten-
Finally, with the revolutionary wave shaking
sively to define the type of economic devel-
the political foundations of Middle Eastern
opment that Abu Dhabi appears to be
countries, the Arab Spring, Abu Dhabi’s
targeting. In Vision 2030, sustainable
governmental institutions are now under
becomes a synonym for profitable and eco-
threat. To date, Abu Dhabi has not experi-
nomically viable, and is associated with pol-
enced any major public demonstrations.
icy strategies capable of generating profit. In
Emirati citizens have little or no incentive to
the document, the adjective ‘sustainable’
go against the royal family as that would
always precedes the word ‘economy’ and is
mean putting their wealth at risk. However,
used to indicate a form of economic devel-
the collapse of the oil economy would imply
opment which can be sustained or, to put it
the end of the welfare system and, today
differently, maintained and kept in existence
more than ever, the sheik needs a new devel-
for an undetermined amount of time. As dis-
opment vision in order to preserve the status
cussed in the previous section, the economy
quo.

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8 Urban Studies
of the emirate is founded on oil, a resource
which policymakers expect to end in the
near future. For the developers of Vision
2030, a form of economic development
based exclusively on oil is therefore unsus-
tainable and needs to be supported by alter-
native business activities. Following this
framework, in the Emirati agenda, economic
sustainability is portrayed as a diversified
economy in which heterogeneous economic
sectors act in concert to maintain high levels
of GDP per capita. Hence, the key target of
Economic Vision 2030: the development of
additional strands of the economy, capable
of facilitating a regional transition to a post-
petroleum society. In policy terms, this tar-
get is translated into major investments in
R&D and in securing strategic partnerships
with multinationals such as Schneider and
General Electric, to develop and install
state-of-the-art clean energy sources (solar
power plants and geothermal stations, for
example) in the emirate. In addition to tar-
geting energy security, investments in R&D
also seek to diversify the local economy and
grow a new economic sector based on the
development and commercialisation of clean
technologies.
From a discursive perspective, Economic
Vision 2030 manifests evident traits of ecolo-
gical modernisation. In the document, envi-
ronmental protection and economic
development are not seen as oppositional,
but rather as complementary. According to
local policymakers, in Abu Dhabi ‘the pro-
tection of the environment is being given the
utmost importance alongside economic
growth’: a line of thought which is expected
to be realised through the production of new
clean technologies meant to simultaneously
regenerate the Emirati economy and
decrease its carbon footprint (Abu Dhabi
Government, 2008: 89). However, technolo-
gical innovation is only the first (and most
superficial) level at which Abu Dhabi’s eco-
modernist logic can be observed, and to
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understand how ecological modernisation
operates on the ground informing the gen-
esis of Masdar City, the focus of inquiry has
to move towards the built environment
where the production of technology becomes
the production of space.
Urban Planning Vision 2030
The economic role that Abu Dhabi assigns
to the built environment is manifested in
Urban Planning Vision 2030, which repre-
sents the urban incarnation of Vision 2030
and the policy context of the Masdar City
project. Urban Planning Vision 2030 recog-
nises a deep interdependence between econo-
mies and cities. As stated by the local
planning council, ‘sustainable economic
growth requires co-ordinated economic and
planning strategies’: a line of thought which
is translated into an organic plan of urbani-
sation based on a double planning strategy
(UPC, 2008: 14). First, Abu Dhabi’s Urban
Planning Vision targets already existing
urban areas and aims to regenerate them
through the integration of clean technology.
This is evident in the plan to reshape the fab-
ric of the main urban conglomeration of the
emirate which, following the Manhattan
model, lies on an orthogonal grid. The inten-
tion of the government is to demolish the
central area of the grid and build a city cen-
tre. Described by the UPC (2008: 103) as ‘a
monumental planning initiative’, the new
district has been designed as a 45 km2 space
inscribed in three concentric circles. The idea
is to implement new buildings and retrofit
existing ones using cutting-edge clean devices
designed to decrease the carbon emissions of
the built environment and improve its effi-
ciency in terms of energy waste. Second,
Urban Planning Vision 2030 consists of
ambitious projects for the development of
new master-planned settlements, such as
Masdar City (see Figure 1), built from
Cugurullo
Figure 1. Masdar City (May 2015).
Source: Gianfranco Serra Photography.
scratch to facilitate large-scale technological
installations (smart grids in particular).
