Deserts are becoming increasingly popular tourist destinations. However, the growth of this tourism niche raises particular challenges, jeopardizing their fragile ecosystems and straining scarce resources. Paradoxically, the increasing popularity of desert tourism is undermining the very essence of the allure of these places. In developing countries, the consequences are even more drastic, as local populations live in dire conditions with few resources and insufficient infrastructure, rarely benefiting from tourism's economic effects. This book seeks to analyze the relationship between tourism and the sustainable development of those territories, addressing issues raised by architecture, landscape design, and planning. Following a historical perspective, Susan Miller, Claude Prelorenzo, Neil Levine, and Aziza Chaouni show how the imaginaire of the desert was invented by movie directors, writers, and architects. Virginie Lefebvre, Alessandra Ponte, and Kazys Varnelis explore traces of previous conflicts that transformed deserts, from war to peace, into touristic destinations and places for experimentation. Finally, an analysis of contemporary conditions helps to measure the challenges still to be faced: Vincent Battesti tackles the ethnocultural landscapes of the oasis, Chris Johnson the preservation of deserts and impacts on local communities, and Gini Lee the use of deserts as creative places for artists.

In the last few years, the Persian Gulf city of Dubai has exploded from the Arabian sands onto the world stage. Oil wealth, land rent, and so-called informal economic practices have blanketed the urbanscape with enormous enclaved developments attracting a global elite, while the economy runs on a huge army of migrant workers from the labor-exporting countries of the Indian Ocean and Eurasian regions. The speed and aesthetic brashness with which the city has developed have left both scholarly and journalistic observers baffled and reaching for facile stereotypes with which to capture its city's identity and significance to the history of urban planning, architecture, social theory, and capitalism.

In "The Superlative City," contributors from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and colleagues from the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Denmark offer the most serious analyses of the city to appear to date. Remarkable aspects of Dubai, such as the size and theming of real estate projects and the speed of urbanization, are situated in their local and global architectural, political, and economic contexts. Planning tactics and strategies are explained. The visually arresting aspects of architecture are critiqued but also placed within a holistic view of the city that takes in the less sensational elements, such as worker camps and informal urban spaces.