Non-comprehensive Planning Approaches for Rapidly Urbanizing Communities AHMED M. SALAH OUF Cairo University, Egypt, and Sharjah Directorate of Town Planning and Survey, UAE ABSTRACT This paper presents the experience of managing a process of extremely rapid urban development in one of the Gulf States. In such situations of rapid urbanization, past planning models have not proved appropriate and many planning professionals working in such situations have not been exposed to more recent theoretical developments in the field. In this context, urban planning professionals have been required to invent new approaches for specific contexts, for which the models provided in their training had left them unprepared. Keywords: Rapid urban development; United Arab Emirates; strategic planning; urban governance; case-by-case planning; action plans within a broad vision Introduction The United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been urbanizing incredibly rapidly since their federation in 1971 and the creation of the UAE out of seven independent trucial Emirates. In such rapidly urbanizing situations, planning contexts and interventions are continually changing, necessitating the revision of plans at very close intervals. ‘Comprehensive plans’ prepared in the early 1970s for some of the Emirates proved inappropriate to accommodate the rapidity of change. A myriad of more flexible urban planning approaches were experimented with as each Emirate has sought to envision its urban future without restricting its development potentials. This article examines the urban plans produced for Sharjah City, the third largest city of the UAE, during the last few decades. The local planning agency in Sharjah (SDTPS) created its own planning model out of its local political and social conditions. This combines a capacity for co-ordination and shaping development with an ability to respond to rapidly changing conditions. Although not necessarily perfect or readily replicable to other contexts, it serves the local needs and has proved to be appropriate to the rapidly changing contextual conditions. There are lessons to be learned from this urban planning experience that might help rapidly urbanizing communities in other parts of the world with similar contextual conditions. Urban Planning and Rapid Urban Growth As early as the 1950s, Meyerson & Banfield (1955) argued that planning practice was different from the theory of planning. This has particularly proved to be true in rapidly Correspondence Address: Ahmed M. Salah Ouf, Professor of Urban Design, Senior Urban Planner, PO Box 688, Sharjah, UAE. Tel. þ 971 6 5722444. Email: ahmedoufo@yahoo.com Planning Theory & Practice, Vol. 8, No. 1, 51–67, March 2007 1464-9357 Print/1470-000X On-line/07/010051-17 q 2007 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14649350601158121