Developing urban models to address population growth impacts and assisting with future urban planning in Kuwait and other Arabian Gulf countries

Modern cities around the world have been shaped over time through different political, economic, sociocultural and geographical factors. While each city has grown in ways unique to its environment and historical context, there are common patterns of urban growth. For instance, many Western cities grew from centralised markets to form modern economies and a diverse society with population growth fuelled by migration from rural areas. Research on the dynamic aspects of urban change and growth were developed as a system model to explain urban structure and interactions with transport and land uses. People‘s preferences for liveability also factored into urban system research to influence land development and growth patterns. In contrast, Arabian Gulf cities exhibit a range of unique urban system traits different to those of Western cities. Urban growth took place only recently and over a relatively short period. The economy was almost completely driven by a single industry, namely oil extraction and exports, and the countries were governed by a central authority. Urban growth was organised to support the citizen population, but the oil wealth also supported a large population of foreign workers. This led to a distinct urban structure, population densities and land use patterns with separate regions for citizens and the foreigner workforce. With highly centralised planning control, people‘s preferences on housing and future land development policy were limited. This has led to negative urban impacts and social segregation in some Arabian Gulf cities. There is also a lack of planning models suited to Arabian Gulf countries and research on urban dynamics to inform future land policies.This research thesis aims to address this gap by developing urban growth models suited to conditions and the changing dynamics of Kuwait, an Arabian Gulf city. The models address aspects of urban system dynamics for urban forms, growth impacts, new city development, internal population migration and social segregation by nationality. In order to do so, three different urban models have been developed:i) A model that simulates the state of urban systems already in place to 2050 and assesses the effects of continuing with a business as usual approach,ii) A model that simulates the development and impacts of creation of new cities as proposed by Kuwait‘s latest master plan according to the State planning authorities,iii) A model that simulates the effects of people‘s participation in developing the new cities and the infrastructure, social and spatial systems associated with them.The urban modelling in this thesis has been designed on Agent Based Modelling (ABM) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) frameworks.The contribution of this thesis is twofold. Firstly in terms of theory, it has enhanced the understanding of urban systems for modelling population growth, population distribution and urban issues in Arabian Gulf countries. Secondly in terms of methodologically, the thesis has implemented a set of novel elements in urban modelling of Arabian Gulf countries including: the collection and integration of data directly from the public through surveys, and the modelling of the differences in expectations of citizen and non-citizen groups, as well as residents and decision makers.The outcomes of the research provide strong evidence towards the development of new cities as opposed to the continuation of expanding existing urban areas in Kuwait. In addition, the findings have shown that the potential success of new cities may be bolstered by the direct consideration of public opinion, and the timely development of new infrastructure. Apart from the case study for Kuwait city, the findings may be generalised to other Arabian Gulf cities.