The planning of Greater Amman: migrants to migrant capital

Abstract

PurposeClose inspection of some of the more intricate details of the two most recent planning efforts, the award-winning Amman Plan 2025 and the strategic master plan known as the Amman Development Corridor Study (ADC), particularly in their most direct area of overlap, that is, the Metropolitan Growth Strategy.Design/methodology/approachStudy and interpretation of published documents relevant to the plans in question.FindingsThe study reveals that the emerging objectives of accommodating migrant capital within the context of state-wide neo-liberal restructuring, particularly at the city’s eastern and south-eastern edge, have yet to benefit from recent scholarship on productive suburbanization.Research limitations/implicationsLack of data on Foreign Direct Investment in Amman.Practical implicationsThe results have implications for the future urban growth scenario of Greater Amman.Social implicationsInformal (illegal) building on the fringes of the city continues unabated. It is encouraged by permissive planning practice, a long-standing aspect of local practice dating to the 1970s. The longer that planning action lags, particularly at the eastern fringes, the more intense will be the informal building, and the higher the prospects for social conflict.Originality/valueThere has been only one, rather uncritical, published research on the Amman Plan, but none so far discussing the ADC study and its proposals.