‘‘Ever-growing Amman’’, Jordan: Urban expansion, social polarisation and contemporary urban planning issues

Amman the primate capital city of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan currently has a population in excess of 2 million, but in 1924 it consisted of little more than a collection of dwellings and some 2000–3000 inhabitants. The present paper sets out to document and explain the phenomenal expansion of ‘‘evergrowing Amman’’. The physical geography of the urban region and the early growth of the city are considered at the outset and this leads directly to consideration of the highly polarised social structuring that characterises contemporary Amman. In doing this, original data derived from the recent Greater Amman Municipality’s Geographical Information System are presented. In this respect, the essential modernity of the city is exemplified. The employment and industrial bases of the city and a range of pressing contemporary issues are then considered, including transport and congestion, the provision of urban water under conditions of water stress and privatisation, and urban and regional development planning for the city. The paper concludes by emphasizing the growing regional and international geopolitical salience of the city of Amman at the start of the 21st century. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction to Amman: a modern metropolis of geopolitical significance The growth of Amman in the second half of the 20th century through to the start of the 21st century has been phenomenal, in terms of its population, physical extent and regional geopolitical importance. Recently, Al-Asad (2005) has referred to what he describes as ‘‘ever-growing Amman’’. What was in the early 1920s a small town of little more than 2000–3000 people is today a major regional city with a recorded population of 2.17 million people at the end of 2006 (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, 2006). And the phenomenal growth of the urban area in both size and significance has occurred in ‘‘drastic growth spurts that have transformed the look and feel of the city.and its connections with the outside world’’ (Al-Asad, 2005). Such growth spurts have alsomeant that although geopolitically Amman currently stands as one of the most important cities in the modern Arab world, one of its major characteristics is that it is, for the most part, a thoroughly modern metropolis: ‘‘Amman is a modern Arab city rather than a great, ancient metropolis of the Orient: it has never rivalled Damascus or Cairo