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In the last decades, many emerging countries have been staging mega sporting events more and more frequently. Among those nations, Qatar stands out for being the first Arab country to host a FIFA World Cup. With the rationale of diversifying its economy and promoting itself as a tourist destination, Doha, its capital city, has recently staged many international events and is literally under construction, undergoing important changes in terms of transportation, infrastructure, and sports facilities. While hosting cities and organising committees often promote the supposed benefits of a mega event, experience shows an opposite trend: outcomes from staging major events are mostly harmful, and their effects are planned to last only for a short time. When it comes to sporting events sites, stadiums, and their precincts, they usually become under-used and very costly to maintain in a very short time, and their precincts are completely abandoned. What will be the destiny of the 2022 World Cup stadiums and infrastructure? How can this event be leveraged as a momentum of experimentation and sustainable growth of its capital city, Doha? Is it possible to transform the Cup's stadiums and precincts into liveable, enjoyable and well-integrated public spaces and neighbourhoods? This work focuses on the city of Doha, which hosted the 2006 Asian Games and will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup and aims to identify strategies to plan and maximise the post-event use of event sites and venues, more specifically stadiums, to generate more liveable and sustainable public spaces. The article investigates Doha's public spaces, and analyses the government's legacy plans for the 2022 World Cup, with a specific focus on stadiums and their precincts. The research aims to be a warning to future hosting cities and presents a series of suggestions on how to best leverage the stage of mega sporting events to promote healthy and liveable public spaces.

Motorisation is increasing globally, especially in major cities of Asia and the Gulf region. To illustrate, over the last decades, Doha, the capital city of Qatar, has experienced a fast urban growth along with a wide increase in the need for new transportation options. Recently, the Qatari Government has planned to improve Doha's transport system, by developing projects that include a new metro and light rail scheme. On the other hand, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)'s track record provides a compelling case for more cities to consider it as a transit priority. Within this context, this article critically examines three relevant factors (implementation time, cost effectiveness, and performance) for the successful dissemination of BRTs in relation to the city of Doha. The article argues that the implementation of a BRT scheme is a beneficial and effective alternative to the metro scheme that is under construction in the city.

Since the 1990s, Qatar has experienced an unprecedented economic development along with rapid urban growth and motorization, which together have created new social and business opportunities for the local population but also important challenges for the local government, especially with regard to a sustainable development of the country.

With the aim of diversifying its economy and develop itself as a tourist destination, in recent years, Qatar has hosted many international sports events and will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Doha, Qatar's capital city, is literally under construction, and is facing important changes in terms of transportation, infrastructure, and sports facilities. However, past experiences have shown that the outcomes of staging major sports events are mostly harmful, and their planned legacies last only for a short time. This trend becomes even stronger when considering how sports facilities and their surroundings are utilized after the event is over. Usually, sports venues become white elephants, and their neighborhoods islands of placelessness, underutilized and abandoned pieces of the city. What will be left after the World Cup? How to leverage this event as a moment of experimentation and sustainable growth of its capital city, Doha? In this context, the aim of this research is to identify strategies to plan and maximize the post-event usage of event sites and venues, and make their neighborhoods more livable and sustainable. The research has a specific focus on the city of Doha, which hosted the 2006 Asian Games and will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. It starts with a critical review of relevant precedents from the Western and the Eastern world, and then continues with an in-depth analysis of three selected case studies, namely the cities of London, Sochi, and Rio de Janeiro that recently hosted major sports events. Finally, the research focuses on the context of Doha, investigating its public spaces and planning system, and analyzing the government's legacy plans for the 2022 World Cup. The expected results include a set of guidelines and recommendations to help Doha transform its sports venues and event sites into lasting, sustainable, and livable public open spaces, and, more generally, to define strategies for achieving successful legacies from the host of mega sports events. The results of this research can also be applied to other Gulf cities that share many similarities in terms of their urban form and planning systems, and that face for the first time the challenges and opportunities offered by the host of mega events.

This book investigates resource-constrained environments in the tropics and subtropics where people's lives and businesses are affected, and adaptations occur periodically. Constrained environments are unique territories characterised by challenging circumstances, limited land and natural resources. They can be places with a small municipal boundary or cities in which parts around them may be consumed by ocean, bay or mountains. Those places face hard physical boundaries like coastlines and mountains, which in addition to policy decisions that may limit height or density, can also serve to limit capacity for expansion. Successful communities and businesses tend to survive in a changing environment given their strong intuitive and forward-looking adaptations. This book delves into the role of urban planning and design in the promotion of business and adaptations of people and communities. Additionally, the focus takes into account impact analysis and the effects of an expanding populations, including growing migrant flows, and business needs on the built environment of land-constrained territories. Simona Azzali is a lecturer and researcher in urban design at James Cook University Singapore where she coordinates the Master of Planning and Urban Design and teaches modules on planning and sustainable urbanism. She is a member of JCU's Tropical Urbanism and Design Lab, an interdisciplinary team of geographers, architects, sociologists and planners interested in tropical urbanism, and JCU's Centre for International Trade and Business in Asia (CITBA). Prior to commencing her appointment at James Cook University, she worked and researched for various renowned academic institutions as the National University of Singapore, UCL London, Politecnico di Milano, and Qatar University, where she also undertook her Ph.D. K Thirumaran has over 15 years of tourism related research experience. As an academic, he has combined his professional experiences to discover and expand practice-informed research. Thiru's research interests are varied, but his core specializations reside in service excellence, and cultural and luxury tourism. Thiru coined the term 'affinity tourism.' Affinity tourism refers to the propensity of guests to partake in 'familiar' and 'similar' cultural experiences to those of their hosts. He has published field studies on Bhutan, Bali, Singapore, Vietnam, India and Thailand. .

