Name: How Oman’s $2.6 Billion Investment in Muscat Aims to Disrupt the Dubai Archetype
Uploaded: 2024-09-03T04:01:00Z
Duration: 7 min 16 s
Description: Oman is investing billions to modernize the city of Muscat as it sheds its reliance on oil. WSJ explores whether it can offer a more practical model for a Middle Eastern city, versus the glitzier approach of its neighbors.

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Oman is investing billions to modernize the city of Muscat as it sheds its reliance on oil. WSJ explores whether it can offer a more practical model for a Middle Eastern city, versus the glitzier approach of its neighbors. Photo: Oman Ministry of Housing & Urban Planning

https://m.wsj.net/video/20240830/ad472eb7-814f-4d2a-b721-bb05ba9baa24/1/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

Oman is investing billions to modernize the city of Muscat as it sheds its reliance on oil. WSJ explores whether it can offer a more practical model for a Middle Eastern city, versus the glitzier approach of its neighbors.

How Oman’s $2.6 Billion Investment in Muscat Aims to Disrupt the Dubai Archetype

Narrator: With its low buildings, long history, and large local population, Muscat has been described by some as the anti-Dubai. But now, as Oman looks towards an economic future without oil, the country is trying to modernize its capital, pouring billions of dollars into projects across the country. One of them is this, Sultan Haitham City. It's a new model for a Middle Eastern development that breaks the Dubai archetype. As other countries in the region struggle to execute ambitious visions, Sultan Haitham City is intended to offer a more practical model for a Middle Eastern city. Its buildings are mostly six stories or less, and there are thousands of homes for locals, alongside ones for expats and tourists. But some experts worry the country's ambitions may already be outgrowing the project. Muscat is wedged between the Gulf of Oman and the Hajar Mountains. It's home to about one-third of the country's rapidly growing population. Oman has a population of about 5.2 million people, but by 2040, it anticipates that number may increase by 50% to 7.7 million. To house them all, the country is investing in a lot of projects. One of the most significant that's underway is happening here. Sultan Haitham City is designed to house 100,000 people across more than a dozen neighborhoods, along with 25 mosques and 39 schools. Though for a landmark project in a Middle Eastern capital, the scale and budget are relatively small. The Line in Saudi Arabia, for instance, is expected to house 200,000 people after the first phase completes, with a projected cost of $100 billion. And Egypt's controversial New Administrative Capital designed to hold more than 6 million people will cost an estimated $58 billion. Oman's smaller ambitions are both because the country has less money and fewer people, but also because the country highly values its local atmosphere, where native Omanis actually live in the city and work in service jobs. In Dubai, for instance, only 15% of the city's population are from the UAE.

When I visited Muscat a few years ago, one thing that was crystal clear by my Omani hosts was that they do not want Muscat to become another Dubai. They were really insistent on that.

Narrator: It will take a while to see if the new model succeeds. Sultan Haitham City won't actually be done until 2045. Oman needs time to convince local people they want to live here. While Oman has a high home ownership rate, the government claims 89% of its citizens own their own homes, the country is still facing some major housing issues and the government needs to figure out how to get people to live in denser cities. Under the current system, Omanis typically live in single-family homes in low-density areas. Citizens are entitled to free land via a housing lottery, but they often wait years for lots that end up being far from established developments. In Muscat, this has led to a sprawling capital with lots of traffic.

The biggest issue in the region, and not just in Muscat or Oman, is housing.

Narrator: Leaders in the region have gotten extremely rich off their country's oil, but they make sure to spend enough on their people to maintain stability. In particular, they've paid for things like free healthcare, education, and homes.

And this is really how regimes in the Arabian Peninsula have been able to secure the loyalty of their citizens, through housing policy.

Narrator: But lots of the land these countries have left to dole out is farther into the desert, which is expensive to develop and will become increasingly unsustainable as resources decrease.

So there will have to be a sort of a reality check.

Narrator: Sultan Haitham City is designed to put locals in much denser neighborhoods than most currently live in, but maintain the privacy of individual villas. The government is also planning a mass transit system for Muscat that would go here, connecting the new city to the old city. Metro systems have been a long-time goal for countries across the Middle East that want to reduce traffic and improve their international image, but many have found them exorbitantly expensive and time-consuming. But this project isn't just about fixing the housing system for locals. Much of the development's housing is for expats and visitors because the megaproject is also a key part of Oman's bet on tourism. Oman doesn't currently get as many tourists as some of its neighbors, but the country is hoping it can draw visitors. With its picturesque setting and range of historic sites, it's one of the oldest cities in the Middle East. It's also safer and more politically stable than some of its neighbors. So in theory, it shouldn't need flashy and impressive projects to draw visitors. But some wonder how long it will be able to resist the temptation to imitate neighboring metropolises like Dubai.

It is very difficult to resist the seductive allure of a place like Dubai. It really has this hold on people's urban imaginary in that region, and they see what is happening in Dubai and elsewhere and they simply want to capitalize on that as well.

Narrator: But this approach often prioritizes international investment over local people.

I've coined the term dubaization, which at its core means that there is a certain mode of urban development that Dubai is promoting, where you basically start from a clean slate. You erase all that has existed in the past and rebuild it in a different way that is based on transience and temporality, on people not staying for the long term, but for a certain amount of time. And then of course, the building of all these skyscrapers and towers and spectacular iconic structures.

Narrator: Oman is already planning additional projects in Muscat, like this $1.3 billion development on the city's waterfront. Early rendering show the development may include buildings much taller than the country has allowed in the past.

It will significantly transform the Muscat skyline. So you have that skyline that was very low-key. Now you have these 30, 40-story high-rise towers in the center of the city geared towards high-end clientele. So this is not social housing. That is quite problematic.

Narrator: And while shiny new developments may attract investors and tourists, they often fail to help locals and can lead to more wealth disparity. This isn't as much of an issue in oil-exporting countries while resources remain plentiful, but it could cause issues long term.

When you have a society where inequality is high, then this immediately will lead to social unrest and social scientists will confirm that. The Arab Spring was really a manifestation of that. Of course, it was brutally repressed and put down, so for the moment, things are sort of stable, but in the long run, I don't think that this will last.

Narrator: For Muscat, the question will be whether it can successfully maintain its local character as it navigates how to modernize, or whether plans like its new waterfront will fundamentally alter it in the direction of neighbors like Dubai.

There is a way to try to reconcile these two tendencies to both have the spectacular and the more intimate and human-scaled. I don't think that these have to be mutually exclusive. How can you achieve both? It's difficult.