Sustainable Cross-Border Spatial Planning in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): Paradigm Shifts, Governance Requirements, and Regional Integration Corridors

Urban and regional planning has shifted from state-centric models toward relational, vision-based paradigms that emphasize functional spaces over fixed boundaries. In the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, cross-border planning (CBP) is gaining strategic relevance driven by national economic diversification strategies, transboundary environmental challenges, and mega-infrastructure projects. Applying a comprehensive framework across five analytical dimensions, socio-economic, social, geopolitical, spatial, and environmental, this paper examines the conceptual foundations, governance typologies, and empirical realities of regional integration. While global benchmarks like the European Union offer mature examples of institutionalized multilevel governance, GCC initiatives face unique challenges. Although spatial and socio-economic integration is advancing through projects like the GCC Railway Network, the King Fahd Causeway, and the GCC Interconnection Authority regional grid, development is frequently constrained by national sovereignty priorities, procedural friction, and implementation asymmetries. To optimize transnational corridors under Saudi Vision 2030, this study recommends delineating functional cross-border regions, establishing permanent corridor governance cells, resolving border friction through digital integration, and institutionalizing a GCC-wide planning observatory. The study’s principal original contribution is a unified five-dimensional analytical framework (socio-economic, social, geopolitical, spatial, and environmental) that is operationalized as an evaluative lens and applied consistently across global, regional, and national cases, together with an accompanying governance typology and a sequenced implementation model tailored to the sovereignty-sensitive GCC context.