Musings on a New York Times article about Doha

A few days ago there was an article in the New York Times about Doha. Titled “Qatar’s Capital Glitters Like a World City, but Few Feel at Home” it explores how Doha is becoming a huge city with tons of skyscrapers and construction but seems to lack a real urban heart, and discusses the divide between Qataris and expatriates as the two circles do not interact with each other.

Read the article first, then I'll continue.


First, I'll point out a couple of things that were right and wrong in the article:

a) the picture that shows that there's not much pedestrian traffic is true -- for certain neighborhoods. The picture was taken in the neighborhood of West Bay, just outside of City Center Mall. I used to live in that neighborhood and if you recall one of the reasons why I moved out was because that neighborhood was “sterile”.

When people see West Bay for the first time from a distance, with its tall and glittering skyscrapers, people assume that's where it's at and it'll be a thriving neighborhood not unlike Manhattan or Chicago.

Unfortunately the realities of urban planning got in the way.

Public transit in Doha is poor and there is no Metro, which means everyone drives into work. West Bay is also primarily reclaimed land so it is challenging to dig multi-story underground parking lots under your building. Combine that with the fact that many of these buildings are 40+ stories and you have a real issue with parking, which necessitates surrounding the building with a parking lot. This creates what I call "skyscraper islands”, a skyscraper surrounded by a parking lot, which in turn is next to another parking lot attached to a skyscraper, and so on. This leaves no space for any kind of sidewalk-level shops or cafés, only parking lots are next to the sidewalk.

End result, an unexciting neighborhood.

This is not true for many other parts of Doha. Go into the older areas of the city such as Bin Mahmoud, Najma or Musherib and it’s teeming with people. In fact, it’s teeming with too many people. Again everyone having a car and not enough parking is to blame, streets in these neighborhoods have real traffic problems and there are cars parked everywhere. For some reason urban planners did not force buildings to have adequate parking. I estimate that my apartment tower has 60 apartments but only 40 parking spaces, as does the other 6 to 10 apartment towers next to mine. That said I prefer it to West Bay, the neighborhood has soul. One of my colleagues remarked when he visited my apartment that he loved that he could see children playing in the street, something you would never see in West Bay. I guess the NYT reporter never made it to those neighborhoods.

b) Souq Waqif is mostly for tourists and Qataris don't go there much – wrong!

I live near the Souq now and I can tell you that there is always plenty of Qataris there. Maybe not on the main restaurant street, but you will see plenty of them in the small labyrinthine alleyways off the side of the street, the pet souq, and in the falcon souq at certain times of the year. It is true, as one Qatari said, it is not the ultimate social hub for Qataris, but you can't say that a majlis is either when referring to a city as a whole. A majlis is usually in someone's home, an important meeting place to be sure but it is not a common area of a city that people freely move in and out of. Every Westerner has a living room but we don't say that the social heart of the Western city is everyone's living room.


Lastly, I have posted in the past about challenges in meeting Qataris and I have to admit that all of the ones I know well I met through work or are firends of theirs. Part of the issue is that Qataris and Westerners don't share a lot of common interests. I love going to the ATP tennis tournament they hold here but most Qataris don't follow tennis. Qataris don't go to the Qatar Natural History Group either; don't attend Arabic lessons (duh!); and certainly don't hang out in bars or nightclubs (at least the vast majority don't), so part of the difficulty in meeting them is that you just don't have an opportunity to. It's not like you can just walk up to a Qatari in a mall and go "Hi, let's be friends". If you attend things or get involved in the events that Qataris do then chances are you'll meet them, just like you'd meet the locals anywhere else in the world.

It may surprise people to know that the odd time you do meet and chat with a Qatari (I chatted with a Qatari gentleman in a bar once, and with other Qataris at various business receptions or weddings) they are generally very kind and talkative, not at all evasive, quiet or closed. The same applies to the Bahrainis, Saudis, Kuwaitis, and Omanis I've met.

It is meeting them that can be a challenge, not (as the article implies) that they don't want to meet you.