The absolutist city developer: predatory megaprojects and the state-planning nexus in Qatar

Like any other emirate of the Persian Gulf, Qatar has invested billions of dollars to implement ambitious urban transformations. The official aim of these ‘megaprojects’ is to diversify the economy away from oil revenues, by attracting investors, tourists and knowledge workers. However, so far these megaprojects have broadly failed to deliver on this aim. In this chapter, I focus on the ‘state-planning nexus’ to show that despite the unique absolute control that the government has of all the phases needed to deliver a project, from planning to financing, the results have been poor. Megaprojects are disconnected from each other and their surroundings, they reinforce segregation and do not fit within the country’s ecological boundaries (lack of water, high temperatures and so forth). I argue that the lack of understanding of Gulf dynamics by international consultants, poor government capacity and ecological predatory strategies are the underlying causes for Qatar’s megaprojects fiasco.