Jordan's plan for high-tech desert city met with scepticism

A new desert metropolis to be built over the next three decades in Jordan has been met with skepticism by urban planners, who argue it is more efficient to improve existing cities.

Last month Jordan announced plans to build a new city east of the capital Amman to ease overcrowding and traffic congestion.

The yet-to-be-named city was touted as a high-tech utopia, with Jordan joining other Middle Eastern countries in betting on multi-million-dollar mega projects as an investment magnet and quick economic fix.

The government has promised the new city will draw people away from Amman, relieve its crippling traffic jams, and provide middle class housing, while injecting momentum into a sluggish economy plagued by high unemployment.

Yet some urban planners warn that "cities from scratch" are risky endeavours and argue it's more efficient to improve existing cities.

Authorities have only released snippets of information since the announcement was first made, with the perceived secrecy and "top-down" approach drawing widespread criticism.

Few Jordanians have shown much enthusiasm, while some suspect the new city is largely meant to benefit Jordan's powerful and their business cronies.

Few Jordanians have shown much enthusiasm, while some suspect the new city is largely meant to benefit Jordan's powerful and their business cronies, a charge which government officials deny.

This week, Amman Mayor Yousef Shawarbeh defended the rocky rollout in a meeting with business people, diplomats and representatives of the energy and environmental sectors, many of whom seemed sceptical.

"The topic hasn't been fully studied yet," the mayor said when pressed for details. "When we conclude the studies, we will announce plans and have clear roles for government, citizens, investors, and so on."

Shawarbeh insisted that Amman would not be neglected as Jordan, buckling under record public debt, shifts scarce resources to the new project. "The new city is not a new Amman," he said. But it is needed, he argued, to relieve pressure on the capital.

Amman is home to more than 40 percent of Jordan's population of 9.5 million.

The city's rapid growth has been driven by an influx of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian, Syrian and Iraqi refugees in recent decades.

It is also linked to accelerated urbanisation across the Middle East and North Africa, where populations flock from under-developed rural areas into cities looking for greater job opportunities.

By 2050, more than two-thirds of the region's anticipated 646 million people will live in cities, compared to 56 percent of 357 million people in 2010, according to UN projections.

In the past two decades, some two dozen new city projects were announced in the Middle East.

About half remain "power point cities" existing only on websites, said Sarah Moser, an urban geography professor at McGill University in Montreal. Others are well behind schedule.