Cities’ growth and decline What is a “city”? A city is “a large and densely populated urban area; it may include several independent administrative districts”(Word net, n. d. ). There are a lot of reasons of the rise and decline of cities. Many cities like Tokyo, Rome and Abu Dhabi are growing, and on the other hand, cities like Detroit and Flint are declining. Why are those cities rising while the others are declining? How can cities avoid declining? The answers to these questions are very important to know.

The study of the rise and fall of cities helps Abu Dhabi city to grow more and avoid the decline in the future y preventing itself from becoming too dependent on one source of income. One of the important reasons of the rise of cities is the strategic location. Rome is a city that has strategic location because of many factors, like being on the Italian peninsula which is surrounded on three sides by water. Also Rome is close to the Mediterranean Sea and its trade routes (The geography of Rome, n. d. ).

Commerce is another reason for the rise of cities. Tokyo has grown rapidly through the past half century. And the reason for this growth is commerce and industry. Tokyo has many industries such as, the production of electronic equipment, printing books, furniture, textile and a variety of consumer items (Economy, 2007). This diversity in manufacturing is the reason for the rise of Tokyo and has made it one of the most developed cities in the world. Another important factor of cities growth is the climate.

For example, the cities of Florida had an attractive climate (City, 2008). Ahmed Al Mansoory, an Emirati man who lives in Florida said, ”the summer in Florida is long, but it is warm and fairly humid, and on the other side, the winter is mild with occasionally cold air”(Personal communication, March 9,2011). This climate of Florida gives it growth and makes it an attractive place. The decline of cities has many reasons, and the most important reason is the reliance on one source of income. Detroit is one of the cities that declined because of this reason. The Motor City was the fifth largest city in America with a population of almost 1. 9 million in 1950”(Mclntyre, 2010). Detroit was a great city but it depended on one source of income which was the auto industry. It’s cars were sought by consumers from all around the world, but when higher quality Japanese cars began to arrive to the markets in large numbers in 1980s, Detroit ‘s car industries started to die(Mclntyre,2010). So depending on one resource of income is a main reason for the death of a city. Unemployment is another main reason for the decline of cities.

For instance, Flint is one of the American cities that suffered from this problem. It was the original place of General Motors which employed 80,000 people in 1960, while today it employs less than 8000 people; this drop shows the decline and death of Flint (Mclntyre, 2010). A further reason for the death of cities is dwindling population which is found in Cleveland. Between 2000 and 2006, there was a large drop in population in Cleveland. In 2000, the population was 2,148,010 people while in 2006 the population decreased to 2,114,155 people(Smith,2007).

This decreasing in population caused the decline of Cleveland. Abu Dhabi city is the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. Day after day this city is grow and get larger to become a great urban area. The discovery of the oil is the main reason of the rise of Abu Dhabi, and it is the secret behind its strong Economy. The UAE is one of the largest countries that export oil. But Abu Dhabi’s reliance in one resource of income which is the oil will be the same mistake of Detroit city that mentioned above and that is one of the challenges it faced.

Abu Dhabi must diversify its economy and stop depending on hydrocarbons because this dependence will bring with it unemployment as seen in Flint city, and that will be because it will come a day that the oil will finish and thus Abu Dhabi won’t have another resource for income so the people will not have jobs to work in and they will start to go to another city to find the job then this will cause dwindling population as seen in Cleveland city. However, The capital of the UAE put a plan for its future that includes the diversification of its economy they must do.

And they called it Abu Dhabi vision 2030. “The Abu Dhabi government has an ambitious strategy to boost the contribution to the economy of its non-oil sector to around 60 percent of gross domestic product”(Sekhri,2010). So this aim is from the 2030 vision of Abu Dhabi and is going to be true and achieved by doing a lot of projects and business such as massive infrastructure investment and expand the economic sectors like transportation, tourism, financial services and technology(Sekhri,2010).

Vision 2030 will not save Abu Dhabi from declining only, but it will rise it and develop it more and more. As you can clearly now see, the reasons of the rise and decline of cities are many, and cities must avoid the causes of the declining to have a great future with the people who live in. Abu Dhabi is one of the cities that realized the causes of the declining and it put a great plan and solutions to avoid this declining as it mentioned above. In general, people in every city must study and know how to make their city grow and develop, and how to avoid the death and the decline.