Dubai

[BrooklynRider]

Boom town

The fastest-growing city on earth, Dubai is spending mind-boggling sums on construction and is about to swallow up P&O in its bid to be a global maritime power. Given the scale of its ambition, could it become the most important place on the planet? Adam Nicolson reports from 'Mushroom City'

Monday February 13, 2006
The Guardian


It looks like a hot Grozny. On the vast invented islands offshore and in the even vaster building sites that stretch in a wide band the whole length of Dubai's now famous riviera, acre on acre of grey-faced, concrete, hollow-eyed buildings, fenced in with scaffolding and overhung by tower cranes, stare at each other across the sands. Tower blocks look abandoned rather than half-made. It is said that a fifth of the world's cranes are now at work here. An army of some 250,000 men, largely from India and Pakistan, are labouring to create the new glimmer fantasy, earning on average £150 a month, and living in camps, four to a room, 12ft by 12ft, hidden away in the industrial quarters of al Quoz. One night in one of the luxury hotels would cost six months' wages of one of the men who built it. Below and around their work sites, the new streets are chaotic with rubble and piles of steel.

The traffic is already as bad as Los Angeles. The city authorities are now giving priority to new roads, hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on bridges across the Dubai Creek, five lanes in each direction, but still a taxi ride that might take 10 minutes at midday lasts an hour at either end of it. If you ask a driver to take you to some places, he laughs. "Do you want to have a very long talk?" he says.

Dubai is growing faster than any city on earth. "Mushroom City", Ravi Piyush, a plumply content dealer in the Gold Souk, said to me. "Nothing today, everything tomorrow." The World Bank reckons that the reconstruction of Iraq is going to cost $53bn. Here, along the strip of footballer-friendly sand that stretches 25 miles or so along the shores of the Persian Gulf, there is, at a rough estimate, about $100bn worth of projects either underway or planned for the near future. That is a numbing figure, ungraspable. It is the equivalent of every single dollar invested in the United States from abroad last year; almost twice the foreign investment in China.

There are the three famous offshore "palms", man-made peninsulas laden with more hotels and more "signature villas" than the entire Premiership might ever dream of. The 7,000-man workforce on one of them is too large to get on to the palm each morning without creating its own traffic jam: they are shipped in by sea from further along the coast. There's to be a Giorgio Armani Hotel and a Palazzo Versace. There's the tallest building in the world under construction, Burj Dubai, costing $800m and expected to be 800m tall when complete, but the precise figure is being kept secret in case New York's new Freedom Tower tries to top it. A billboard the size of Piccadilly Circus stands out in the desert showing the pencil-thin rocket of a tower alongside a simple rubric: "History Rising." The biggest shopping mall in the world is already here. Another, bigger, the world's largest retail development, is under construction.

There's to be an underwater hotel ($500m). One indoor ski resort, with real snow and its own black run, exists already, a weird, looming presence on the city's southern skyline. There is to be a second, with a revolving mountain. Plans are mooted for a Chess City, with 32 tower blocks of 64 floors, each in the form of a chess piece. There's to be a 60-floor apartment block in the shape of Big Ben. One company selling flats is giving away a free Jag with each one. There will be a pyramid and a building called Atlantis that will cost $600m and include a "swim-with-the-dolphins encounter programme". An Aviation City and a Cargo Village, an Aid City and a Humanitarian Free Zone, an Exhibition City and a Festival City, a Healthcare City and a Flower City, a $4bn extension to the airport and another entirely new airport along the coast towards Abu Dhabi, for which no figures are available but you can take a guess at a few billion: six runways, annual capacity 120 million passengers, 12 million tonnes of cargo.

Next to it, as the Dubai government's Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing puts it, "There will be several smaller cities that will cater to the financial, industrial, service and tourism industries." To fill these airports, Emirates, the national airline, has just placed the biggest order that Boeing has ever had: $9.7bn for 42 777s, each capable of carrying 300 passengers non-stop more than 9,000 miles across the world. They have also ordered a fleet of the biggest Airbuses on offer, each capable of carrying 555 people.

The Middle East's answer to Disneyland, called Dubailand, which is far larger than Monaco, is costing $4.5bn. It will employ 300,000 people in the various joylands, servicing 15 million visitors. A new urban railway, with 37 stops, begins construction soon. Dubai is to have its own Silicon Oasis ($1.7bn) for computer companies. A mixed development called Dubai Waterfront/Arabian Canal covers an area larger than Barbados and will house, when completed ($6bn), more people than Paris.

There's another side to Dubai. Drive south along the Gulf, away from the glamour zone of the great hotels, past the giant malls and the huge gas-fired power stations, almost to the western border of Dubai, and you come to the largest man-made harbour in the world. The unapproachably vast quays of the modern port at Jebel Ali were dredged out of the desert sands in 1979 at a place where the present emir's father, Sheikh Rashid, used to come for evenings camping with his friends. Abdulla bin Damithan, one of the port managers, showed me around in his red Audi. (This was a replacement; the BMW was in for service.) The 1.5 mile-long quays are so enormous that to look the length of them is to stare into a desert haze. Halfway along, the metal bodies of the ships and cranes disappear like mirages.

But it is no dreamy place: every minute, every towering gantry crane lifts another container off the high-stacked decks of the bulbous ships alongside, lowers it to a waiting truck that delivers it to another part of the site, or transfers it from the unimaginably huge motherships, which travel the world oceans, to the slightly less huge feeder ships that service the Gulf, the Indian trade and the Mediterranean. Nothing interrupts the movements, day and night, 365 days a year, even in July at 90% humidity, an air temperature usually over 49C and when even the seawater in the docks approaches 38C. No one works outside. More than seven million containers are moved here in the course of the year, a figure that grew 23% last year, and is set to triple within the next six years, serving a market of two billion people. It's like looking at the guts of the world, the usually hidden machinery by which things actually happen. Over on the other side of the harbour, two diminutive destroyers are tied up, the stars and stripes hanging off their sterns. This is where the American carrier battle groups patrolling the Gulf come for service - and shopping. It's the port most visited by the US navy outside the United States.

Like almost everything of any significance in Dubai, the port system belongs to the state, or to the Maktoums, the ruling family. The two are indistinguishable, and in some ways, Dubai is like Poundbury writ large - and rich: a princely vision of how the world might be. The Maktoums came here as Bedouin chieftains in the 1820s, to a small, palm-fringed trading creek, where political control was in the hands of the British. Only in 1971 did Dubai gain independence as part of the United Arab Emirates. It was already known that Abu Dhabi, by far the biggest and richest of the Emirates, was sitting on a vast mineral reserve. At current rates of production, Abu Dhabi has more than 120 years' supply of oil and gas still untapped. Dubai is nothing like so well endowed, and so from the 1960s onwards, the Maktoums have been consciously shaping Dubai as the trading and financial motor of the Emirates, and the Dubai ports system is central to their vision.

Dubai sits on the all-important strategic routeway of the modern world: China, India, Middle East, Europe and the US. That is where the money is going to be. China has just become the third biggest economy in the world and it is the fastest growing. India is set for its own acceleration. The Maktoum plan is to make Dubai the centre of a global strategic network of port facilities to rival Singapore and the huge Hong Kong-based conglomerate of Hutchison-Whampoa. They have been acquiring hard and fast and now control massive facilities in China, Hong Kong, Australia, South Korea, India, Yemen, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Romania, Germany and Latin America. In a profoundly symbolic move, Dubai Ports are now manoeuvring to make a bid for the great harbours in southern Iraq.

They want more, and that desire for global control is what lies behind their bidding war for P&O, the British ports and shipping combine, which has a powerful European presence (including the giant London Gateway, planned to be Britain's biggest container port at Thurrock on the Thames), exactly what Dubai wants. Singapore wanted it too and the two commercial city states' rival bids drove up the price, adding 80% to the value of P&O's shares and valuing the company at a reported $6.8bn (just short of £4bn), an unprecedented 40 times P&O's profits last year. At the weekend, Singapore pulled out and all the signs are that when P&O's shareholders vote today, they will accept Dubai's offer. This bid alone is a measure of the hunger, the money and the drive of what is happening in the emirate. And the Arab world has backed the bid. When Dubai Ports issued a bond for $2.8bn last month to help it buy P&O, it found itself drowning in $11.4bn of subscriptions.

Why is Dubai doing this? And why so fast? What can the hunger be traced to? I spent a morning on The World, one of the big prestige projects, consisting of 300 artificial islands made of sand dredged from the sea floor and either dumped or pumped into forms that vaguely mimic the shape of the world's continents. Every week between five and 10m cubic metres of sand are delivered to the site. The islands will cost up to $30m each, and that is for the sand alone. Making the lumps habitable for the world's island-hungry rich will cost half as much again.