Intro -- Foreword: Rethinking the 'Lived' Within the 'Urban' of the Middle Eastern City -- Contents -- Editors and Contributors -- 1 Towards New Directions for Public Spaces in the Globalising Middle East -- References -- Part I The Right to City and Conceptualisations of Public Spaces -- 2 Space Production in Times of Neoliberalism -- 2.1 The Right to the City: Theory and Definition -- 2.2 Evolution of Spatial Production, Collective Occupation of Space and the Right to the City -- 2.3 The First City: The Space of Contact -- 2.4 The Second City: The Space of Spectacle -- 2.5 The Third City: The City of Movements, the Urban Space -- 2.6 The Fourth City: The Space of Information, and the Space of Human Rights -- 2.7 Case Study: Re-reading the Right to the City in Tehran, Iran -- 2.8 Discussion and Conclusion -- References -- 3 Transnational Urban Space in the Global South: Cases from Qatar and Malaysia -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 Economic Restructuring in the Global South: The Cases of Qatar and Johor, Malaysia -- 3.2.1 The Rise of Qatar's Economic and Geopolitical Ambitions -- 3.2.2 Johor as Part of the Straits Megacity Region -- 3.3 Case Study #1: The "Public" Space of Qatar Foundation -- 3.4 Case Study #2: The Transit Space of Iskandar Malaysia -- 3.5 Conclusions -- References -- 4 Beirut: Place of Post-crisis -- 4.1 Beirut: Spaces of Dynamic Reconstruction -- 4.2 The Project: Quality and Insecurity of Places -- 4.3 The Project: Dialogue and Discontinuity of Places -- 4.4 Reconsidering Karm El-Zeitoun Area -- 4.5 Riverside 2404, Dialogue between Deaf Places -- 4.6 End of Time-Places -- 5 Private and Public Spaces in the Middle East: Urban Contaminations -- 5.1 Beirut -- 5.2 Dubai -- References -- 6 Looking for the Liberal in the Neo-Liberal City [Alternative Public Spaces from Lebanon] -- 6.1 Introduction.

Urbanisation, urban mobility (active travel), and public health continue to be three defining issues of the 21st century. Today, more than half of humanity lives in cities, a proportion that is expected to reach 70% by 2050. Not surprisingly, urbanisation has significant impacts on mobility, health, and well-being. Today's cities struggle with health challenges such as those that are either a direct result of infectious and non-communicable diseases or issues related to violence and injuries. According to the World Health Organisation, the lack of suitable space in urban areas for physical activities and active living has turned cities into epicentres for diseases. The concept of urban mobility and its connection to health is not new. However, the ways through which a healthy city objective is achieved are poorly investigated in the academic literature. Accordingly, this article proposes a holistic conceptual framework by consolidating knowledge around factors impacting urban mobility by adopting a scoping review methodology to determine the field's scope, coverage, and existing knowledge gap. To achieve the above objectives, 3,189 research articles and book chapters published between 2014 and 2021 were screened. A total of 92 studies were identified as eligible for inclusion in the scoping review. This approach revealed the importance of understanding urban mobility and healthy cities and of identifying and enacting associated enablers. Covid-19 has amplified the urgency of giving attention to these issues. The scoping review also showed a need for further research that investigates the future of urban mobility and healthy cities. A conceptual framework has been drawn from the literature to guide such future research.

The management of marine waste is an increasingly complex issue facing the world today. Our study provides an interesting take on the issue of marine waste by examining how Indonesian indigenous communities can deal with plastic marine pollution. While there is an obvious need for mitigating plastic use, for effective legislative policies regulating plastic waste management, and to do more to develop sustainable waste management practices; there are also opportunities for indigenous communities to take an innovative approach by using plastic waste in a manner that drives economic development from both non-market and neoliberal theoretical ideologies. As part of this assessment, alongside Indonesian examples we include examples of plastic re-use by indigenous communities of the Philippines and Australia. Moreover, our study highlights some of the areas in which this is being done in the fields of art and infrastructure development.