In 1984, the renowned and controversial Saudi writer Abdul Rahman Munif published Cities of Salt, the first part of a five-volume novel that was a thinly veiled criticism of the haste with which Western concepts of modernity were adopted in Gulf states after the discovery of oil.

Munif, who had lived in three of the traditional Arab centers — Baghdad, Cairo and Damascus — explained the title of the book in reference to the Gulf's oil cities, saying, “'Cities of salt' means cities that offer no sustainable existence. When the waters come in, the first waves will dissolve the salt and reduce these great glass cities to dust.”

Emirati Sultan Al Qassemi recently wrote that the Gulf cities of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha and Sharjah have emerged as the new centers of the Arab world. They have, he argued, “in almost every sense outstripped their sister cities in North Africa and the Levant.”

These cities have arguably worked tirelessly to shed their "salt-like" image. They have instead used their wealth, in varying degrees, to create a sense of permanence by building world-class infrastructure, enacting educational reform, becoming regional sporting capitals and attempting to build post-oil economies. They have adopted good governance practices and brought about the kind of security that residents of most other Arab cities envy. They have indeed become some of the most cosmopolitan cities on earth.