I was somewhere in Greenland with Hamza Mustafa, the man who is running it for Nakheel, the state-owned developer. It was another invented moment: we were there for a photo. Vijay Singh, the Fijian golfer, was going to fire some shots from Greenland over a narrow channel to Iceland, still nothing but sand, on which one of Nakheel's PR men had put a golf flag. There were helicopters, artificial grass, English marketing girls, Singh's personal trainer in shorts, his agent in shades, two photographers, their assistants, cooks, waiters and barmen, boatmen, people from a Nakheel golf development and Singh's personal course designer, who told me in detail how sewage makes courses greener. It's a perfect symbiosis: houses need golf courses and golf courses need the sewage the houses produce. How happy is that? "As long as it's got the nutrients, grass loves sand," he said.

While Singh stood beneath the chopper firing his shots, I talked to Mustafa, in the sleek Arab-modernist villa he's had built on Greenland. He has already sold 30% of the $3bn project, mostly to "local money, from the region", the rest, he says, to British and Americans. Australasia has been sold to a developer from Kuwait. Why are they buying? "No tax, good weather, an easy life, a comfortable life, affordable. I don't have to push the sales. I've got 10 islands left of the ones I want to sell at the moment. They are clamouring for them. And then I'll stop for a while. We don't want a glut." He smiled, complicit, knowing as well as I did what sales talk amounts to. "By 2015, there will be 250,000 people living here. It'll be like Venice."

I asked him why Dubai was going through this world-busting surge. One might have expected the straightforward business answer, which goes something like this: Dubai, unlike other parts of the Gulf, has little of its own oil or gas. A great deal of Arab money, invested in the US, came back from there after 9/11 and needed an outlet. The fact that oil is now pushing $70 a barrel means that the Gulf is awash with liquidity. There is clearly a role for a strategic financial centre in the Middle East: Beirut played it once, Dubai could do so now. Money has been draining out of Iran for years and Dubai, just across the Gulf, has always been a traditional place for Iranians to put their money to work. Mohammed Noor Taleb, a 75-year-old textile trader I spoke to in the souk, who had lived with his mother as a child in a tent made of palm leaves and now owned a business in Indian cottons turning over $5.2m a year, told me an old Dubai joke. A young boy is asked by his father "What is two add two?" "Am I buying or am I selling?" the boy says. Commerce is in the blood.

But Mustafa's reply came from another place entirely, evidence of the extraordinary hybridisation of cultures that is going on here: traditionalist, modernist, Arabist, internationalist, market-based, bowing to authority. For Mustafa, it all stems from the Emir of Dubai himself, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. Mohammed only became Emir on January 4, when his elder brother Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid al-Maktoum, died after a long illness. But Mohammed has had his hand on the tiller for years. "Sheikh Mohammed has had a vision," Mustafa said, "which is that Dubai should become a fully developed city, with the best life of any city that has ever been created. The whole city is growing as a single organism. We have planned this, very carefully, he is a leader who has bestowed a great vision on us, so that in time Dubai is going to become the first ever Arab modern metropolis." Was this really about an Arabist dream of perfection? "No, this is not Arab nationalism. But what Dubai is trying to do is set an example of how Arabs should be represented. After 9/11, Arabs suffered from a lot of bad publicity. Dubai is trying to come back with the right kind of publicity. It will be a fully modern state. It will be setting the standards. It will be a place that people will look up to."

You might have to take that with a few bucketloads of salt. There is no hint of democracy in Dubai. There is a consultative council whose members are nominated by the ruling family. A group of five old Arab families control the entire emirate. The working and living conditions of the construction labourers and the domestic servants from south Asia are notoriously bad. Thirty-nine building workers died on sites last year, 22 of them simply by falling, as provision of slings and ropes is inadequate. The Dubai press is full of stories criticising companies for late payment, no payment, the confiscation of passports, imposition of penalties for minor infringements, the manoeuvrings of loan sharks and all the other expectable abuses of a poorly regulated employment system. The property laws are explicitly racist: no non-UAE national can own land outside the designated free zones. No foreign company can operate in the country without paying a UAE "sponsor" to be their local representative. No one except UAE nationals can get one of the plum jobs in a government department. Education and healthcare are free for all UAE nationals but no one else. The local press will never be seen to criticise the government and when, for example, I tried to interview the director of strategic planning in the offices of Dubai municipality, I was told I could only do so "if we have checked you out first and seen that what you will write will be favourable". Not much hybridisation there.

And yet it is not Saudi Arabia. Brokeback Mountain is soon to open in Dubai cinemas, which it never could in Saudi Arabia. There is no problem with bikinis and sunbathing on the beaches. And on a more substantial level, there is a determined effort to de-monopolise the economy, to make market competition the driver for this new model world. Local customs must be respected: no loud music during Ramadan, no eating in front of Muslims on fast days, no possibility of making a political claim on the direction of the state. And in return for those limits, the state delivers a sense of wellbeing. That is the trade-off on which Dubai is relying. A booming market, with a consciously courteous social culture and a tight police system (panic buttons in the thousand gold shops in old Dubai bring the police in two minutes) deliver a better wage than would be available at home - all this in return for surrendering anything resembling a political right.

Eduardo Ferrari, an Argentinian cameraman who has lived in Dubai for the last eight years, says he couldn't "give a damn for democracy. I live here in the most democratic country in the world. Why? Because the economy is taking you by the tip of your head and pulling you up. Every year I have more and more. In Argentina, every year I have less and less." Vishal Khemani, a 26-year-old from Mumbai, who imports Indian and Japanese textiles for Dubai wholesalers, says he loves Dubai simply because it is "very disciplined, very neat, very clean. Everything is going to timetable. I have a good job, good food. It is a cheap country." And extremely safe. There has been no hint, so far, of any terrorist attack, although you would have thought it was due for one. A western businessman, surveying the most luxurious of the Jumeirah beach hotels, said simply to me: "Everything about this place smells of western women, right? It looks like an al-Qaida target to me." There are rumours in Dubai that a terror plot was foiled last year but the processes of government are so opaque that there is no confirming that. It may be that the levels of government control in Dubai are high enough to make any terrorist operations very difficult.

Bob Gogel, CEO of Liberata, an international company specialising in the outsourcing of financial services, probably speaks for the business community as a whole. "Dubai is an unpolished gem polishing itself very quickly. You could look at it as a CD compilation - the best of London, Sydney, Miami, Las Vegas - and you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. Where else in the Middle East is going to do it? Turkey? Saudi Arabia? Lebanon? Egypt? Kuwait? You can't see it. Nowhere in the world do you get such good service. Certainly not in London. And business people like that. They've got a good plan, it's tightly controlled, they've managed to pull in some good people, they've got the oil money, and that price is not going to drop very far. The property market in Dubai is probably overheated and the Dubai stock market is due for a correction. But you try poking holes and I have trouble poking that big a hole."

This is the Dubai sandwich: at the bottom, cheap and exploited Asian labour; in the middle, white northern professional services, plus tourist hunger for glamour in the sun and, increasingly, a de-monopolised western market system; at the top, enormous quantities of invested oil money, combined with fearsome social and political control and a drive to establish another model of what modern Arabia might mean in the post-9/11 world. That is the intriguing question: can Dubai do what Libya, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, or almost anywhere else in the Arab world you might like to mention, have failed to do? Is Dubai, in fact, the fulcrum of the future global trading and financial system? Is it, in embryo, what London was to the 19th century and Manhattan to the 20th? Not the modern centre of the Arab world but, more than that, the Arab centre of the modern world.

[czsz]

Most overblown hype yet.

This place is Eurasia's Las Vegas, on a Eurasian scale. If the Arab world was about to seize the title of great world city of the 21st century, it would have been nice if it were at least a fairly serious place, as New York and London were, and not a vast respository for postmodern recreational kitsch.

[TLOZ Link5]

Like it or not, though, no one can doubt that Dubai is on the move. It may be silly aesthetically, but from an economic standpoint the implications are immense. The days when we can thumb our noses at Dubai are numbered.

[MidtownGuy]

that's for sure. It will be one of THE 21st century destination cities. It's buzzing on the lips of people everywhere, in magazines, all media. The scale of the projects is undeniable. The shopping opportunities will be some of the best anywhere. There will be so many flights. It (including the Dubailand project) will make Orlando's parks and tourism look like a roadside thriftshop or carnival.

[czsz]

An easy place for the human individual to feel overwhelmed, whether politically or metaphysically. A despotism of the vast and sublime.

[alonzo-ny]

i plan to visit when all these projects are completed but the city will have no substance as most of the people there will be tourists i would hate to live there. Unlike new york and london

[lofter1]

Reports I've read say that it gets so hot in Dubai during summer months that all these new buildings are being designed as self-contained mini-cities.

This site shows average temps by season -- looks like 7 months of the year (Oct. - April) it would be a good tourist destination, but May - Sept. looks lethal: http://www.wunderground.com/NORMS/DisplayIntlNORMS.asp?CityCode=41194&Units=both

[MidtownGuy]

Vegas gets triple digits, though not for as many months in a row. Still, look how people flock to that place in the middle of the desert. To visit Dubai, for the sake of some off season savings on a flight I'd check it out in summer-
hell I figure I'll be in the sea swimming or in some giant air-conditioned playland anyway.