As in the case of Economic Vision 2030,
in Urban Planning Vision 2030 the concept
of sustainability is a central theme.
According to the UPC (2008: 5), ‘Abu
Dhabi aspires to provide citizens with a
more sustainable urban environment’ and
seeks to develop ‘a framework that will cre-
ate sustainable communities for future gen-
erations’. Sustainability is again understood
in economic terms. In Urban Planning
Vision 2030, the objective is the same as for
Economic Visions 2030 – namely, the cre-
ation of an economy which can be kept in
existence for the foreseeable future – and the
built environment is interpreted as the
medium to achieve this objective.
Urbanisation, in the shape of new cities and
regeneration programmes, is pursued to pro-
vide all the physical and socio-economic
infrastructures (such as laboratories, office
space, research centres and financial
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9
institutions) essential to developing high-
tech devices by which clean energy can be
produced and, more importantly for Abu
Dhabi, new economic sectors can be culti-
vated. In this sense, Urban Planning Vision
2030 presents the same echoes of ecological
modernisation as its economic counterpart,
Economic Vision 2030, with the addition of
a peculiar factor: the urban. The creation of
new urban settlements and the regeneration
of existing ones or, to put it differently, the
urbanisation of the region, is how eco-
modernisation strategies are practiced in
Abu Dhabi. It is in this policy context that
the article now explores the Emirati project
for a new eco-city: Masdar City.
The Masdar City project:
Mechanics
The policy priorities of Abu Dhabi discussed
in the previous two sections can be observed
10
in practice by looking at the Masdar City
project: the flagship development of Vision
2030 and the realisation of the policy tenets
of Economic and Urban Planning Vision
2030. The aim of expanding the local econ-
omy by using the built environment is the
kernel of the Emirati eco-city project.
Masdar City is a US$20 billion, state-funded
project consisting of the construction of a
new master-planned settlement which is
claimed by its developers, the Masdar
Initiative (2015: no page), to be ‘the world’s
most sustainable eco-city’. Originally
designed by the London-based, international
studio, Foster and Partners in 2007, Masdar
City, once completed, will cover 6 km2 and
accommodate a population of approxi-
mately 50,000 people. However, the nature
of the new Emirati city is more economic
than social. Described as a ‘business’ by sev-
eral representatives of the Masdar Initiative
interviewed during the fieldwork, Masdar
City is a commercial enterprise designed to
generate profit through a synergistic process
of technological and urban development.
This section now examines the machinery of
the business underpinning the Emirati eco-
city project in relation to the local develop-
ment agenda, to then shed light on the most
problematic aspects of the Masdarian under-
standing of sustainability.
The Masdar City project is officially pro-
moted by the Masdar Initiative as one of the
key tools employed by the government to
implement Vision 2030. According to recent
publications released by the developers,
Masdar City will ‘grow the non-oil sector’s
share of the emirate’s economy’ and ‘encour-
age investment in areas that generate intel-
lectual property gains’ (Masdar Initiative,
2012: 10). These objectives are pursued
through two main, interconnected strategies
for which the built environment is the com-
mon denominator. First, Masdar City seeks
to contribute to Abu Dhabi’s economic
growth and diversification by developing a
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Urban Studies
new economic sector based on the research,
development and commercialisation of clean
technology. The plan of the Masdar
Initiative is to create a clean-tech hub where
emerging companies, established corpora-
tions and research centres converge to
develop and launch new clean-tech products
such as smart grids, photovoltaics, auto-
mated transport systems and low-carbon
building materials. Companies like Siemens,
Schneider and Mitsubishi, can rent portions
of the new city and install state-
of-the-art laboratories to test high-tech
devices in co-operation with the Masdar
Initiative. Once a partnership is forged, the
Emirati company shares its expertise
through its teams of engineers, planners and
market analysts, and, together with its part-
ners, it identifies high-demand clean technol-
ogies and uses the new city to develop them.
The city provides all the infrastructures
necessary to deliver clean-tech projects. After
having been designed and manufactured,
products are integrated into the urban fabric
of Masdar City and their performance is
tested using the entire city as a laboratory.
‘We want to do it [testing] in a real-life envi-
ronment’, commented a representative from
Siemens – one of the key partners of the
Masdarian venture – in an interview. The
representative explained how the new Emirati
city gives to companies such as Siemens the
opportunity first to collect data on their
products in the environment for which they
have been designed, and second to showcase
them using the company buildings as show-
rooms. The flow of data is constant and com-
panies monitor their prototypes in real-time.
