Resource Urbanisms

Asia’s divergent city models of Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Hong Kong

This report presents the key findings of the Resource Urbanisms project that LSE Cities led between 2015 and 2017. The research, supported by the Kuwait Programme at the LSE Middle East Centre, focuses on two natural resources, land and energy, and explores their relationships with city form, housing and mobility. It analyses these relationships through a comparative case study approach by focusing on Kuwait and Abu Dhabi in the Gulf, and Hong Kong and Singapore in East Asia. Both the Gulf and East Asian case studies have similar income levels, but exhibit contrasting forms of urban development. More importantly, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi are endowed with vast natural resources (land and oil), while Hong Kong and Singapore possess limited natural resources, making them useful cases for comparative purposes.

The research is based on a mixed method approach developed by LSE Cities and the project partner, the European Institute for Energy Research (EIFER). This approach compares the evolution of urban forms and infrastructure and uses remote sensing, energy modelling, transport accessibility analysis and data visualisation at multiple spatial scales to uncover and establish relationships between different variables. The research developed a new metric, urban living area (ULA), to represent more accurately the land where urban living takes place.