[lofter1]

Is alcohol allowed in Dubai?

[ablarc]

hell I figure I'll be in the sea swimming or in some giant air-conditioned playland anyway.
So is it a city...or not?

[BrooklynRider]

It's a boulevard to nowhere.

[MidtownGuy]

like it...or not... it is a new type of city- a 21st century city.

alcohol is allowed in hotels and certain establishments.

[lofter1]

Another view of Dubai ...


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/02/26/national/26port.large1.jpghttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gifhttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gifStephanie Kuykendal for The New York Times
A skyline of apartment buildings and offices can be seen from the container terminal at the Jebel Ali Port in Dubai.

Gaps in Security Stretch From Model Port in Dubai to U.S.


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/national/26port.html

***

[MRoberts]

Dubai sure is in the news these days. According to the Ultrapolis Project website, Dubai has climbed from 14th to 6th place in one year in their "World's Tallest Cities" page http://www.ultrapolisproject.com/ultrapolis_017.htm.

They also say it is planning on becoming number one in this respect, as well as in other ways (financial, shipping, travel). Does it want to be the New York of the 21st century?

[RandySavage]

Great article.

According to the March 2006 construction update chart from Skyscaper City (link below), Dubai has 8 towers currently being built that are the scale of NYC's Bank of America, 3 that are significantly larger and, of course, the Burj Dubai. And those are only the ones under contruction... many more are planned. That is amazing.

I would have hoped they would spend a portion of the $100 billion in construction on a complete, efficient, clean transportation system (electric monorail, for example). A city is only as great as its mass transit.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=323060

[lofter1]

I would have hoped they would spend a portion of the $100 billion in construction on a complete, efficient, clean transportation system (electric monorail, for example). A city is only as great as its mass transit.
some other possibilities ...

http://www.desertusa.com/sandhills/st4.jpg

http://www.ptolomy.com/DESIGN/AT-ST-Sand.jpg

http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~sf-papercraft/Gallery/Sand/SAND01.jpg

[RandySavage]

To answer my own question about transportation:

"There is currently a $3.89 billion Dubai Metro project under construction for the emirate. The Metro system is expected to be partially operational by 2009 and fully operational by 2012. The construction contract for the project was given to Dubai Rapid Link (DURL)[12], a consortium lead by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Also involved are two other Japanese corporations, Obayashi and Kajima, and a Turkish company, Yapi Merkezi. The metro will comprise two lines: the Green Line from Rashidiya to the main city center and the Red Line from the airport to Jebel Ali. The Dubai Metro will have 70 kilometers of track and 43 stations, 33 above ground and ten underground. Trains are expected to run every 90 seconds when the project is completed. Dubai is building this train system to ease congestion on its road network and to meet the transportation demands of its growing population. Seven monorails are also slated to be constructed to help feed the Metro system, connecting various places such as Dubailand, Palm Jumeriah, et al, to the main track."

Dubai is fascinating to me... this has got to be the greatest, fastest urban explosion of all-time.

[MidtownGuy]

I agree. It is a dynamo, and will surpass New York in tall structures very soon. Burj Dubai will make the Freedom Tower look like a shrimp.

8 towers currently being built that are the scale of NYC's Bank of America, 3 that are significantly larger and, of course, the Burj Dubai

WOW!

[antinimby]

What's more, all of them are very architectually interesting. There are almost not boxes.

[MidtownGuy]

Architecturally, too many New Yorkers worship context, at the expense of creativity.

[antinimby]

Exactly.
It's one thing to preserve beautiful older buildings and another to want everything new to be made to look old. It's like these people want NY to always look like it's still in the 1890's. Context = conformity = uniformity = boring.

[TLOZ Link5]

Dubai is demolishing many of its historic souks and paving over ancient oases to make room for new towers; let's not talk about the untold ecological damage that the construction of the palm islands and The World has wreaked and will continue to wreak. It's sweeping away much of its past in order to build the new city, and it's not the only one in Asia that's doing so. Shanghai, Bangkok, Beijing, Mumbai, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur, among others, have all lost much of their stock of historic buildings for the sake of "modernization."

MidtownGuy, you yourself have posted time and again in support of preserving many of NYC's existing tenements and brownstones in the face of overwhelming new [not to mention often mediocre and out-of-context] development, and now post that you wish New York was more like Dubai. You can't have it both ways.

[antinimby]

TL, I don't know why you're all worked up. From reading his posts, you know Midtown better than that. No one here wants to demolish anything of historic beauty.

[MidtownGuy]

What we can have is a balance- and an artistic sense of the value of having old and new stand side by side. My posts have expressed my love for contrast and texture.
I never said "I wish New York was more like Dubai". I want us to build more creatively, yes, while respecting historic beauty. Why must the two be mutually exclusive?

[Jake]

I never said "I wish New York was more like Dubai".

heh, that's a scary thought.

dubai will never have something we have- a safe, reliable, and most of all comfortable subway system!

http://www.transalt.org/press/magazine/045%20Winter/images/18%20bus-riders.jpg

This is IMO a bit sad, that country will have nothing but skyscrapers. Nothing else though. I mean we could convert each of our 2 billion dollar B-2 bombers into a supertall, but should we?

you're so pretty, my baby, oh yes you are, oh yes you are...
http://www.flygplan.info/images/b-2f117.jpg

[lofter1]

Emirate Wakes Up Famous. Thank You, America.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/03/02/international/02dubai583.jpg
Stephanie Kuykendal for The New York Times
Dubai was surprised by the ports hubbub, but also enthralled at the evidence
that it had outdone its Arab neighbors.

By HASSAN M. FATTAH
NY Times
March 2, 2006
Letter From Dubai

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/03/02/international/20060302_dubai_graphic.gif
The New York Times
Dubai offers Iranians and Arabs
an almost Western lifestyle,
with Middle East values.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/02/international/middleeast/02dubai.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/unitedarabemirates/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), March 1 — As United States senators turned Dubai into a household word last week, life in this desert city hardly changed: skiers swooshed down a man-made snow park in the region's largest shopping mall, workers put the finishing touches on man-made islands under construction and men like Rashad Bukhash continued planning for the day when this city of one million would grow to three million.

But hardly anyone spoke about the issue that has so consumed Washington: the management of terminals at six major American ports by DP World, a government-owned company here.

Indeed, the most surprising aspect of the ports controversy here was, in fact, the lack of reaction: no scathing editorials, no demonstrations and certainly no talk of a Jewish conspiracy. Surprised, in part, but also enthralled, many here saw the ports firestorm as a stark example of how this economically ambitious state has surpassed its Arab neighbors.

"People in Dubai are merchants," said Mr. Bukhash, who heads Dubai's planning department. "We know that when you pursue a deal, you can make a profit or you can lose. If you lose, you just move on. But at least now, when I say I am from Dubai, I know that people know where it is."

Nevertheless, beyond Dubai's zany construction projects, frenetic growth plans and near obsession with superlatives, the ports uproar underscores for city officials and others the hurdles this city will face in its quest for modernity. Even as Dubai has struggled to shield itself from the Arab world's problems, the outcry has proved that the city will long be burdened by them.

"It was an exercise you have to live with, win and then learn from," said Ghassan Tahboub, media manager at the executive office of Dubai's ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the self-styled C.E.O. of the city.
"This was America. There are lobbies, politics and interest groups, and Dubai found itself in the middle of a jungle. In the end I have to thank everybody there for this lesson."

Many here readily admit that as Dubai emerges as a power on the global economic stage, it has much to learn about the "soft" aspects of business, from politics to public relations.

"We don't have qualified people to speak," said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a professor of political science at Emirates University, speaking of the government. "They don't have experts and commentators. There's no political discourse in this city, and it showed."

A prominent publicist who has been advising the government said the city needed to distinguish itself from other Arab cities and countries. "Dubai still has a big role in explaining who we are to the world," said the publicist, who requested anonymity because of the delicacy of implicitly criticizing other Arab countries. "Everybody knows who Dubai is in the region. But in America, Dubai is Arab, period."

With native Emirati citizens accounting for only about 15 percent of the population, Arab may be the last word that comes to mind in describing this city. Indeed, the average resident here is more likely to speak English than Arabic, and more likely to be Asian than Arab. Many Indians jokingly refer to Dubai as "the best-run Indian city."

Set across the Persian Gulf from Iran and just east of Saudi Arabia, Dubai is the financial capital of the United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven sheikdoms that won independence from Britain in 1971. But in stark contrast to many of its neighbors, Dubai more than two decades ago turned its back on oil and focused on diversifying its economy.

Today, the city derives less than 15 percent of its revenue from oil, but greets more than five million tourists a year, many of them from Europe, and is the Middle East headquarters for more than 800 American companies. Like Singapore, long a model for the city, Dubai has also become a regional trade hub and a magnet for Arab, Iranian and Asian investors.

