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Biographies

His Excellency Sheikh Abd Allah Al Ali Al Naeem is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Arab Institute for City Development. He started his career in the field of education as Director of Education for the Ryadh Region. He is also in charge of students studying abroad in the UK. His Excellency is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Gas and Industry Company as well as being the Secretary General of Ryadh University.

His Excellency Sheikh Al Naeem was the mayor of Ryadh between 1976-1990. He received an honorary doctorate from La Sorbonne, Paris in 1988. He has also received the Kind Abdul Aziz highest award for his achievements in the development of the Ryadh Region.

His Excellency Sheikh Al Naeem presents a paper on the Process of Ryadh’s Modern Development Experience at the Third Sharjah Urban Planning SymposiumSUPS3



Dr Saleh Al-Hathloul is a Saudi Arabian educator and a critic in the field of Architecture and Urban Planning with interests in the epistemology of knowledge, the general issues of structural changes in society and futurist studies. He has a MAUD from Harvard University (1975) and a PhD in Architecture and Environmental Studies from MIT (1981). He was Assistant Professor and Chairman of the Department of Architecture at King Saud University, Riyadh between 1981 and 1984, Chairman of the board of AL-UMRAN (Saudi Society for Architects and Planners) since its inception n 1989 until 1993, member of the jury for the Organisation of Arab Cities' Award for the past four cycles, member of the 1998 Award Master jury, the Agha Khan Award for Architecture. He is also author of 3 books and more than 35 articles in the field of planning and architecture, well known among these is his book "The Arab Muslim City" (1994).

Dr Saleh Al-Hathloul is Deputy Minister for Town Planning, Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs, Saudi Arabia (since 1984) with the responsibility of directing and supervising the entire spatial planning process at national, regional and local levels in Saudi Arabia. He is also a part-time lecturer at the College of Architecture and Planning, Kind Saud University, Riyadh and visiting Professor at the National School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Tunis.



Dr. Waleed Al-Hemaidi holds a BSc in Architecture and Planning from King Saud University Saudi Arabia (1987, an MSc in Urban and Regional Planning from The University of Sydney, Australia (1989) and a Ph.D. in Urban Development Planning from University College London, (1997).

From 1984-1985 he was city planner assistant to the Tabuk Municipality Saudi Arabia Reviewing Development Planning Applications and Designing and planning residential neighbourhoods in Tabuk and Maqna. From 1987-1989 he wasTeaching Assistant in the Urban Planning and Studies Dep.: King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 1990 he was teaching assistant in computer applications in planning at the University of Sydney.

He is currently Assistant Professor, Urban Planning Dep of King Saud University,Teaching the courses in Urban Information Systems (GIS), Management of Urban Planning, Graduation Project (Surveying and planning Riyadh's city centre using GIS) and Housing. He is head of GIS Committee in the Department and the College Computer Centre Committee He has organised and participated in conferences including the 1988"Urban Planning in Saudi Arabia" Conference, King Saud University, Riyadh.the 1998 Middle East GIS User Conference in Jordan and the First Saudi Esri User Conference in 1998 in Riyadh. He has published papers in "ASARQ AL-AWSET" News Paper, (International Arabic news paper), and "AL-THAKAFIYA" Magazine (Arabic) and has written books on The Formation of Islamic City, (1990 The University of Sydney, Urban Planning, Department, Sydney), Traditional and Western Built Environment; Case Study of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, (1990, The University of Sydney, Urban Planning Department, Sydney), GIS application in the Physical Planning of Saudi Arabian Cities,(1998), Tourism Development in the Aqaba Gulf in Saudi Arabia, (1999, "Symposium of Saudi Tourism Development", Tabuk, Saudi Arabia).

Obaid Ahmed Altunaiji has a BSc in Civil Engineering from Wisconsin University, Milwakee (1981). He joined the Ministry of Public Works as director for Northern Regions project (1981 and 1983), member of the Board of Directors Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority, member of the Sharjah Supreme Council, Chairman of the Activities Committee UAE Society of Engineers during the 1980s, member of the Board of Directors Sharjah International Airport Free Zone since its inception in 1995 until 1998.

