URBAN IDENTITY: THE GULF’S NEW INVESTMENT

Why Gulf countries are investing in urban identity?

It’s easy to imagine the world’s most famous cities in your mind. When you think of Tokyo, New York, or Paris, the skyline instantly pops up. That’s because they have crafted their urban identity: a unique combination of physical design, cultural expression, social behavior, and economic function that makes each city recognisable, livable, and meaningful to its residents and the world.

Across the Gulf, that mindset has transformed architecture into a strategic tool, used not just to shape skylines, but to shape perception, participation, and place. 2025’s real question isn’t whether the region is reshaping its cities;it’s why. The answer sits at the crossroads of talent, events, and soft power.

IT ATTRACTS THE RIGHT TALENT

When the UAE widened its 10-year Golden Visa this spring, adding five fresh eligibility tracks for creatives and coders, it sent a clear signal: we want you to love living here and feel a sense of belonging. The policy already pays rent in reputation. Dubai offices are at record occupancy, while peers like London and New York wrestle with empty floors. Active business licences in the emirate jumped 30 percent last year, propelled by global financiers, crypto founders, and game designers chasing long-term residency.

Architecture backs the paperwork. Dubai Design District offers subsidised studios wrapped in street-level galleries; Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City keeps pedestrian alleys five degrees cooler than the desert, giving start-ups a literal climate advantage. The talent today isn’t just looking for a tax break, it wants a lifestyle; urban comfort, identity, and the promise that the city itself is part of the product.

“The UAE has evolved from being just a career destination to becoming a lifestyle destination,” says Farah Kassab, Founder and Urban Planner at Development x Design.
“Initiatives like Abu Dhabi’s Ghadan21 and more recently Dubai’s 2040 Master Plan have placed greater emphasis on placemaking, focusing on vibrant lifestyles, healthy communities, and regenerating public spaces. We’re now seeing projects focused not on superlatives or icons, but on liveability and reimagining everyday experiences in the city.”

THE STAGE IS SET FOR NOW AND LATER

From Doha’s dazzling World Cup to Riyadh Season’s pop-up “Boulevard World” entertainment zone, the Gulf has weaponised the built environment to host planetary-scale parties. Riyadh Season 2024 drew 10 million visitors in its first two months, proof that an event stitched into streets, plazas, and themed districts can rival any theme-park queue.

The National explained “Expo 2020 Dubai’s pavilions are now being repurposed into 500 loft apartments inside a car-free “smart city” neighbourhood, keeping event buzz alive, and rentable, long after the fireworks fade.”  While, Euro News reported on Qatar’s Lusail and Al Bayt stadiums replacing seats with schools, clinics, and cafés, pivoting from 90-minute matches to decades-long community service.

Design, in each case, does double duty: first as a photogenic backdrop for livestreams, then as the skeleton of a new urban district. It’s stagecraft today; statecraft tomorrow. 

THE NEW ARABIAN SKYLINE

The Gulf is selling a broader narrative, one where innovation speaks Arabic. The mirrored shell of Dubai’s Museum of the Future spells out an Arabic promise: “The future does not wait; the future can be designed and built today.”  Saudi Arabia’s THE LINE promises a 170-kilometre linear “cognitive city” running on 100 percent renewables.

Via Riyadh’s retail village, on the other hand, is built from Tuwaiq-quarried stone in Salmani style, proving that modernity can still be rooted in an unmistakably Saudi aesthetic.

“Projects like Green Riyadh and the Sports Boulevard aren’t about beautification, they’re about transforming daily life through greener, more active, and more connected places. NEOM takes it further by signalling ambition and innovation on a global scale. These moves are about building identity through design, and making cities people choose.” says Jay Nambisan, Senior Manager, Knight Frank | Masterplan Advisory.

These projects beam a message well beyond tourists: come teach, invest, or exhibit here, and borrow some of the region’s reflected ambition.

FUTURE FACING FINANCE

Iconic districts cost billions, but Gulf treasuries are rewriting how those billions flow. “The UAE topped MENA’s green-bond charts last year with $10.7 billion in sales; Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund followed with its own multi-billion-dollar issuances,” stated WAM.

Outcome-linked sukuk now tie lender returns to carbon-cutting targets, pushing developers to swap diesel chillers for solar roofs. Saudi mega-projects go one step further: NEOM’s payroll, already at 140,000, is projected to top 200,000 workers next year, thanks to blended deals inviting global contractors to trade expertise for equity.

“Urban identity today is about how cities perform, not just how they look,” says Margarita Huaca, Engineer & Sustainable Development Expert at Enernouva.
“TDS technology is helping Gulf cities shift quietly toward self-sufficient, energy-smart infrastructure. That’s a powerful part of this transformation, it’s design with real impact.”

When capital itself demands sustainability credentials, design excellence stops being a cost centre and starts being the ticket to cheaper debt.

AN IDENTITY OF OUR OWN

What binds these strategies is a pivot from importing icons to exporting identity. Gulf cities once mimicked Manhattan high-rises; today they remix heritage, mashrabiya shades on climate-smart façades, wind-tower courtyards cooled by algorithms.

“Urban identity isn’t just what a city looks like, it’s how it makes people feel, belong, and believe they’re part of something greater,” says Christine Espinosa-Erlanda, Associate Director at Godwin Austen Johnson.
“For me, it’s more about experiences and emotional connection than built form. The cities that understand that are the ones people choose to return to, or never leave.”

The result is a region where cities are no longer just built to impress, but to connect: designed for belonging as much as for scale.

Cityscape| May 11, 2025