"Dubai has been trying to prove to the rest of the Arab world that there is life after oil, and that in fact it's a better life," Mr. Abdulla said. "The good news is there is room for a second and a third Dubai, just like there was room for a second Singapore in Asia." The city is lucky in that its long-term strategy has come to fruition at a moment when other Arab states are flush with billions of oil dollars and seeking places to invest their newfound wealth.

"This is an Arab city living in a unique moment in history," said Mr. Abdulla, who likens Dubai's stature in the Arab world today to that of Beirut in the 1960's and Cairo in the 1950's — capitals that defined the political direction for much of the region. But whereas those cities focused on the Arab world, Dubai has looked outward and embraces globalization.

Other Arab states, particularly Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, would like to emulate Dubai, but it is not clear they will succeed. Those states may not have Dubai's penchant for finding opportunity in misfortune, nor its openness to outsiders and dedication to unfettered business dealings.

In the 1980's it built strong relations with Iran by serving as a waypoint to the rest of the world and offering a lifeline during the Iran-Iraq war. In 1991, it became a haven for Kuwaitis who escaped Saddam Hussein's (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/saddam_hussein/index.html?inline=nyt-per) invading armies, then in 2003 it became a haven for Iraqis escaping the second gulf war. And in the years since, Dubai has gradually fashioned itself into a refuge for Iranians, Arabs and others who have eschewed the call to America or the West in exchange for a lifestyle that comes close, but is in keeping with Middle Eastern values.

Modernity, however, has not come easy. With 85 percent of the population made up of foreigners, many of them second and third generation, the city faces a simmering demographic and identity crisis.

Dubai is likely to confront numerous other questions as a 45-day investigation of its port management program gets under way, possibly illuminating the emirate's struggles with money laundering and other illicit activities. A spotty human rights record regarding foreign workers could also be a sticking point, along with its participation in a continuing Arab boycott of trade with Israel.

In the end, Dubai may be pummeled in the ports controversy, but it will also have gained a lot, some officials say.

"In the end, I think Dubai won," said Mr. Tahboub, the sheik's media manager.

"We got a lot of publicity, and we deserve it, perhaps not in this manner, but we deserve the publicity."

Mohammed Fadel Fahmy contributed reporting for this article.

Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[Jake]

The New York Times
Dubai offers Iranians and Arabs
an almost Western lifestyle,
with Middle East values.
what? does that even make sense?



lol, had to edit, I looked at that pic and thought to myself, wow what a nice beach, I forgot the country is a desert. lol

[macreator]

I am greatly impressed by Dubai's rapid growth, but while the City may gain a number of tall skyscrapers, it will never be New York in its urban feel, which arguably is the most important factor in a City.

Dubai is totally un-friendly to the pedestrian. The City mainly relies on high-speed highways and wide boulevards for its traffic of cars and vans with no sidewalks in sight and it has blank walls abound. And while certain spots on the Palm islands may have "pathways", and one can always walk around at one of the City's gigantic malls, the City will never have a good walkability factor and thus not a great urban feel. Most of these enourmous skyscraper sit on huge blank pedestals. Because of this, Dubai will not be a place I'll be moving to in the near future.

[antinimby]

We can knock Dubai all we want about lacking a transportation system and the urban feel and so on, but what it has demonstrated is that it possesses that "can do" attitude, something NY lost a long time ago. This alone will ensure that whatever Dubai needs or wants, it will get it done. Unlike NY, where all we do is talk (and in most cases, just argue) and nothings gets done in the end. What makes you think all the things its lacking right now, they won't work on next to make happen?

[lofter1]

Unlike NY, where all we do is talk (and in most cases, just argue) and nothings gets done in the end.
Ahh ... come on, get out of your apartment and look around ;)

[antinimby]

I guess I should rephrase. Things do eventually get done but usually not without some kind of drama. Look at Ground Zero, Atlantic Yards, Con Ed site, the Westside railyards, Brooklyn Bridge Park and others. Sure, we have many residentials going up but even they might come to a screeching halt once the bubble bursts.

[alonzo-ny]

One thing dubai cant just build is the density of scrapers new york has and also its skyscraper history

[MidtownGuy]

That a city is friendly to pedestrians may be important to us, as New Yorkers, but not really to people who live in other types of cities, oh, like say Los Angeles. Or Las Vegas. Or Orlando. People love their cars, and love the driving lifestyle. I am not one of them, and neither are most Manhattanites, but they are out there and they choose to live in cities like...Dubai.
It's sort of silly, like New York criticising Venice because it has so many canals. Duh.
They don't and won't have the density that New York has, Ok. So what. They don't need it because they have so much empty land to build on. People in cities such as Dubai like the landscaping that goes between their spaced apart buildings, like palm trees and flowers. We don't have a lot of palm trees in New York, or downtown beaches to stroll along, oh well, does that make us not as good somehow? It's just different strokes for different folks.

As for the "can do" attitude, antinimby is totally right on. They have it, and New York doesn't anymore. Burj Dubai, Freedom Tower. Enough said.
New York's greatest treasures were all built decades ago! I love them all, but come on people, to remain the world capital we have to continue to strive, not rest back on our laurels. Here, unfortunately, any project with real balls gets snipped.

Instead of looking down our noses at Dubai, we should admire their ambition.

[cerelac]

Hi.. I'm from Dubai and came across this page as I was Googling some of this ports news.

Thanks for posting some of those articles.. it's funny what that guy from the sheikh's office said about it being cool to get the publicity, even if it's bad. That is so Dubai.. they love advertising their name. They do it so much that even its own citizens pick it up and behave as travel agents or tourist guides when they encounter visitors. In the English as a second language classes at public schools, they didn't focus much on how to order a meal at a restaurant if you're travelling..etc but they taught how to give directions to tourists, how to help them.

I was wondering what you think of this ports uproar.. also I agree with Midtown Guy that Dubai isn't really a suitable place for density of buildings because no one would walk anyway.. not to do daily chores at least. They need air conditioning, and for leisure walks they have beaches where a sea breeze would make it more tolerable, and boulevards.. etc for when the weather is good. The Dubai Marina has a very nice walking area surrounding by these supertalls, and cafes and restaurants lining them. Also, Sheikh Zayed Rd which you see in a lot of photos of Dubai is really a 5 lane on each side highway with tall buildings on either side.. doesn't seem very pedestrian friendly at all, but it has a small side service road and very wide pavements, and a lot of people actually walk there, and there are great views.. and lovely restaurants.

I used to post on SkyscraperCity UAE section (before I got banned! :D ) .. so I know a good bit about Dubai's projects and planning.

[MidtownGuy]

Thank you for posting your information about Dubai. I was imagining also the walk around Dubai Marina when I posted. I will be visiting Dubai for sure, as soon as some of the big current projects are completed:D

[RandySavage]

Is it a Dubai's "Can Do" attitude that they are building a massive, modern city overnight or the fact that they are awash in money (mainly from trafficing the world's most important strategic resource).

Anyone seen a composite photoshop of renderings to show what the city will look like in 2010 when most of the current projects are completed?

[cerelac]

I was in Dubai for a couple of weeks about a week ago.. seemed a bit dusty with all the construction.. I would recommend waiting for a year or two, by that time at least one palm island should be ready, Dubai Mall and the Marina at least. I always told friends to wait till around early 2007 or 2008, but Dubai keeps proposing new projects and the dates for finishing them climb up to 2012 +. The ones projected to finish within the next couple of years are still on track, but it's annoying having other major ones still under construction because it messes the place up and you feel you've missed out on it.

Someone here mentioned something about Dubai destroying its historic buildings to make way for new ones. Dubai really has no historic buildings. Their old houses were either tents or made of palm leaves :D :D They have a few mud or brick houses, such as the Bastakiyya quarters with windtowers (of Iranian emigrants) which date back to the 1920's or 1930's. Those are conserved, plus a small fort which houses the museum, and an old small palace which is a museum also. Other than that, the only "historic" buildings of Dubai would be the Clocktower roundabout which dates from the 1960's and the Dubai World Trade Centre from 1970's. When Dubai destroys "old" buildings they're really only destroying crappy residentials from the 70's or 80's which were probably built with an expected high turnover rate in mind.

One thing Dubai is guilty of abusing is the environment. They have very little environmental awareness, both the government and the citizens. They're also used to zero bureaucracy when planning things.. which is how they're mushrooming like they are, but finally the American congress gave them some bureaucracy :D

[cerelac]

Is it a Dubai's "Can Do" attitude that they are building a massive, modern city overnight or the fact that they are awash in money (mainly from trafficing the world's most important strategic resource).

Anyone seen a composite photoshop of renderings to show what the city will look like in 2010 when most of the current projects are completed?

