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The Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC) today held a workshop with key Government stakeholders to evolve the urban identity strategy for Abu Dhabi City.
Abu Dhabi Government is being proactive in its efforts to ensure a coherent and consistent urban identity in advance of Vision 2030. The workshop demonstrates the UPC’s desire to bring Government agencies together to gain consensus and formally define the urban identify that incorporates the views and needs of all agencies. It highlights Abu Dhabi Government’s appreciation of how a city’s urban identity can affect the wellbeing of its residents, in addition to how attractive it is to regional and international tourists.
The goal of the workshop was to identify components that constitute urban identity using international and local examples. It aimed to outline the Government’s progress so far in defining Abu Dhabi’s urban identity, additional steps that need to be taken, and associated challenges. Urban identity has always been considered in the framework plans and master plans produced by the UPC, which will provide a basis for discussion on how this can be extended across all relevant Government plans.
Urban identity goes beyond just the architectural image or feel of a city. It is defined as a cluster of ideas about a place in the fields of geography, urban planning and design, landscape architecture, environmental psychology and urban ecology. It concerns the meaning and significance a place or city has for its residents.
Senior representatives from relevant government and private entities participated in the workshop: the Department of Municipal Affairs (DMA), Abu Dhabi City Municipality, Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority (TCA), Department of Transport (DoT), Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (DED), Abu Dhabi General Services Company (Musanada), Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation (SHF), Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC) and Aldar Properties (Aldar).
“Defining a city’s urban identity has recently become an issue in urban planning and design, and is especially important with a city such as Abu Dhabi, which has grown at a dramatic pace over a relatively short period of time,” said Abdulla Al Sahi, Acting Executive Director, Planning & Infrastructure Sector, UPC.
“Developing Abu Dhabi’s urban identity strategy will support the UPC and other Government agencies in their efforts to protect Abu Dhabi’s heritage significance, and to conserve its culture, individuality and distinctiveness as we move towards Vision 2030,” he added.
The UPC presented case studies of international cities with defined urban identities to discuss their approaches. The participants then evaluated current efforts, followed by a discussion on initial recommendations to move forwards. The conclusions drawn from the workshop will be used to develop a report to Leadership, highlighting the workshop discussions, outcomes and suggested way forward for their direction.
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