The collection of data is computerised and
automated: a process which makes Masdar
City a laboratory that never sleeps. In a simi-
lar vein, Masdar City is a showroom that
never closes. Given that, in Masdar City, the
urban and the tech are intrinsically connected
to each other, potential buyers, developers
and investors can observe the portfolio of the
Cugurullo
Figure 2. Solar panels roofs in Masdar City (April 2011).
Source: author’s original.
Masdar Initiative and its partners by simply
walking around in the city.
The new city grows together with the
business partnerships of its developers.
Headquarters and offices are built to accom-
modate new companies, and a plethora of
heterogeneous urban infrastructures (rang-
ing from streets and buildings to power and
water supply networks) are constructed to
accommodate their research portfolios. A
company such as Siemens, for example,
working on smart grid technologies dictates
the layout of Masdar City by installing the
physical components of the smart grid
(roof-mounted solar panels, meters, voltage
regulators, sensors, optical fibre cables,
automation systems, generators and electri-
cal substations) into the physical structure
of the settlement (see Figure 2). This plan-
ning mentality, in which business and urban-
ism are indistinguishable, leads Masdar City
to be an ever-changing urban space whose
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11
design has to constantly adapt to the agenda
of the Masdar Initiative and its business
partners. The implementation of new high-
tech devices implies the implementation of
new urban fabric and, as a planner from
Foster and Partners confirmed in an inter-
view, the master plan of the city is kept flex-
ible on purpose to make sure that, in
Masdar City, urbanisation and technological
development can always be synchronised.
Eventually, the products created in
Masdar City by the Masdar Initiative and
its business partners are commercialised and
sold worldwide, thereby generating substan-
tial returns for the owner of the project: Abu
Dhabi. As a manager from Schneider put it
when questioned about the commitment of
his company, ‘it’s a win-win situation’. For
the manager, companies like Schneider need
living laboratories such as Masdar City to
assess the performance of their new products
in real-life environments and build a
12
competitive advantage over companies that
test their technologies in traditional, indoor
laboratories. Masdar City, on the other
hand, seeks to attract multinationals to Abu
Dhabi and develop with them what now is
an embryonic non-oil sector of the economy.
In this context, the eco-city is a project
where ‘eco’ does not stand for ‘ecological’
but for ‘economic’.
Second, as a project pivoting around the
research and development of new high-tech
devices, a key objective of Masdar City is to
stimulate an economic sector, that of clean
technology, capable of generating intellec-
tual property gains. The products developed
in Masdar City are associated with a series
of intellectual property rights such as patents
and industrial design rights. All these rights
are investable assets. Individual investors
and brokerage firms can buy a share of these
assets in the expectation of long-term gains,
betting on the potential success of the prod-
ucts to which the assets are linked. It is
important to remember that clean technol-
ogy is a growing investment area. As
reported by the Frankfurt School of Finance
and Management (2012), in 2011 global
investment in renewable energies and tech-
nologies increased by 17%, thereby setting a
new record. Most of the investments (more
than 50%) were based on photovoltaics and
came from a variety of different geographi-
cal locations, marking a global turn in the
clean technology market. Masdar City, as a
clean-tech urban development promoted as
the model of its kind, aims to locate itself
and its products at the centre of this market,
and attract global investment in clean tech-
nology to expand and diversify the economy
of Abu Dhabi.
The Masdar City project:
Conceptual underpinnings
The way sustainability is understood and
practiced in Masdar City is a reflection of
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Urban Studies
Vision 2030. The new Emirati city follows
the policy priorities set in Economic and
Urban Planning Vision 2030 and interprets
sustainability as profitability, feeding into the
overarching aim of diversifying the economy
of Abu Dhabi. One interviewee, a spokes-
man from the Masdar Initiative, stated that
the purpose of Masdar City is to ‘make sus-
tainability commercial’. As explained above,
this is done by developing and commercialis-
ing clean technologies via the city. Besides
being a power source designed to generate
clean energy, Masdar City is a generator of
revenues which expands the economic port-
folio of Abu Dhabi, thereby sustaining the
local economy and, as a state-funded proj-
ect, itself as well. The Masdarian under-
standing of sustainability interprets urban
development purely in economic terms. In
the Masdar City project, the city is seen as a
tool to produce profit, and the sustainable
city is seen as a tool which can keep produc-
ing profit for the foreseeable future.