There's an interesting book by the London Business School called "From Sand to Silicon" about Dubai's progress and how it's run like a private company, with the sheikh as its CEO. It looks at the way Dubai runs itself and how it's expanding fast. The sheikh (Mohammed al-Maktoum) is quoted in the book, saying his father was laughed at when he asked for the Rashid or Jebel Ali ports to be expanded in the 1970's.. since Dubai was pretty small at the time and nobody expected it would need that big of a port, but he went ahead and did it anyway despite people's criticism, and it turned out that he was right in his decision, and they even expanded the port more later on because of a high demand. I think Sheikh Mohammed wants to propose new projects until people call him crazy like they did to his dad, and then he'll be extra satisfied when they're proven wrong :D He's very inspired by his father's port expansion story.. I've heard him tell it several times whenever people question the need for all of this. I think that Dubai also does this because it can and because it's working, for now at least. Dubai isn't really that rich in terms of oil wealth. Their plans are to bring in money by spending money. A lot of the investment in their projects have come from neighbouring countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran.

[lofter1]

Great to hear from you, cerelac ...

The info in this article about large number of non-natives residing in Dubai poses some interesting (and possibly difficult) questions for Dubai.

Could you fill us in from your perspective?
Emirate Wakes Up Famous.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/unitedarabemirates/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), March 1 —

...Many here readily admit that as Dubai emerges as a power on the global economic stage, it has much to learn about the "soft" aspects of business, from politics to public relations.

With native Emirati citizens accounting for only about 15 percent of the population...

[cerelac]

Great to hear from you, cerelac ...

The info in this article about large number of non-natives residing in Dubai poses some interesting (and possibly difficult) questions for Dubai.

Could you fill us in from your perspective?

I think native Emiratis are even less than 15% in Dubai. I think they might be 15% in the UAE as a whole but specifically in Dubai probably around 8%. I am in fact one of these "rare" Emiratis. But that's just the way Dubai is.. it's a mix of people from many countries. It's like living in an airport.

The thing is that Dubai was a trade town even before oil was discovered. There were pearl merchants and textile and gold traders from Iran, India and other places going through. Some of them settled in the area. A British census of Dubai done in the 1940's estimated a population of 3000 Indians, 10,000 Arabs and 25,000 Iranians. The Iranian merchants adopted the Arabic language and dress code and became integrated with the local population, and eventually were handed full Dubai citizenship followed by UAE citizenship when the union was formed in 1971 after the withdrawal of Britain. A few non-Emirati Arabs from Syria or Jordan were also in the area at that time and received citizenship.

After that, many foreigners and Arabs of other nationalities came into the country to help with their skills, and to help those newcomers settle, more foreigners came to offer services for this increase in population, and so they increased suddenly and held on to their languages and customs. They didn't integrate, and they weren't given citizenship. Expatriates to this day don't attempt to integrate, and since there were no official laws for handing out citizenship in the past and the locals receive a lot of perks which the government can't afford to provide were everyone to be a citizen, at this point it's hard to Emiratize anyone, and the Emirati citizenship remains exclusive to the children of Emirati parent(s).

The government started handing out Emirati passports to "influential" expatriates who hold important positions, and some of them were even instructed on wearing local Arab clothes after being given the passport, but I believe in most cases it remains only a "passport" and not full citizenship. A passport allows for travel as an Emirati, and for free healthcare and education, but not for purchasing land or a college scholarship for example.

Emirati women used to have a fertility rate of around 6 up til the late 80's, but now it's down to 4. The government encourages locals to have more children to try to balance the demographics (some men gladly practice polygamy with the excuse of patriotism :D ), but I doubt they can achieve any sort of balance the way things are going. A big factor in the imbalance is the presence of foreign construction workers (which is also why 67% of the population of the UAE are male), so when they're done with this boom, there will be a sharp decrease in the number of expatriate construction workers, only to be replaced by an even greater number of expatriates who'll move into these new homes and apartments. The only solution is to set criteria for applying for citizenship, such as was done in Saudi Arabia. The UAE's police and military personnel are mostly from Yemen or Sudan, and they have been handed a UAE passport.

Local Emiratis feel threatened by this foreign presence because the majority of expatriates are not native Arabic speakers, do not understand local customs, do not care to understand local customs, and may not be Muslim. They would also take up a large portion of the budget for healthcare and education, which would mean the "original" Emiratis would have to start paying for these services like everyone else. And currently many Asian employees are given a lower salary than Emiratis because they take into account the fact that they wire the money to a 3rd world country which makes it enough for them (discriminatory on the government's part), when they live in the UAE permanently and their family are brought to the UAE then they need a pay rise. Emiratis also feel they're looked down upon by employers since they're stereotyped as being lazy and lacking skills. Opening the gates for emigration would make finding jobs very difficult for them (because that's how it's like now anyway), and I think ethnic tensions would ensue.

[RandySavage]

"dubai will never have something we have- a safe, reliable, and most of all comfortable subway system!"

I'm not so sure about that:

[RandySavage]

Dubai Metro:

[Citytect]

Planning a transit system in a city with one main thoroughfare must have been a challenge.

[antinimby]

dubai will never have something we have- a safe, reliable, and most of all comfortable subway system!As illustrated above, arrogant comments will always come back to haunt you. Believe it or not New Yorkers, at one time Londoners and Parisians looked down on NYC as some of you have towards other upcoming cities. Tables can turn very quickly in this world. Many cities' train systems already make New York's old, dingy and creaky subway system look laughable. Lesson: don't look down at others, just use them as inspiration and motivation for yourself.

[Jake]

Actually I posted that as sarcasm. If you go back to my post you will see a photo of a crowded subway car. lol, the MTA system isn't reliable, safe, or comfortable.

[cerelac]

The Dubai Metro would be ready very late compared to when most of Dubai's other projects will be. Traffic will be a nightmare until then.

[MidtownGuy]

http://www.thedubaiwaterfront.com/po_ov.php

Watch the video of the Dubai Waterfront. It blew my mind!

[czsz]

Qatar's getting jealous...

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/0,5538,PB64-SUQ9MTI4MDMmbnI9MQ_3_3,00.html

[lofter1]

Watch the video of the Dubai Waterfront. It blew my mind!
Wow ... Like something out of Gattaca: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gattaca/

[lofter1]

Hoping that both Dubai and Qatar have well maintained naval fleets to protect these waterfront compounds.

[Jake]

Hoping that both Dubai and Qatar have well maintained naval fleets to protect these waterfront compounds.

How about the world's most technologically and militarily capable fleet in the world- the US Navy?

[MidtownGuy]

Bingo.

[lofter1]

How about the world's most technologically and militarily capable fleet in the world- the US Navy?
Good deal -- they watch our ports -- we watch their waterfront villas ;)

[alonzo-ny]

Actually I posted that as sarcasm. If you go back to my post you will see a photo of a crowded subway car. lol, the MTA system isn't reliable, safe, or comfortable.

I dont agree. In the 3.5 months in new york i never had 1 problem with the subway and i think its the best in the world. sure the train isnt as nice or the stations pretty but it gets the job done no frills.

[Jake]

dude....

I saw the same panhandler on 3 different subway lines today.

My train was "being held in the station momentarily" for 10 minutes today.

Cortland street was supposed to reopen February 2006, now I hear it's more like Spring 2007.

Now I'm very very grateful that this subway system exists, but it is a legacy of a different generation. I've been on the subway every every weekday and most weekends since I was 14, for the past 15 years...I've seen a lot of weird shit. Be glad the old red lexington ave subway cars are gone.

[TLOZ Link5]

You're twenty-nine? Weird...all this time I've pictured you as some bearded but well-groomed middle-aged guy, possibly a little grey around the temples.

[lofter1]

But it always seems to get you where you need to go, eh?

In my 25+ years in NYC -- riding the blessed train all the time -- I've only had 2 situations where I was stuck in a car underground, and each of those lasted 15 minutes max.

I've seen some of the same characters working the cars for almost all those years I've ridden the trains -- one lady I actually get worried about if I DON'T see her every couple of months!

[evil_synth]

I have had horrible experiences on the Metro-North New Haven line this year.. more than other years..
At one instance, whoever was driving the train messed up, and the train skidded clear past the Fordham Station. They didn't bother to go back after about sitting past the station for 5 minutes, and continued down to Harlem 125th Street, where I had to wait for a train to take me back up to Fordham.
In mid-January, my 20 minutes commute took me 3 hours, as first my train ran over a 'pot-shaped metallic object' on the tracks, and the conductors needed about 15 minutes to look at that. After about a minute of getting going, the train halted to a stop and we were informed that a tree had fallen on a train around 165th street and we would have to wait a little bit for them to clear the way. The train didn't move for 2 hours. Again, I was forced to go back down to Harlem 125th street before coming back to Fordham, because my stop is 'not significant enough.'
Oh well, at least I don't have to deal with rush hour traffic..

[lofter1]

Meanwhile, one of Dubai's neighbors shows off some bling ...

The Land With the Golden Hotel

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/03/08/travel/08abu.span583.jpg
Charles Crowell/Bloomberg News
Abu Dhabi's Emirates Palace Hotel, where rooms start at around $770 a night.

Letter From Abu Dhabi

By KATHERINE ZOEPF
NY Times
March 8, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/travel/08abuletter.html?8dpc

After even a short walking tour of the new Emirates Palace hotel on the Abu Dhabi Corniche, a visitor might well start to wonder: is there anything here that glitters that is not, in fact, gold?