He is the Director General of Sharjah Town Planning Directorate since 1984 with responsibility for directing and supervising the entire spatial planning process in the Emirate. Since 1996 he has been following a PhD programme in urban development and policy.



Hooshang Amirahmadi holds a PhD in economic planning and international development from Cornell University and is a professor at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He has served as Department Chair and Director of the University's Middle Eastern Studies programme. He helped found the Centre for Iranian Research and Analysis and is founder and president of the American-Iranian Council, an organisation devoted to improving understanding between the United States and Iran and promoting civil society institutions in Iran. Dr Amirahmadi is author of "Revolution and Economic Transition: The Iranian Experience" and nine other volumes including "The Caspian Region: A New Frontier of Energy and Development", "The United States and the Middle East: A Search for New Perspectives", "Iran and the Arab World" and "US-Iran Relations: Areas of Tension and Mutual Interest". He has also published over 150 journal articles and book chapters. A frequent contributor to many conferences in Europe, North America, Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, Dr Amirahmadi has been a consultant for many international organisations and governments including the World Bank, the United Nations and the Governments of Iran, and Haiti. Dr Amirahmadi's writings have been translated and published in Iran and the Arab world and he is widely known for his pioneering works on civil society and US-Iran relations. He has held several fellowships and has been a recipient of grants from the National Endowment for Humanities, Social Science Research Council and Agha Khan Foundation among other institutions. Dr Amirahmadi is a frequent contributor to international television and radio stations (CNN, News Hour, BBC, VOA, PBS) and newspapers (NYT, WP) on Iranian political economy, US-Iran relations and Middle Eastern affairs.



Djamel Boussaa is an Algerian architect, with a BSc in Architecture from the School of Architecture and Urban Design (EPAU), Algeria (1984) and an MPhil in Architecture from the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies, University of York, UK (1987).

He practised for one year in a London architectural office, working on the Extension of Mena complex in Saudi Arabia, in addition to the rehabilitation of a number of housing estates in the North of London.

He was appointed as a lecturer at the University of Blida, School of Architecture from September 1988, until joining UAE University, El Ain in the Department of Architecture in September 1996 as an Associate Faculty.

In addition to teaching, he has participated in a number of conferences dealing mainly with issues related to housing, historic conservation, sustainability in desert regions and architectural research and education.



Dr. M. Nabyl Chenaf is Chief Editor of L'ARCA magazine of Architecture, Design & Visual communication.

He holds a Ph.D. from Nottingham University (1989) and his main interest is the change of cultural values and the meaning of the built environment in the Arab world.

He is President of the National Committee of Pedagogy part of the Higher Ministry of Education and Research, Algeria which is charged with updating university architecture programmes.

He has taught architecture, urban design and town management at the university where he supervised several theses in architecture and planning and participated in a co-operation program between the Algerian and German universities- teaching Architecture and urban design EPAU, Stuttgart, Karlsrhue.

He has practised as a consultant and designed several projects of architecture, urban design and town planning and has acted as technical advisor to an Algeria- New town governor in the extension of a city in The Algerian Sahara.



Baris Der-Petrossian is a Human Settlements Officer of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) working for the Centre for more than a decade. Earlier he had worked at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization for three years. He is currently stationed at the United Nations Office in Vienna continuing working for UNCHS (Habitat). He holds an MSc in civil engineering (1976) from the Technical University of Vienna.

Established in 1978 and based in Nairobi, Kenya, UNCHS (Habitat) is the lead Agency within the United Nations system to coordinate human settlements development activities worldwide. UNCHS (Habitat) was the secretariat for the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (HABITAT II), known as "City Summit", which was held in Istanbul in June 1996 and which attracted some 20,000 people from 171 countries. The General Assembly of the United Nations has designated UNCHS (Habitat) as the focal point for the implementation of Habitat Agenda - the outcome of HABITAT II Conference.

At UNCHS (Habitat), for nearly 10 years, Der-Petrossian was in charge of the Housing Construction Unit in the Building, Infrastructure and Technology Section, R&D Division. His responsibilities included, among other things: promoting the development of low-cost housing in developing countries, construction and related industries, energy in human settlements, environment etc. In the recent years, he has specifically focused his work on R&D in environment friendly technologies in human settlements, the impact of construction and related industries on the environment and the role of the private sector in improving the delivery mechanisms of housing and urban services.

