Dubai’s building frenzy lays foundation for global power
The Gulf emirate is spending £140bn to transform itself into a capitalist powerhouse that will be a model for its neighbours.
t will be the oddest housewarming party. David Beckham will compare floor tiles with his new neighbours Simon Cowell and Michael Owen. Victoria Beckham will sip Evian and talk soft furnishings with Liz Hurley. Frankie Dettori and Colin Montgomerie will be trying out the nearby golf course.
People sniggered when Dubai announced it was building the Palm Jumeirah, an island in the shape of a giant palm tree. “Arabs selling sand,” the critics scoffed. Last week the first £4m hacienda-style villas on the Palm were completed and the Beckhams, the first of 70,000 residents, will move in this summer.
The Palm Jumeirah is the centrepiece of the tiny emirate’s attempt to put itself on the map. It will be followed by two other palm islands, 300 artificial islands arranged in the shape of a map of the world, and the world’s tallest building, the 2,300ft Burj Dubai, a hotel, apartment and office complex. And that’s just the beginning.
In recent months Dubai’s movers and sheikhers have announced plans for 40 tax and duty-free micro-cities, a Wall Street-style financial centre, 1m new homes and the world’s biggest airport. Emirates, the national airline, is doubling the size of its fleet, and Dubai-based firms are snapping up ports, land, hotels, and billions of pounds of commercial property.
Interesting article this, click here for the full monty........
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4 comments:
sooooo.....the new arab utopia will be devoid of the same rights as the arab world of old. with the notable exception that the uptopian 'new' will have shopping malls and western expats writing the press releases for a dayjob while grumbling about the pervasive inhumanity of it all privately and anonymously....woohooo!!!!
Thanks for pointing this out. I was just thinking the other day about where this is supposed to be going - given that I along with nearly everyone I know find the construction, avarice, traffic, cynical exploitation of workers, shameless withdrawal of 'gifts' of land from long-established social and sporting societies, extravagant use of water, endless apartment blocks with no community facilities, etc. etc. oppressive and demoralising. And I thought to myself – It’s too ambitious to only be about being a regional hub for IT and commerce, and generating wealth for its national population; it’s got to be about becoming a beacon of Middle East success to the West and our neighbours: dynamic, safe, free of politics, corruption, etc. A sock in the eye for the doubters who stopped the Dubai Ports deal.
So it doesn't really matter what we temporary residents, transients, feel, or even what this generation of Emiratis think of it all, because we're not the target market. What we are experiencing now are growing pains as this emirate sets out to do in twenty years what others have taken fifty or a hundred years to achieve. No wonder individuals on the inside are disorientated, and outsiders keep talking about Disneyland. This will be a New Town, prefabricated for the next generation. It will be up to them to give it a heart to replace what's dying here.
Dubai is the city of the future. It is the city of wonders, this city came from no were to be one of the most important cities in the word. Dubai has many projects that seem unreal, but they made it real.
I have heard a lot of about amazing and breathtaking Dubai property
constructions, that is why so many tourists are really willing to visit Dubai, to see the masterpieces alive. I visited Dubai last summer. And I also was impressed with Dubai's progress and magnificent buildings and architecture. These Burj Dubai,World and Palm Islands, Dubailand, and other projects like the underwater hotel etc. are wonderful.
Thanks for nice blog.
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