From its golden flagpoles to its golden chandeliers to the golden finials on its rooftop domes and the gold-leafed mosaics on the columns in its lobby, the Emirates Palace literally glows with luxury. The hotel, owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, took more than three years and reportedly more than $3 billion to build, which would make it the most expensively constructed hotel in the world.

For the last several years, Abu Dhabi, the largest among the seven princely city-states that make up the United Arab Emirates (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/unitedarabemirates/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), has been working to raise its international profile. It has opened tax-free development zones to lure foreign investment, set up Etihad, its first airline, and founded a tourist board to entice recreational visitors. And with the opening of the Emirates Palace, with its 114 domes, 1,002 Swarovski crystal chandeliers, 12 restaurants, nearly a mile of private beach, and 3.9 million cubic feet of imported marble, Abu Dhabi has cemented its image as one of the most luxurious destinations on earth.

The hotel's most modest rooms, each with several enormous plasma screen televisions and a personal butler, start at 2,900 Emirati dirhams a night, or about $773 at 3.75 dirhams to the dollar. A Palace Suite, on the other hand, heavily decorated with silks and gold and silver leaf, and including a living room, dining room and three bedrooms, can run as much as 42,000 dirhams, or $11,200, a night.

"This is very useful when you're traveling with an entourage," said an Emirates Palace spokeswoman, Rumyanka Tzolova.

Indeed.

If, even with such room rates, the rumored $3 billion plus price tag still seems out of step with the hotel's expected returns, it is important to remember that the Emirates Palace wasn't conceived so much as a profit-making venture as a way to put Abu Dhabi on the map.

Repeatedly, in the hotel's brochures, it is referred to as a "landmark" or a "palace" rather than a hotel. In prose that veers well toward purple, the Emirates Palace Web site welcomes visitors to "an enchanting landmark that's a wonder to behold for all who venture through its magnificent gates ... a majestic experience fit for a king and deserving of an emperor." And, in what seems to be a slap at the promotional claims of the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai, which says it has seven stars, the frequently asked questions section notes that "the seven or six star ratings do not officially exist. ... We classify Emirates Palace as just that, a Palace."
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gif
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/03/08/travel/08abu.2large.jpg
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gifKamran Jebreili/Associated Press
Pouring a cup of traditional Arabic coffee.


The path to the front of the Emirates Palace is not a straight shot; visitors enter through a formal garden flanked by pavilions designed like triumphal arches. The final approach to the hotel comes as a surprise. The path makes a seemingly gentle turn, and then, startlingly, the hotel looms before the visitor, the pink grainte main structure towering above a four-story outdoor staircase.

"It's psychological," explained the general manager, Noel Massoud, a Jordanian. "When you come up to a building from beneath, you have the impression that it is even bigger."

And suddenly, it's impossible to take it all in. There's a waterfall running down the center of the staircase in a fish-scale pattern, and vast wings of the building trail east and west toward helicopter pads, swimming pools and more gardens. On the roof, there's a profusion of domes: pointed domes and bulbous domes and domes covered with glittering tiles. There are domes with little skirts, like inverted lotus blossoms, domes that seem inspired by Mogul forts or by Russian basilicas, domes that resemble gargantuan Hershey's Kisses.

On paper, the Emirates Palace sounds grand to the point of grandiosity, and almost grotesquely opulent. It is the kind of building you'd expect in a book or movie, but is disconcerting to be confronted with in real life. But with its yellowy golden glow and contented polyglot population, there's an exuberance about it all that is, well, fun.

Inside, the place manages to feel warm and peopled. Confronted with such vast expanses of lobby and hallway, the visitor's sense of scale quickly recalibrates, so that an enclosed area the size of a football field actually feels intimate.

On a recent visit, the Champagne and caviar bar in the lobby was nearly full, and the 13 international newspapers available to diners at Le Vendôme Brasserie were being read and passed around. At a Viennese-style cafe in the lobby there was a family of five speaking animatedly in Portuguese, next to a pair of fashionable young Emirati men, their ghutra headdresses crisply ironed and folded to create a widow's peak effect.

The staff seemed uniformly friendly, well spoken and almost touchingly proud of their workplace. A man named Samy, a security guard from Egypt (http://travel2.nytimes.com/top/features/travel/destinations/africa/egypt/?inline=nyt-geo), confided that he felt overwhelmed at his luck in "working in a place that is so amazing."

"Every day I am asking myself how come I get to work here," he said. "I have seen so many celebrities, like Gerhard Schröder (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/gerhard_schroder/index.html?inline=nyt-per), J. Lo and the Fulham Football Club."

A waitress at the Havana Club cigar bar spontaneously offered a tour of the bar's marvels, including Cohiba cigars in a dramatically backlit storage case and a kind of Cognac called Hardy Perfection that costs 9,000 dirhams, or $2,400, a glass.

"A lot of people have asked about it," she said, "but the seal is still on the bottle."

Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[lofter1]

We're talking 'luxe ...

http://www.emiratespalace.com/en/sub_aboutemirates.htm

One of the suites at the Emirates Palace:

http://www.emiratespalace.com/en/Images/palacebedroomb_web.jpg

The Pool area:

http://www.emiratespalace.com/en/Images/espb_web.jpg

[Jake]

haha, they can't even grow a decent lawn, how's that for ironic!


Remember ME! One moment the homeless guy with a knife is on the other side of the car....lights go out....lights come back on and he's got his arm around your neck....haha
http://pics.livejournal.com/steelbrassnwood/pic/00055qc3/s320x240

[RandySavage]

Cover story on the latest BusinessWeek magazine focuses on Dubai’s building boom:

“The New Middle East Oil Bonanza
Beyond the Dubai Ports deal: Where all those billions are going.

If the Burj Dubai development isn't the biggest project in the world, it must be close. At night under floodlights thousands of mostly Asian workers in hard hats swarm over a 500-acre building site in the heart of Dubai, the Persian Gulf emirate that is tiny in size but limitless in ambition. Emaar Properties, a local company, is carving out of the desert a new $20 billion district with 30,000 homes, a Giorgio Armani-designed hotel, an ice rink, and a 30-acre man-made lake. Advertisement

The centerpiece of the project, which employs more than a dozen American firms, is Burj Dubai, a $1 billion tower. It was designed by Chicago architects Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP, and its construction is being managed by New York-based Turner Construction Co. "We are moving up one floor a week, and we are now on the 31st floor," says Mohamed Ali Alabbar, Emaar's chairman. The exact planned height is shrouded in secrecy to foil competitors, but Alabbar promises that the luxury residential complex, more than 2,500 feet high, will be "40% taller than anything else."


Slide Show >>The world's tallest building? In Dubai? The city-state in the United Arab Emirates captured headlines in the U.S. recently when government-owned Dubai Ports World, through its purchase of Britain's Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. for $6.8 billion, agreed to take over management of several major ports, from New York to Miami. The deal has sparked an outcry among politicians worried that an Arab-owned company could be a vehicle for al Qaeda operatives. The uproar has forced the company to delay its plans in the U.S.

The Dubai Ports deal, though, is just one relatively small episode in the second great Mideast oil boom. The boom is characterized by hugely ambitious projects that are transforming the shores of the Persian Gulf into a Xanadu with some of the most fantastic and expensive structures on earth. The rush of petrodollars is creating enormous private and public wealth and reshaping Gulf business and society.

All this is happening when the other Mideast -- of Iraq, radical Islam, and Palestinian-Israeli relations -- is wracked by violence and strife. That turmoil could certainly threaten the Gulf's prosperity. Just look at what happened in late February when al Qaeda fighters unsuccessfully attacked a key oil facility in Saudi Arabia. But for now the authoritarian regimes running the Gulf are seizing the opportunity to build new economies and satisfy their restive populations with a new level of affluence.

The tale of Mideast money is not just a local story, however. This year, with oil prices stuck in the $55-to-$65-per-barrel range, perhaps half a trillion dollars will land in OPEC coffers -- more than at any time since the boom of the 1970s and 1980s. The Mideast oil states alone will gather in $320 billion in oil and gas export revenues.

Where is that money going, how is it affecting the global economy, and what impact will the boom have on U.S. relations with the region? Those are crucial questions. The last oil boom, from 1973 to 1985, had dire consequences. The oil price spike created a lethal mix of inflation and slow growth worldwide. Arab states, unprepared for their newfound wealth, socked too much money away in U.S. Treasuries and a few international banks. The banks in turn lent the money to Latin American governments. In the end, these countries couldn't pay it back -- and instead triggered a debt crisis that shook the global financial system.

This time around the impact of money-flows from the Mideast does not appear quite so toxic. The oil exporters are spending much more at home on investment and consumption, helping to shore up global demand for goods, and balancing out the effect of their huge export earnings.