Interview data confirmed that, since the
early stages of the project, the ideas under-
pinning Masdar City have been cultivated
upon economic objectives. ‘Masdar City
should not be treated as a charity’ claimed a
manager from the Masdar Initiative in an
interview. ‘It has money given to it by the
government, and the government expects to
see a return on investment’. The manager
stated that behind every single step of the
project, there are meticulous economic cal-
culations and, ultimately, nothing gets
approved unless (a) it is within the budget
and (b) it is remunerative. This golden rule
applies to a number of elements of the
Masdar City project, such as planning stra-
tegies, architecture, materials and technolo-
gies, and, according to the manager, this is
the reason why Masdar City is an example
of sustainable urban development. For him,
the new city is sustainable inasmuch as it is
‘cost-effective’ and ‘economically viable’. ‘I
am paying my cost and I am making money’
Cugurullo
he argued, capturing the essence of the
Masdarian philosophy.
However, the fact that the Emirati eco-
city project has shown to have the potential
of being economically profitable does not
necessarily make Masdar City sustainable.
There are three main problems to consider.
First, the focus of Masdar City is too much
on the economic aspects of sustainability,
and social and environmental concerns are
either underdeveloped or, worse, ignored.
The politics of Masdar City is a politics of
expediency, where the ends justify the means:
a politics which, following a Machiavellian
rationale, is ready to sacrifice the environ-
mental and social performance of the new
city in order maximise the economic one.
The aim of the Masdar Initiative (2011: no
page) is to quickly build an ‘unmatched plat-
form for the commercial-scale demonstra-
tion of sustainable technology’, and scarce
consideration is given to some of the most
crucial socio-environmental challenges that
stand in between the developers and the
implementation of their eco-city project.
Water supply, for example, is a major envi-
ronmental issue, inasmuch as Masdar City is
located in a region affected by water scar-
city. Over 90% of groundwater in Abu
Dhabi is saline and the remaining percentage
is not enough to sustain the growing urban
population of the emirate. As a result, Abu
Dhabi relies on desalination: an energy-
intensive process which requires the combus-
tion of vast amounts of fossil fuels. In the
future, Masdar City is supposed to receive
water from desalination plants powered by
Masdar City itself through its photovoltaic
power stations. However, as a planner from
Foster and Partners admitted during an
interview, the new city will be able to gener-
ate enough energy to sustain itself only after
having being completed. Therefore, as of
this writing, Masdar City relies on off-site
energy sources and, more specifically, on
Emirati oil and gas. Oil, in particular, is
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13
what guarantees a continuous flow of fresh
water to Masdar City. In addition, it pro-
vides the majority of the energy that the
Masdar Initiative needs to build a city from
scratch. Paradoxically then, Masdar City is
promoted as a green city despite the fact that
black is the colour of the element that sus-
tains its implementation.
Second, the way sustainability is
expressed in Masdar City associates environ-
mentalism with consumerism. The environ-
mental attention of the developers is put
almost exclusively on CO2 whose reduction
can be capitalised through the development
and commercialisation of clean technologies
designed to decrease the carbon emissions of
urban environments. As a result of this
profit-driven selection of environmental tar-
gets, a plethora of other important themes
(ecosystem services in particular) are cut off
because they are perceived as unattractive
from an economic perspective. More proble-
matically, the extreme reliance on technol-
ogy as the solution to global environmental
problems reiterates the very origin of those
environmental problems. The Masdar
Initiative encourages its customers to con-
sume technologies or, put simply, products
whose commercialisation requires intense
processes of extraction, production and dis-
tribution. In order to be made, material
goods such as smart grid devices necessitate
ingredients (metals, minerals, plastics, etc.)
which are extracted from the ground or
derived from petroleum. In addition to
exploiting the stock of resources of the pla-
net, the process of extraction is extremely
carbon intensive (not to mention its immedi-
ate negative impact on ecosystems) and adds
to the carbon emissions that are generated
when materials are assembled into products
and products, in the shape of commodities,
are distributed across the world.
Third, the economic targets of Masdar
City are shaped to the advantage of a small
percentage of the population of Abu Dhabi.
14
The revenues produced by the new city flow
directly to the royal family and indirectly to
the Emirati citizens through a broad welfare
system. The remaining 85% of the popula-
tion (made up of expatriates) is left, physi-
cally and economically, outside the city. In
addition to being excluded from the eco-
nomic benefits that Masdar City generates,
most of migrant workers are also excluded
from the built environment of Masdar City.