He has been very active in conducting applied research in the above mentioned and related fields and has produced numerous papers and studies. He has been the author and/or editor of at least thirty UNCHS (Habitat) publications and periodicals (over 2,500 printed pages) which have been printed and distributed worldwide. He has organized and/or has been highly involved in the organization of some twenty-five UNCHS (Habitat) national, regional and international conferences, workshops, seminars and has represented the Centre in many similar events organized by other institutions. One of his recent achievements was the organization of a Regional Workshop on "Housing and Environment", held in Vienna in November 1999 which brought together some 150 participants from 35 countries. He is periodically being invited by some European universities and building research institutions to lecture to post-graduate architects and engineers and to provide advisory services on selected topics related to his fields of specialization.

Before joining the United Nations in 1985, Der-Petrossian was university professor for 14 years lecturing and conducting research in structural analysis, design and civil engineering. He has produced university text books and numerous research papers and articles. He was also the head of the construction and development office at the same university and has been a private civil/structural engineering consultant and advisor to many consultancy and construction companies for a total of 17 years.



Souheil El-Masri was born in Beirut and graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of Beirut Arab University in 1981. After graduation he practiced architecture for 5 years during which he designed several projects in London and the Middle East. He holds MPhil (1988) and PhD (1992) degrees from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, United Kingdom. Both theses focus on post-war settlement reconstruction with special reference to Lebanon. After completing his PhD, Dr El-Masri was granted one-year status as Guest Member of Staff at the Centre for Architectural and Development Overseas (CARDO), University of Newcastle. During this period, he initiated network and research activities in the field of disaster and human settlements. In 1994 he joined the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering at the University of Bahrain, where he is now an Assistant Professor. He has delivered papers at many international conferences and published several articles especially in the area of disaster and human settlements.



Professor Mike Gibson graduated in Geography from the University of Birmingham in 1966 after three years working in Lancashire County Council Planning Department, he completed a Masters in Town Planning at the University of Aston in Birmingham. He was elected as Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) in 1973. From 1971 to 1986 he was Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Principal Lecturer in Town Planning at the City of Birmingham Polytechnic, during which time he gained extensive experience of voluntary work with neighborhood organisation and not-for-profit housing associations. In 1983 and 1984 he was Visiting Assistant Professor at the Universities of Akron and Cleveland in the USA and Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Jijmegen in the Netherlands. From 1986 to 1996 he held managerial appointments as the Head of the Department of Town Planning and then Head of the School f of Urban Development and Policy at South Bank University where he was awarded a professorship in 1989. Under his leadership the School achieved excellent ratings in both research and teaching which placed South Bank University joint 4th with Cambridge University in the1997 Times Higher Education Supplement ranking for town planning, housing studies and environmental policy. He is now Director of the Local Economy Policy Unit which is a research consultancy and advanced training unit, within the Faculty of the Built Environment, staffed by social scientists and planners, focusing on urban policy, local economic development and urban regeneration.

During the 1980s as a nationally elected member of the RTPI Council; he was responsible for the establishment of its Continuing Professional Development Policy through 1983-1986, led the Institute's review of planing education in 1986-87 and was Chair of the Education Board in 1988 and 1989. In the early 1990s he was Vice Chair of People for Action, an experimental neighborhood programme funded by the UK Department of the Environment and the Wates Foundation, which pioneered the development of a more comprehensive regeneration of community-based Housing Associations, drawing on the experience of the USA's Community Development Corporations. He is currently a member of the London Development Partnership (Shadow LDA) Task Group on Social Exclusion and is managing the development of South Bank University's contribution as a partner in the £500 million regeneration of the Elephant and Castle district in which the University is situated.