But Mideast money is definitely venturing abroad. For starters, a chunk of the billions is going to deals in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Dubai Ports did not just cut a deal for P&O: It also bought the port operations of Florida's CSX Corp. (CSX ) for $1.2 billion. Last year, Dubai luxury hotel group Jumeirah bought the swanky Essex House in New York for an estimated $400 million. Dubai International Capital, the private-equity arm of Dubai Holding, the government's oil money depository, paid $1.5 billion for Madame Tussauds, the British wax museum, and an additional $1.2 billion for a 2% stake in DaimlerChrysler (DCX ). Mubadala Development Co. of Abu Dhabi acquired a 5% holding in Italian carmaker Ferrari (FIA ). In the biggest Mideast deal of all, Egyptian cellular operator Orascom Telecom Holding formed a consortium to buy Wind, a top Italian mobile network, for $13 billion. "These investors have an incentive to invest in assets outside the petroleum industry," says Thomas J. Barrack Jr. His Colony Capital LLC recently partnered with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal to buy the Toronto-based Fairmont Hotels & Resorts Inc. (FHR ) for $3.9 billion.

On the Hunt
The numbers involved in these deals are still small compared with the billions being spent in the region. Bankers in the Mideast, however, say both governments and family companies controlled by Gulf billionaires are becoming more adventurous. Beat Naegeli, the Dubai-based head of Credit Suisse Dubai (CSR ) private banking in the region, says big Arab investors, while still predominantly invested locally, are increasingly on the hunt for equity stakes in overseas companies and real estate deals in New York, London, and Paris. Many of these investors, he says, are currently expanding their private-equity positions rather than putting money into hedge funds -- a good way to diversify. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have multibillion-dollar funds that are scouting for equity investments abroad. "We will see more of that," says Brad D. Bourland, chief economist at Riyadh-based Samba Financial Group, a leading Saudi bank. "This is the tip of the iceberg."

Then there's the Mideast money flowing into U.S. Treasury securities and other passive investments. U.S. government data indicate that OPEC countries held only $67 billion in Treasuries as of December. Most of that was held by the Gulf states, but it's small compared with the giant holdings of China and Japan.

The official figures, though, probably underestimate the clout of Arab money in world capital markets. According to PFC Energy, an energy consultant in Washington, the Mideast oil states hold a cumulative $1 trillion in foreign assets -- stocks, bonds, government debt, real estate, and other investments. In fact, the money isn't easy to trace because unlike the oil boom of the 1970s, today's petrodollars aren't being parked in a few big American and European banks. Instead they are sprinkled around the world through an intricate network of private banks, funds, and offshore financial centers. "There's a distinct lack of hard information on where this money's going," says Mohsin S. Khan, director of the International Monetary Fund's Middle East and Central Asian department.

What's more, the Arab states are now major buyers of goods from Japan, China, and the rest of Asia, where they sell the bulk of their oil. So these petrodollars get recycled as Japanese yen or Chinese yuan -- which the Japanese and Chinese governments convert into U.S. Treasuries. Indirectly, then, oil money is bankrolling U.S. deficit spending. Paul Donovan, a global economist for UBS Investment Bank (UBS ) in London, estimates that petrodollars, mostly channeled through Asia and Europe, are funding up to 45% of the U.S. current account deficit.

While these billions circulate through the global money system, you only have to look around the Persian Gulf to see that huge amounts of oil wealth are staying in the region. Fueled by the oil boom, local stock markets have risen anywhere from over 200% to more than 1,000% in the past four years, despite current sharp corrections in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Imports from the U.S., Europe, and Asia are soaring.

Yet in contrast to the helter-skelter development of the 1970s, a new and better-planned Middle East economy is rising, shaped by a well-educated business class and powered by a youthful population seeking prosperity. "Look at the demographics of these nations," says Alabbar, 46, who graduated from Seattle University. "They all see what the outside world is all about, and they dream to live like that." Some 65% of Saudis, for example, are 24 years old or younger.

Another important difference: Governments in the region learned harsh lessons when they fell into dire financial straits during the lean period of low oil prices in the early 1990s. They began shifting economic policies to cut waste and make room for once-tiny private sectors to create jobs. Those moves created a healthy environment in which growth could catch fire once oil prices took off starting in 2000. In 2005 real gross domestic product grew a healthy 6.5% in Saudi Arabia, by far the most important economy in the region. "Improved confidence, fear of investing in the U.S. and Western Europe, and the massive amounts of private capital brought home have led to an unprecedented boom," says Fareed Mohamedi, chief economist at consultants PFC.

The region's governments have developed more careful spending strategies. The Saudi government, for instance, has been very conservative in its budgeting, assuming until this year that oil prices would return to $25 per barrel. Now, with $150 billion or so stashed away, Riyadh plans to increase its spending by 20% this year, to about $90 billion. Capital outlays are set to nearly triple, to $33 billion.

Planning Ahead
Much of this money is earmarked for long-term projects. They include a $50 billion, five-year program to build new roads, schools, and hospitals in rural areas; a $9 billion modernization of an oil refinery at Rabigh, with Japan's Sumitomo Corp.; and $14 billion for new production-capacity expansion at Saudi Aramco, the national oil company. "The number of megaprojects with five-year time frames is so big that it ought to sustain a lot of the private sector through this decade," says Samba's Bourland. He figures the private sector will record 8% growth this year, vs. 5% for the overall Saudi economy. In the UAE, private-sector growth has been hitting double digits.

Governments have smartened up in other ways. They are tailoring their infrastructure projects to attract clusters of similar businesses, which gain from being close together. Dubai has established Internet and Media Cities -- office parks wired for high-speed data transmission. Not to be outdone, the Saudis have brought in Emaar to develop a new $27 billion King Abdullah Economic City on the Red Sea coast north of Jeddah. The planners of the new metropolis envision a giant port, and manufacturing businesses including petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals. Some 30% of the equity in the project may be offered to investors on the stock exchange.

All this creates huge opportunities for U.S., European, and Asian companies. Dubai's Internet City has attracted the cream of technology companies such as Microsoft (MSFT ), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ ), and Cisco Systems (CSCO ). "This is a mini Silicon Valley," says Ghazi Atallah, Cisco's Dubai-based emerging-markets honcho. The Middle East represents Cisco's fastest-growing region, with double-digit annual revenue increases thanks to local telecom deregulation and the increasing sophistication of private businesses. Mideast companies are also buying a very high proportion of advanced technology like combined video streaming and data services. "In some cases [customers in the region] are leapfrogging Europe and the U.S.," Atallah adds.

Other international companies such as Fluor Corp. (FLR ) and Bechtel Group Inc. are likely to benefit from the frantic pace of construction, especially in the oil fields. Aircraft makers Boeing Co. (BA ) and Airbus are selling squadrons of planes in the region, which is seeing the rise of fast-growing carriers like Dubai's Emirates. That airline has an astonishing $37 billion worth of planes on order, including 45 of Airbus' new A380 -- the biggest order placed by any airline for the double-decker megaplane. And between them, Emirates and Qatar Airways have ordered 49 Boeing 777 jetliners. "The Middle East has become one of the three big reservoirs of aircraft sales in the world," along with China and India, says Habib Fekih, president of Airbus Middle East.

Meanwhile, Nabil A. Habayeb, Dubai-based President and CEO for the Middle East and Africa for General Electric Co. (GE ), says the company's orders for the region leaped by close to 80%, to $8 billion, from 2004 to 2005. Much of that is in big-ticket items like power-generation equipment and aircraft engines, as well as oil-, gas-, and water-treatment facilities. But state-of-the-art health-care equipment and even theme parks are in demand, too, says Habayeb: "The priorities are health care, education, and diversification away from an oil- and gas-based economy."

It's not just the big U.S. manufacturers that are benefiting. International investment bankers are being called in to raise capital for regional corporations interested in taking advantage of the red-hot markets. Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed raised $397 million on Feb. 23 for his Kingdom Hotel Investments, which will be listed on the new Dubai International Financial Exchange and in London. "There is a big backlog of IPOs," says May Nasrallah, head of Middle East investment banking at Morgan Stanley (MS ) in London, which managed the Kingdom IPO. Among IPOs expected, according to bankers, are an offering by Alwaleed's main vehicle, Kingdom Holdings, and a listing of Showtime Arabia, a broadcaster partly owned by Viacom Inc. (VIA ).

Bankers say the deal flow could really pick up if governments start to sell off their still-considerable holdings. "If governments see the opportunity to tap into this pent-up demand for financial investments and transfer ownership of public entities as the British did [under Margaret Thatcher], I think that would be very good for the market," says Osama Abbasi, co-head of the European fixed income group at Credit Suisse First Boston.

Plenty could still go wrong. Despite all the private-sector growth, the economies of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf countries are nailed to oil. Oil and gas production is more than 50% of GDP in Qatar and Kuwait and 42% in Saudi Arabia, according to Credit Suisse. Overheating is also a concern, with investors borrowing money to chase local stocks and consumer debt growing to worrying levels in some of the Gulf countries.

