Khalifa versus Prometheus: Green ethics and the struggle for contemporary sustainable urbanism

Abstract

In the last decades, contemporary urbanism in the global South has meant large urban transformations, tall architecture landmarks, and fierce city competition. However, cities and their planners are now confronting an ethical dilemma: how to grow and compete while caring for the disastrous impacts on Earth and human health caused by the mass extraction, processing, and consumption of resources linked to urbanization. In our article, we problematize the modern interpretation of technology, and in particular architecture and planning technologies, in society where sustainability is considered a product. By restudying the Quranic notion of the khalifa and the accidental, ecological formation of the oasis, we will argue for a postpromethean philosophy of inhabiting the Earth. We will exemplify this new ethical–technological shift by comparing planned and unplanned developments in Arabian Gulf cities.