No urban desert! Emergence and transformation of extended urban landscapes in Oman
Like the metropolitan area, the landscapes of Oman ranging from the coastal plains of Al Batinah, to the plateaus of the Hajar Mountains, to the old cities in the Interior, the deserts of the Empty Quarter and beyond are subject to recent, dramatic changes. Multiple factors drive these changes induced by the discovery of oil in 1965, the gradual development of the economy since 1970 and followed by a demographic explosion thereafter. Housing for the population growing at 3% annually and provision of infrastructure in form of roads, ports, airports, schools, hospitals and mosques became a national planning priority (Development Council 1976) and the measure of progress as well as public satisfaction with the rule of the Sultan. Today, these processes manifest in an endless proliferation of individual residential houses sprawling across the Omani landscape and can be subsumed under the process of extended urbanisation as conceptualised on a global scale by (Schmidt and Brenner, 2014) The urban geography of Muscat Capital Area has been studied by (Scholz 1990) whilethe process of urbanisation and its effects on urbanised areas, urbanising areas and areas beyond have been researched by (Nebel and von Richthofen, Aurel 2016) As the research scope expands the definition of urban and rural in the Omani context need closer attention. Oman Muscat Al Batinah Dubai