Introduction: Cities in the Middle East: Politics, Representation and History

This introductory paper identifies existing gaps in the current research on the re-organization of urban space and the mobilization of urban dwellers from above and below, which are at the core of shaping contemporary city life in the Middle East. It further calls for deeper probing into processes of urban planning and urban political decision-making. The authors discuss the viability of comparative study of cities in the Middle East, which is brought into relief in an overview of the past and present political economy of the region and its interactions with transitions of cityscapes from the late Ottoman era and up to the present. The editorial later demonstrates how each of the articles in this special issue, while coming from a different discipline, contributes to a more elaborate discourse on Middle Eastern cities as economic, socio-cultural and political complexities.