Middle East & North Africa » Qatar
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Qatar and Doha |
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| Qatar is a limited size country that needs to address a rapid growth.
The National Development Strategy 2011-2016 requires a complementary Territorial Development Strategy. National land-use planning needs to respond and to the national socio-economic challenges and encompass development objectives. This is the right time to envision comprehensively the structure of Qatar as an integrated country and produce a pattern of growth that will be efficient, equilibrate and sustainable |
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Laboratorio Misura e Scala della Città Contemporanea |
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| Until now, the city of Doha, has exploded from a population of 500,000 people in 2004 to 1.3 million today. According to the World Population Bureau, Qatar's net migration rate of nearly 10 per cent is nearly double those of its nearest competitors - Bahrain, Singapore and the UAE. As its natural-gas fueled economy zips along, it is one of the world's fastest growing at an estimated growth rate of 16 per cent this year.
Qatar's population will reach 2 million by 2013, which means Doha will grow by an additional 20 per cent in the next three years. But some economic advisors to the Qatari government expect economic expansion to slow by more than half in the next two years, as major energy and infrastructure projects are completed and tens of thousands of laborers return home. Therefore, unless a comprehensive approach is taken to managing growth, there is certainly a risk of overbuilding. Moreover, the world economy is rapidly moving away from carbon-based fuels and towards new sources of energy, and for Qatar, this would mean a great economic diversification |
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