Kartal, a postwar industrial area amid Istanbul`s Asian sprawl, is thecity`s rust belt. Once home to nearly 100 factories, making everythingfrom cement to ceramics, the area is now dominated by an abandonedstone quarry and scattered concrete apartment blocks, home to thousandsof the city`s recent arrivals from rural Anatolia.

During a recent visit to a residential area, squashedbetween auto workshops and a mosque, the peace of a warm afternoon wasbroken by the rattle of a hand-pulled wooden cart and the cries of thecart`s owner announcing to the neighborhood that he had come to buyscrap metal.

The future will come rushing in to Kartal next year,when ground is expected to be broken on one of the world`s biggesturban-renewal projects. As mapped out by Zaha Hadid, the London-based,Iraqi-born Pritzker Prize-winning architect, Kartal will be redevelopedaccording to a 555-hectare master plan that includes soaringskyscrapers, swerving thoroughfares and newly designed public spaceswhere 100,000 people will live and work and many more will come forshopping and entertainment.

The all-encompassing plan is the latest example in anew trend in urban development that has taken hold in the past decade,in which a visionary designer creates a detailed concept for an entireneighborhood. While individual buildings aren`t designed, the overallshape and style of the structures are guided by the master planner.

In the past, with a few notable exceptions, urbanplanners have been concerned with organizing space and infrastructure,while architects, separately, have created buildings. For the mostpart, cities and neighborhoods developed organically over time. Today,governments and private developers are turning to name-brand architectsto create plans for both space and structures, elaborate designs thatcan be marketed as the creative expression of an artist.

"We are seeing an emergence of a new industry," saysDennis Frenchman, director of the city design and development programat the Massachusetts Institute of Technology`s urban-studiesdepartment. "It`s not real-estate development; it`s not architecture;it`s not city planning. All I can do is name it `the city-buildingindustry.` "

And a name-brand architect can make the product sellable. "It`s just like teapots," he says.

On a 172-hectare artificial island off Dubai,architect Rem Koolhaas is designing Waterfront City, which plans adense grid of Manhattan-like skyscrapers, punctuated by a mirroredglobe-shaped building and a spiraling tower. About 400,000 people willlive and work in the area; it`s part of a larger development that willeventually be home to 1.5 million people. Landworks have begun;building is expected to take decades.

In his 2006 plan to rebuild a 100-hectare section ofRiga`s port, which hasn`t broken ground yet, the architect, founder ofthe OMA firm in Rotterdam, includes a staggered skyline of midrisebuildings and a forest-like landscape created by Dutch designer PetraBlaisse.

Architect Daniel Libeskind is designing the downtownof Orestad, a five-kilometer-long urban area south of Copenhagen. The19-hectare area will include two concave 18-story towers, which willdominate the main square and will be visible from the center ofCopenhagen, and low-rise buildings with landscaped roofs. Commissionedin 2006, the master plan is expected to take about a decade to complete.

The architect also includes landscaped roofs andterraces in his Fiera Milano project, which is redeveloping 43 hectaresof Milan`s old fairgrounds. A mix of skyscrapers and low-rise buildingswill provide housing, a contemporary-art museum, office space and shopsarranged around a public park. The project, for which Ms. H
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