He has directed several research projects funded by government agencies and foundations including an evaluation of the Neighborhood Regeneration Service project funded by the Joseph Rowntree foundation (1985-1990) an assessment of the relevance of the UK experience of subsidized private sector housing renewal to Dutch regeneration practice for the Netherlands Ministry of Housing (with Dick Schooling 1986-1987) and an action research based community project for the Chaucer Regeneration Partnership(with Diane Paice, 1997-1998.) He is currently completing an evaluation of the Brixton City Challenge (with Diane Paice 1993-1999) and is undertaking a comparative study of the regeneration of inner London and the Randstad in the Netherlands. His books include "An Introduction to Urban Renewal" Hutchinsons (1982 with Mike Langstaff) and "Housing and the Environment" Chartered Institute of Housing (1994 with Mark Bhatti and Jane Brooke). He is currently writing "Planning for Neighborhood Regeneration" to be published this Spring.



Mustapha Ben Hamouche graduated from Algiers University as an architect. He holds a MPhil in Architecture from Newcastle University and a PhD in Urban Planning from Paris University.

He has taught at the University of Blida for 10 years and is currently woring as a planning expert in the Department of Town Planning in Al-Ain (UAE). He is particularly interested in the urban history of Islamic cities.



Øystein GRØNNING is a Norwegian Chartered Architect with experience of working in Norway, Latvia, Slovakia and Palestine in urban and regional planning with specific emphasis on node areas in transformation including the redevelopment of industrial and transport areas and rehabilitation of housing areas. His areas of expertise span urban redevelopment, coastal zone planning and tourism planning in developing areas, including institution building for physical planning and plan enforcement, impact assessment and conflict mediation in planning.

He holds a Master of Architecture (1985) and is currently Head of Urban Planning and Design at Asplan Viak. Between 1995-1998 he was Planning adviser to the Palestinian Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, Directorate for Urban and Rural Planning, Gaza. He has worked for a range of clients including municipal authorities and the military.

He is a member of The National Association of Norwegian Architects (NAL), Norwegian Association for Housing and City Planning (NFBB) and Leader of Urban Planning, Asplan Viak AS.



Susanne Jahn holds a degree in Sociology, Psychology, Town and Country Planning from the University of Berlin (1985) and an MA in Planning Studies from the University of Newcastle- upon- Tyne (1988). She has conducted research work at the Science Centre for Social Research, on the Institute for Labour Market and Employment Project about regional differences of employment in the service sector in Germany. Since 1988 she has been a private consultant on Planning and Architecture in Berlin for Arbeitsgruppe für Stadtplanung (AGS) working on all aspects of Town and Country Planning specifically for the city of Berlin and its districts, but also for the region and other parts of Germany. Since 1992 she has been a member of the List of Planners of the Architektenkammer, Berlin and since 1999 a partner in the AGS consultancy.



Ramin Keivani holds a PhD in Planning Studies from the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning, UCL and an MSc in Urban Development Planning. He has worked in the areas of housing development and urban planning for the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development in Iran. Since 1996, he has worked as a Research Fellow in the Faculty of the Built Environment, South Bank University.

He has written a number of papers and contributed to research consultancy projects concerning international housing policy and real estate in emerging markets. He is currently the joint holder of a research award with Dr Ali Parsa by the Economic Social Research Council in the UK concerning the globalization of the real estate markets and urban development in Central Europe.

At present he is co-writing a book on International Housing Policy with Dr Edmond Werna from the United Nations Volunteer Programme and a research team from the University of Sao Paulo.



Arzu Kocabas is currently a Research Officer at Faculty of the Built Environment, South Bank University. She holds a BSc in architecture from Istanbul Technical University (1985) and MSc in urban design from Mimar Sinan University (1989). She has practised as an architect in London, working on a range of projects including new mews houses, refurbishment and extension work in various locations in London and a new residential complex in Ghana for private clients.

Ms Kocabas has recently submitted her PhD thesis entitled 'Urban Conservation and Development Outcomes in Central Istanbul and Central London'. This research has given her a detailed understanding of the operation of urban development and planning processes in Turkey and enabled her to make a comparative study of urban planning and development processes. Her current research interests, developing from her PhD research are, focusing on the post-disaster recovery programme in Turkey with particular reference to the need to reform the Turkish planning system. She has a developing interest in comparing the Turkish planning system with both European and Middle Eastern systems.



