The Mirage of Purpose-Built Cities

Gulf purpose-built cities like Masdar and NEOM often fall short of their grand visions, becoming underpopulated and more symbolic than lived. Yasser Elsheshtawy calls for more grounded, socially responsive approaches that prioritise everyday life over spectacle.

When Masdar City was announced in 2006, it promised a revolution: a zero-carbon, car-free city in the desert, powered entirely by renewable energy and guided by the ethos of sustainable living. As an architect, I was captivated by this utopian vision. But two decades later, and during a visit in 2016, I saw that Masdar had drifted from ecological urbanism toward a mixed-use business park. Designed for 50,000 residents, it reached only a small fraction of that number (15,000).
I had lunch with a colleague who worked there in an upscale café, and we saw a group of Japanese tourists inspecting the small section that was actually built. Sustainability became a spectacle, not a lived reality!

Masdar is not alone. Across the Gulf and wider MENA, purpose-built cities have become the favoured medium of national aspiration— modern, futuristic and proof of global relevance. NEOM’s Line, for instance, was unveiled as a 170-kilometre megacity for nine million people. By 2024, reports revealed the plan had been drastically scaled back amid spiralling costs and technical limits. The reasons are instructive: inflated budgets, logistical complexity, and the simple truth that people are reluctant to live in places designed as spectacles rather than communities.

The Missing Ingredient: Everyday Urban Life

The most persistent gap lies between visionary planning and lived experience. Masdar lacked the density, spontaneity and informality that define urban life. Futuristic renderings of The Line obscure a basic fact: no technology can substitute for the everyday social processes that make cities thrive. Without a culture of use – without memory, improvisation, and collective ownership – these projects risk becoming sterile monuments to ambition.

Masdar Institute in the midst of a desolate landscape © Yasser Elsheshtawy

Behind their glossy sustainability narratives, many of these developments serve as instruments of greenwashing. They become tools to attract investment and legitimise extractive economies under the guise of ecological concern. The same oil wealth that fuels carbon-intensive industries now finances “net-zero” cities in the desert. In this sense, the Gulf’s new urbanism is thus less about environmental transformation than about symbolic reinvention – cities as brands.

From Smart Cities to Climate-Smart Design

Yet dismissing them entirely would be shortsighted. Purpose-built cities still offer a unique laboratory for climate-adaptive design. In hot, arid regions, where summer temperatures surpass 45 °C, passive cooling, shaded pedestrian corridors, and water-sensitive design are not luxuries but necessities. However, these basic strategies are often overshadowed by technological spectacle. AI-driven mobility, retractable façades, or drone logistics, while simpler vernacular lessons remain ignored. The Gulf courtyard house, with its wind towers and shaded sikkas, embodied a climatic intelligence that remains unmatched by the region’s “smart” prototypes.

Purpose-Built Cities as Climate Havens?

Beyond technology, these cities could play a deeper role in climate adaptation. As rising seas, droughts, and heatwaves push people to move, purpose-built cities located inland or on elevated terrain could function as future migration destinations for displaced populations. The UAE’s inland developments, such as Masdar and Zayed City, already test this potential by offering cooler microclimates through renewable-powered cooling and shaded public spaces. Saudi Arabia’s NEOM, if re-scaled with social inclusion in mind, could absorb populations from environmentally stressed coastal areas of the Red Sea.

Yet several barriers limit this potential. Most new cities in the region remain economically exclusive, designed for investors and high-income professionals rather than climate migrants or lower-income residents. Their pricing, governance structures, and restrictive housing models prevent the very diversity that fosters resilience. Moreover, limited participation and speculative real estate make adaptation secondary to profit. Without affordable housing, robust transport, and public services, these cities cannot meaningfully function as safe havens in a warming region.

From Mega-Projects to Adaptive and Incremental Urban Investment

The institutional and financial models driving these projects explain much of the problem. The state-led paradigm, long dominant in the Gulf, enables speed and scale. But it often limits civic voice and long-term social sustainability. When sovereign wealth funds or royal development authorities manage entire cities – as in NEOM or Diriyah Gate – execution can be impressive. Transparency or local participation, however, remain weak. Conversely, public-private partnerships (PPPs), now common across MENA, have produced mixed outcomes. While they attract foreign capital and technical expertise, they also risk transforming urban development into an investment portfolio rather than a social project.

Masdar Institute in the midst of a desolate landscape © Yasser Elsheshtawy

A more promising approach would combine state oversight with municipal participation and civic engagement. This hybrid governance model channels national vision into local agency. The Royal Commission for Riyadh City’s “Humanisation Program,” which retrofits public spaces for walkability and comfort, offers a small-scale example. It relies on public funds, local contractors, and community-driven design. Scaling such frameworks could make future purpose-built cities more responsive and inclusive. The case of Riyadh’s Al-Urubah park, soon to be opened, is particularly relevant since it will increase the share of green spaces in the capital.

Lessons from Masdar and NEOM for Sustainable Future Cities

Financially, incremental and adaptive investment may outperform megaproject financing. Instead of billion-dollar master plans, governments could allocate revolving funds for retrofitting existing towns and informal neighbourhoods. This spreads risk, encourages participation, and fosters gradual climate adaptation. Informality, long dismissed as a planning failure, offers lessons in resilience: adaptability, social cohesion, and resource efficiency without massive capital outlay.

Masdar’s story—from utopian ideal to corporate park – reminds planners that purpose cannot be built; it must be lived. The same holds for NEOM and every future desert city. Their success will not be measured by how futuristic their skylines appear, but by how well they shelter people, adapt to climate stress, and cultivate belonging. As the region reconsiders its grand experiments, the real question is no longer how to build the smartest city – but how to build one that can endure. And ultimately, the true purpose of these new cities is to teach humility: that even in the most visionary plans, the everyday remains the only meaningful measure of success.