Middle East

This slideshow from Slate looks at the elaborate plans for new cities in the United Arab Emirates, and compares them to other built-from-scratch cities in history.

Plans for a 4.6 km tramway have been announced for downtown Burj Dubai -- a $136 million transit system intended to link major developments in the rapidly rising emirate.

With rising sea levels and a penchant for ambitious new building ideas, Dubai is moving forward with plans to construct floating buildings and islands.

Investors are moving forward with plans to build an amusement park in Baghdad, arguing the Iraqi capital is in dire need of entertainment facilities. Many worry that security concerns will disrupt those plans.

One out of five homes in central Jerusalem is owned by someone living abroad, and sit empty for most of the year. With housing prices soaring, a group of students wants to try and make use of the underused apartments.

The man largely responsible for planning modern day Vancouver has found his next challenge in the Middle Eastern capital of Abu Dhabi.

In the oil rich Middle East, a new twin tower development is utilizing wind turbines installed between the buildings to generate up to 15 percent of the structure's energy needs.

A ring road covering more than 1,500 miles in Afghanistan has eased shipping in the country, but traveling along the new pavement is still dangerous.

Israel's 450-mile long "security fence" is causing controversy not just because of the opposition of Palestinians in the West Bank, but because it will run through sensitive habitat and affect the ability of wildlife to access food and water.

Five prominent ecocity experts weigh in on the Masdar City project in Abu Dhabi.

In his 1.5 billion square-foot master plan for a waterfront city in Dubai, architect Rem Koolhaas has proposed a dense and elaborate city, but one that doesn't try to rely too much on flashy high-end architecture.

A civil engineer has proposed a plan to create a "satellite" backup city of the Turkish metropolis of Instanbul -- a city precariously sited in a major earthquake area.

Israel's announced construction of more than 1,000 housing units in disputed East Jerusalem is being met with a hostile response from Palestinian officials, who claim the land as the future capital of an independent Palestine.

Groundbreaking is scheduled this week for Masdar City, the car-free eco-city planned near Abu Dhabi.

The United Arab Emirates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi are generating a lot of speculation and interest as they develop into two major cities, but Abu Dhabi's focus on infrastructure sets it apart -- and ahead -- of its neighboring emirate.

In an effort to reduce carbon emissions from industrial plants, Abu Dhabi is planning to create a $4 billion underground carbon sequestration system -- a system that is expected to be closely watched by government and industry.

An investor from Dubai is looking to replicate -- in close detail -- the French city of Lyon in the Arab Emirate.

Big-name architects have appropriately big plans for the rapidly developing United Arab Emirates. Creating a new cultural capital is appealing to them, but not as much as the fact that getting it done will be easier than anywhere else in the world.

A broad cleanup and revitalization project in the oldest parts of Kabul, Afghanistan, are bringing new life to the war-ravaged city.

The middle eastern country of Qatar is hoping to boost its chances of securing the 2016 Olympics by building an extensive light rail system throughout its capital city of Doha.