Gill-Chin Lim is a Distinguished Institute Professor and the Dean of the School of Public Policy and Management, KDI. He concurrently holds the position of the MSU endowed Professor of Asian Studies in a Global Context at Michigan State University. He was educated at Seoul National University (BSE, MSE), Harvard (MSP) and Princeton (Ph.D.). Specializing in Policy Analysis and Strategic Planing, Gill-Chin Lim has published and lectured on topics of development, housing, environment, planning theories and global education. He was the co-editor of the Journal of Planning Education and Research and is an international adviser for the Environmental Impact Assessment Review. He worked as an adviser and consultant to a number of international and national organizations including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Agency for International Development, National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration, The Urban Institute and Korean Research Institute for Human Settlement. He was a vice-Chair person and a member of the Board of Directors for Midwestern Universities Consortium on International Activities, Inc. Previously he taught engineering at Northwestern University, public and international affairs at Princeton University, and planing and public policy at University of Illinois at Urbana -Champaign. He served as a Dean of International Studies and Programs at Michigan State University.



Ali Madanipour (MArch, PhD) is Reader in Urban Design and Director of Postgraduate Research at the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape and deputy Director of the Centre for Research in European Urban Environments (CREUE) at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The main theme of his research is city design and development in an international context, with the two, closely interrelated sub-themes of research into a) how cities are developed and transformed, focusing on the process of urban development and its social and psychological significance, and b) the nature of urban design and its role in urban change, focusing on the urban design process and its relationship with its political, economic and cultural contexts.

He has worked within the disciplines of town planning and architecture and combines the experiences of professional practice and academic inquiry in both developing and developed countries. He has been an architectural and urban planning consultant engaged in a range of projects, from housing and shopping centres to new towns and development plans. He has won several design awards and has received research awards from the UK's Economic and Social Research Council, the European Commission, the Committee of Principals and Vice Chancellors of the United Kingdom, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and Iran's Building and Housing Research Centre. Recent research projects include EC-funded research into social exclusion in European urban neighbourhoods and ESRC-funded research into public-private partnerships in city centre regeneration in Britain.



Naseer Mahfood is a Traffic Engineer with Sharjah Police Department. He holds a BSc in Civil Engineering from the University of Damscus (1984) and a MSc in Transportation Engineering from the University of Idaho, USA (1994).

He has published several papers on his area of expertise and has managed projects in Syria and the USA. He was worked extensively in the USA, as a researcher an analyst in the study and evaluation of the performance of a range of transport facilities and the effectiveness of transportation plans. He worked as a Traffic Signal Designer and later as Chief Traffic Engineer managing traffic related projects. His current role with Sharjah Police Department involves the establishment of a Traffic Engineering office and the development of traffic impact analysis for new and existing developments.



Omar Mashabi is a Saudi Arabian spatial planner with interests in reciprocity of experience an manpower development. He holds a MA in Architectural Engineering from Penn State University (1975), a MA in Transportation Planning from the University of Washington (1981) and a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from Dundee University Scotland (1988).

Dr Mashabi was UNDP projects coordinator at MOMRA, Riyadh between 1988 and 1993, Director General of the Departments Study Research and Urban Planning between 1984 and 1991, Assistant Deputy Minister for Town Planning between 1991 and 1993 and mayor of the City of Taif between 1993 and 1998.

He is currently spatial planning advisor at DMTP and Vice Chair of the Board of UMRAN, (Saudi society for Architecture and Planners and Adjunct Professor at several Saudi universities.



Stanley McGreal obtained his doctorate in 1977 from The Queen's University of Belfast. In 1984 he was appointed as a lecturer in the newly created University of Ulster progressing to senior lecturer in 1988, reader in 1992 and since March 1998 as Professor of Property Research in the School of the Built Environment.

Professor McGreal has an extensive research record with over 200 published works. He has co-edited several books including Urban Regeneration, Property Investment and Development; European Cities, Planning Systems and Property Markets; European Valuation Theory and Practice (also published in Japanese) and Cities in the Pacific Rim, Planning Systems and Property Markets. He has been involved in research grants and commissioned research totalling in excess of $1,000,000 with funding from research councils, major charities, professional organisations, government department/agencies and the private sector.