The new settlement has been partitioned
according to an urbanistic rationale which
leaves the majority of the urban space to
high-income workers. More specifically,
80% of housing space in the city will be
taken by the Masdar Initiative and its busi-
ness partners, while the remaining 20% will
be left to low-income workers. Besides pena-
lising the most vulnerable groups, such dis-
tribution of space does not follow an equal
temporal progression. As a planner from
Foster and Partners remarked in an inter-
view, the Masdarian ‘20% policy’ in favour
of low-income households is still nebulous.
To date, priority has been given to building
high-standard accommodations for the
members of the clean-tech companies work-
ing with the Masdar Initiative, and little
attention has been paid to the implementa-
tion of social housing. This planning mental-
ity makes Masdar City an elitist and,
ultimately, socially unjust project whose
environmental and economic benefits appear
to be unequally distributed among the popu-
lation of Abu Dhabi.
Conclusions: Urban
eco-modernisation
In this article, the lens of moderate relation-
alism has highlighted the multifaceted nature
of Abu Dhabi’s project for a new eco-city.
Masdar City is a syncretism produced by the
Abu Dhabi Government’s metabolisation of
local challenges, through the thesis of ecolo-
gical modernisation. The process, supervised
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Urban Studies
by a multinational taskforce and realised by
a state-owned company, is tailored to the
challenges faced by the ruling class and feeds
into a broader policy agenda which seeks to
regenerate and expand the local economy
through the regeneration and expansion of
the built environment. By developing, inte-
grating and commercialising clean technolo-
gies, the Emirati eco-city project capitalises
on environmental concerns to generate
profit. Built to be a laboratory and show-
room of clean-tech products, the new city is
funded and used by Abu Dhabi to establish
non-oil businesses serving the dual purpose
of diversifying the economy and producing
alternative energy sources. In these terms,
Masdar City is sustainable inasmuch as it
manages to sustain the economic and politi-
cal system that it draws on. However, redo-
lent of the eco-modernisation logic, the
project is severely undermined by an internal
tension between economic interests and envi-
ronmental concerns: a tension which ulti-
mately shatters the sustainability potential
of the new city.
The examination of the Masdar City
project reveals the contradictions that the
thesis of eco-modernisation generates when
put into practice via urbanisation. The city
is treated as a commodity and its develop-
ment is dictated by the logic of the market.
Behind the implementation of the Emirati
alleged eco-city are not ecological analyses
studying the biophysical environment that
surrounds Masdar City, but rather market
analyses studying the economic environment
that surrounds the clean technology market.
Challenges to the sustainability of Masdar
City, such as the water and energy supply
chains, that affect the environmental perfor-
mance of the new city, are not tackled.
Instead, they are perceived by the Masdar
Initiative as obstacles and simply ignored or
bypassed. Ideas of economic feasibility and
profitability shape the understanding of
what has to be sustained, and those aspects
Cugurullo
of city-making that cannot be turned into
immediate sources of profit are excluded
from the agenda (see also Cugurullo, 2013a,
2013b).
Materialising the fears of critics of ecolo-
gical modernisation such as Foster (2002),
Masdar City replicates the same patterns and
mistakes of the conventional capitalist city
where what cannot be capitalised is ignored,
and what is meant to solve environmental
problems (technological development) rein-
forces the same dynamics that caused them
in the first place. In addition, the economic
benefits of the project are not equally distrib-
uted and what is sustained is an undemo-
cratic regime, to the detriment of social
justice. However, as demonstrated in this
article, the issues of what can be termed
urban eco-modernisation are (re)produced in
Masdar City, but do not originate in Masdar
City. The unsustainability of the Emirati eco-
city project comes from the policy agenda of
Abu Dhabi, Vision 2030, which is crafted
around the economic interests of the local
elites. What the Masdarian experience shows
is that, in order to develop sustainable cities,
governments first need to develop policy
agendas that equally target economic and
environmental development to the advantage
of the whole population. Without such con-
ditions, any so-called ‘eco-city’ will be the
utopia of the few and the dystopia of the
many.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Kevin Ward, Alison
Browne and the three anonymous referees for
their precious comments on early drafts of the
article.
Funding
My gratitude goes to the European Union and
the Royal Geographical Society (Dudley Stamp
Memorial Award) for supporting the cost of the
fieldwork in the Emirates.
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15
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