Professor McGreal is a member of the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute. He also holds membership of the Society of Property Researchers, the European Real Estate Society of which he is a Board Member and delegate to the International Real Estate Society, the American Real Estate Society, and the European Network of Housing Research in which he formerly co- ordinated the Home Ownership Working Group. He is also a board member of the recently established Property Economics and Finance Research Network (UK). He was appointed in 1999 as a member of the Urban Sustainability Commission of the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction. Professor McGreal is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Property Research and external examiner for Master degree courses in Real Estate at the University of Reading.



Angus McIntosh is Director of European Research Consultancy at Insignia. After graduating in Economics, Angus worked for five years with British Rail Property Board and later five years as assistant Investment Surveyor at Provident Mutual Life Assurance Association. After two years as a lecturer, first at Portsmouth and then Kingston Polytechnic (now University), he joined Healey & Baker where he was Head of UK and European Research for nine years. In 1993 Angus became Director of Research Consultancy at Richard Ellis, now part of Insignia.

Over the years he has written a number of books and articles for the property press and for the national and international press. In 1988, he co-ordinated the publication of a book "French Shopping Centres" which charted their investment performance. In 1990 he was appointed by the RICS to produce the first real estate guides to Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland and has also worked on projects in Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Russia and the United Kingdom.

In 1994 he co-ordinated a major research study into the office market (commissioning The Harris Research Centre to undertake fieldwork) which was subsequently published as "Occupiers Preferences" and "Tomorrow's Workplace" and in 1998 produced a survey of the impact Information and Communication Technology on the office market.

He is co-author of a book on property investment published by Macmillan and part author of a book on industrial property and author of "Towns and Cities - Competing for Survival" published by Thomson Professional in 1997.



Ali Parsa is currently Principal Lecturer and Reader in the Faculty of the Built Environment at South Bank University, coordinating the Real Estate Research programme. He was educated at Newcastle University (MPhil Housing Studies, PhD International Planning and Construction). Between 1991-1995, he was the Aubrey Orchard-Lisle Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Estate Management. Before his appointment at South Bank University he worked as International Research Fellow in the Department of Estate Management, University of East London.

His research interests and specialism lies in multidisciplinary studies in planning and real estate development. He has conducted numerous research projects on international real estate markets, real estate in emerging countries, comparative planning , environmental issues and the development industry and issues affecting the education of planning and real estate professionals. He is the founder of the Comparative Urban Land and Development Forum, a group of practitioners and scholars concerned with urban land and real estate development. He has worked with a number of public and private organizations in the UK and overseas including the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) the Construction Industry and Information Association (CIRIA), the Ministry of Plan and Budget and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (Iran), the Ministry of Construction, The Hokkaido Intellect Group and NKK Corporation (Japan), the Committee of Iranian Researchers Abroad (based in Germany) devoted to the development of the first Research and Science City in Iran (Khodashahr).

His research interests concern different facets of international real estate including the examination of the role of actors and agents involved in the process of real estate development, the emerging real estate markets, the role of real estate development and the impact of the real estate industry on the environment.

Ali Parsa has organised a number of national and international conferences including Sharjah Urban Plan Symposium, 1998, 1999 and 2000. He is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences.



Barry Redding is Professor of Real Estate Management in the Faculty of the Built environment at South Bank University , London, UK. As a Chartered Surveyor and a Charted Town Planner he has worked both in local government planning and as a planning and development consultant to surveying firms, property development companies and a building society.

His research interests span planning and property development processes in the UK and Europe and has a number of publications in this field. During the past decade he has been Director of the Spare Space Project (funded by the Royal Institution of Charted Surveyors, et al) and the Director of the Research Study evaluating the UK Government's policy on initiatives for Flats Over Shops (funded by the Department of the Environment). He is currently Project Manager of a project, Living in Towns, with partners in six countries in North West Europe funded by the European Regional Development Fund through INTERREG (with supplementary funding achieved from the RICS and the DETR).

Barry Redding is an active member of the Royal Institution of Charted Surveyors and has served on several main committees and working groups. He is a recent Chair of the South London branch of the Institution.



Amer Al-Rghei holds a MA in Architecture from McGill University Canada (1987) and a PhD from the University of Waterloo, Canada (1991) and is currently an Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning at Ajman University of Science and Technology, Al-Ain, UAE



Vincent A Renard graduated in Paris in Economics and Political Science going on to specialize in land economics and more generally in urban land policy. He is now senior researcher at the National Centre for Scientific Research (Ecole Polytechnique) Laboratory of Econometrics, Paris. His main fields of interest relate to the economics of planning and development, real estate taxation, infrastructure cost recovery and economic analysis of law. Teaching in the Institute of Political Studies in Paris and the University of Paris-Sorbonne, he also works as a consultant for various national and international bodies mostly in Central and Eastern Europe and South America.



Dr Ahmed Salah Ouf is currently an Associate Professor and acting Chairman for the Department of Architecture, Engineering College, United Arab University in El-Ain. He gained a BSc in Architecture (1981) and MSc in Urban Design from University of Cairo, MA (1987) and PhD in Urban Planning from PENN Philadelphia.

Dr Ouf has also been visiting lecturer at Cairo University and invited juror at King Saud University. He has conducted a number of consultancy and project designs in Egypt in recent years. He was the National Project Director for the UNDP Comprehensive Development Project for the City of Luxor in 1997.



Mufid Samrai holds a BSc from Robert College, Turkey, a MSc from Kansas State University, USA and a PhD from London College University, UK. He is currently Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Sharjah.

He worked in Portugal and extensively in Iraq, first as Director of the National Centre for Construction then as Director of the Engineering Consulting Bureau at Baghdad University and as a consultant on the reconstruction of major structures damaged during the Gulf War.

He is past Vice President of the CIB in Holland and is a Bureau Member of RILEM in France. He is member of numerous national and international technical and research committees and has published over 90 papers and books in the field of low cost housing, quality control and repair and testing of structures.



Dr Karen Sieracki was born and raised in the United States, graduating magna cum laude from Boston University with a Bachelors Degree in Anthropology. She subsequently studied at the University of Kent at Canterbury, obtaining a MA and a PhD in Urban Studies. She then qualified as an Associate of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

Resident in the UK, Dr Sieracki has been actively involved in property research and investment management for the past 18 years. She has had over ten years' fund management experience, during which time she created one of the first institutional property research departments in the UK. Through this work she became closely involved in determining international asset allocation across all investment categories, with particular reference to the role and the future competitive performance of property.

Dr Sieracki has her own consultancy partnership, KASPAR Associates, working with a number of leading institutional clients and the property industry at large. She is consultant to BH2, a boutique firm of chartered surveyors in the City of London and surrounding area. KASPAR's principal areas of business focus are providing strategic and tactical business advice to financial service companies, undertaking business development research projects, offering detailed property advice on location/relocation, and encouraging and advising on inward direct investment into the UK in the biotech field.

Dr Sieracki is a Director of the Board of the Investment Property Forum and sits on the Special Projects and Education Working Groups. Additionally she sits on the Editorial Boards of the Journals of Property Research and Property Valuation and Investment.



Ludek Sykora is lecturer in urban geography at the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development, Charles University of Prague. He received his M.A. (1988) and Ph.D. (1996) in Economic and Social Geography at Charles University of Prague. In 1988-1992 he worked at the Institute of Geography, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague.

His research interests include urban restructuring in post-communist cities, impacts of globalisation on urban transformations, processes of neighbourhood change, such as revitalisation, commercialisation, gentrification, suburbanisation, real estate development, housing and housing policy, urban strategic and physical planning in East Central Europe.

He is a co-author of Regional Policy and Planning in Europe (Routledge 1999) and his research outcomes have been published in a number of academic journals and edited books. He is a member of the European Network for Housing Research (ENHR) and the Urban Land Institute, Washington (ULI) and currently acts as a member of the Regional and Management Committee in the Prague Region.



Bassem Younes is a specialised Transportation Engineer and Traffic Management expert. He holds undergraduate degrees from Bradley University, USA and a PhD from Imperial College, London. Dr Younes has been involved in many studies and his research work in Europe has been publicly acknowledged and cited. He is currently involved in a number of research initiatives in the areas of Traffic Access, Impact Assessment and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). He is a member of many leading international organisations and professional groups and has a number of refereed publications and international conference contributions



Design and Implementation by michael:rill