The political problems around the region are far from solved. In the worst case, Iraq's troubles could spill over into conflicts between Sunni and Shiite Muslims around the region. How U.S.-Arab relations play out will also prove hugely influential in containing potential strife. The U.S. is on the receiving end of a lot of criticism now, mostly aimed at its conduct of the war in Iraq. Should the U.S. withdraw, though, the Gulf states might find themselves once again under pressure from their bigger, poorer neighbors, Iraq and Iran.

But if the Gulf regimes need the U.S., the opposite is just as true. America needs a stable source of oil for itself and the world, and U.S. companies dearly want to increase an already booming trade with the Mideast. The indirect but powerful role these oil states play in financing the U.S. deficit further enmeshes Washington's interests with the region's, no matter how contentious relations may get over America's foreign policy.

These factors increase the challenge Washington faces in encouraging reform. The authoritarian governments in the Gulf will have to change to keep pace with their wealthy, better-educated populations. They have a long way to go on improving opportunities for women, for instance. While more money in people's pockets buys time, the rulers are facing demands for greater accountability and wider political participation. Some business people even think that oil money could have negative consequences. With financial pressure off, governments may be more likely to delay privatization and other reforms.

Yet it doesn't look like this Gulf boom will fizzle anytime soon, since oil is in such demand. One possible scenario: As global interest rates rise with the recovery of Japan and Europe, worldwide competition for capital will heat up, and the well-heeled investors of the Mideast will become pivotal players in future deals. Oil money's role, then, could just get bigger.”

[lofter1]

A continuation of the story found here: http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=88893&postcount=99

In Dubai, an Outcry From Asians for Workplace Rights

By HASSAN M. FATTAH (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/hassan_m_fattah/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
NY Times
March 26, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/international/middleeast/26dubai.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/unitedarabemirates/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), March 25 — For Rajee Kumaran, this was the city of dreams.

Dubai's gleaming high rises, idyllic beaches and seemingly limitless opportunities glittered on the pages of brochures and in the stories told by laborers returning home to his native Kerala, India. But after five years here, surviving in squalid conditions and barely making ends meet on less than $200 a month, Mr. Kumaran, 28, says his dream has long since faded.

"I thought this was the land of opportunity, but I was fooled," he said Thursday, as he stood with several other construction workers outside their work camp in the desert on the outskirts of the city.

When hundreds of workers angered by low salaries and mistreatment rioted Tuesday night at the site of what is to become the world's tallest skyscraper, not only were they expressing the growing frustration of Asian migrants here, they offered a glimpse of an increasingly organized labor force.

Far from the high-rise towers and luxury hotels emblematic of Dubai, the workers turning this swath of desert into a modern metropolis live in a Dickensian world of cramped labor camps, low pay and increasing desperation.

For years, workers like Mr. Kumaran have done whatever they could to get here, often paying thousands of dollars to unscrupulous recruiters for the chance to work at one of the hundreds of construction sites in the emirates.

Of the 1.5 million residents of Dubai, as many as a million are immigrants who have come here to work in some capacity, with the largest subgroup being construction workers, said Hadi Ghaemi, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who covers the United Arab Emirates, citing government statistics.

The vast majority of the immigrants come from the Indian subcontinent and the Philippines.

With the cost of living rising, many have abandoned dreams of returning with a fortune. The construction workers' camps, in particular, have been set up ever deeper in the desert. That adds an hour or two just to get to the job site every morning, in addition to the workers' 12-hour shifts.

A growing number have resorted to suicide rather than return home with empty pockets: last year, 84 South Asians committed suicide in Dubai, according to the Indian Consulate here, up from 70 in 2004.

Mr. Kumaran, who earns 550 dirhams every month, or about $150, as a laborer, sends home almost half his earnings and lives on the equivalent of roughly $60 a month. That is barely enough to pay for food and cigarettes and using his cellphone from time to time. But he is not sure how he will repay the loan he took to get here.

"If I'd stayed in India and worked just as hard as I do now, I could have made the same money," he said. "And I wouldn't have needed to get a loan to come here."

Since last September, when 800 workers staged a protest march down a main highway in the heart of the city and set off a national debate about the treatment of foreign workers, laborers have held at least eight major strikes to demand their rights and get their pay, which is sometimes withheld.

But the mass action on Tuesday was the most significant of its kind.

Hundreds of workers building the Burj Dubai skyscraper chased security guards and broke into offices, smashing computers, scattering files and wrecking cars and construction machines. When they returned to work the next day, demanding better pay and improved working conditions, thousands of laborers building an airport terminal across town also laid down their tools, demanding better conditions, too. The workers also halted work on Thursday, until a settlement was negotiated.

"It was a watershed moment in coordination and organization," Mr. Ghaemi said. "It started with increasing numbers of strikes, and has now evolved into very organized and coordinated activities. If these grievances are not addressed quickly by the government they are sure to begin hurting the economic growth of the country."

Those workers have few rights. Visa sponsors and employers typically confiscate their passports and residency permits when they sign on, restricting their freedom of movement and their ability to report abuse.

Most pay money to recruiters to find work here, a practice that the U.A.E. government has sought to stop. When they get here, few can leave the country without the permission of their employers, who can block them from working elsewhere in the country if they resign or are fired.

Unionizing is forbidden, too, and most workers have no recourse other than the Labor Ministry.

Denial of wages is the most common abuse of workers, as contracting companies typically wait to pay their workers until they themselves get paid.
In the worst cases, workers have been denied wages for more than 10 months, only to lose the entire salary when the contracting companies go bankrupt, leaving the men destitute and with few options.

The U.A.E.'s Ministry of Labor has tried to tackle the problem in recent months, making changes meant to allow workers to change employers more easily and imposing strict penalties on employers that do not pay their workers.

Workers can call a toll-free hot line to the ministry to lodge complaints, which are investigated. And ministry inspectors do travel to work camps to inspect them.

"We always support the workers and want to protect their rights, but we must protect employers' rights as well," said Ali al-Kaabi, the labor minister in the U.A.E. "As long as these three factors are in place, the workers have no reason to protest. If they have any problems or complaints they should speak with a supervisor, who should come to the ministry. Then if we don't act they have the right to protest."

But the sheer number of workers who have poured into the country over the past two years and inadequate staffing at the ministry have meant that many problems slip through, some officials and human rights workers say.

Only 80 government inspectors oversee about 200,000 companies and other establishments that employ migrant workers, Mr. Ghaemi said, citing government figures. The inspectors also look at labor camps: of the 36 camps inspected from May through December last year, the ministry ranked 27 well below government standards.

"There's such a boom and so many laborers required here that the government is bringing measures which are not entirely adequate," said B. S. Mubarak, labor and welfare consul at the Consulate General of India in Dubai. "Neither we nor the ministry can cope with the growing number of laborers and growing number of complaints."

As he boards a bus to his construction site every morning but Friday, Mr. Kumaran says he looks up at Dubai's skyline of gleaming high rises with a degree of sadness.

"I wish the rich people would realize who is building these towers," Mr. Kumaran said, flanked by his co-workers. "I wish they could come and see how sad this life is."

Mohammed Fadel Fahmy contributed reporting for this article.

Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[smackfu]

Some of those Nakheel projects are just insane. All those islands built out on the water in the middle of nowhere. Are any of them in progress yet? The videos are cool but all videos are.

Edit: Wow, I wandered over to skyscrapercity and they have pretty insanely comprehensive threads on Dubai.

[pianoman11686]

Dubai, Where Too Much Is Never Enough

By SETH SHERWOOD

Published: June 4, 2006

Pity the cartographers and guidebook publishers striving to capture Dubai's juggernautlike sprawl. With every month bringing announcements of audacious new hotels and leisure concepts — a huge artificial coral reef studded with World War II planes and pounds of gold is being built for scuba divers — today's top draws can easily become tomorrow's fire sales. Dubai travel guides and maps, their shelf life shorter than eggs, can pretty much go straight from printing press to pulp plant.

For the moment, Dubai's marquee attraction is the much-touted 25-story, 1,300-foot-long ski run inside the new Mall of the Emirates. But even more dazzling is the après-ski scene afforded by the 400 shops and restaurants in the 6.5 million-square-foot mall. For luxury goods, follow the black robes of Saudi billionaires' wives to the Rivoli, Harvey Nichols and Yves Saint Laurent boutiques. For nourishment, join the D & G-wearing Lebanese women crowding the Giorgio Armani cafe.

During his decades of travels, the 14th-century explorer Ibn Battuta traversed North Africa, Egypt, Persia, India, China and Andalusia. Thanks to the new Ibn Battuta Mall — "the world's largest themed mall" — 21st-century shoppers can make the same trip in an afternoon. Containing 250 outlets spread through six architecturally distinct zones based on the countries Battuta visited, the place is a history lesson and retail blitz in one. Each zone quietly raises important questions: Did the ancient Persians actually shop at Woolworth's and the Athlete's Foot? How was Hindu history influenced by the Sunglass Hut? Such issues are probably best mulled over KFC in the medieval Tunisian food court before heading to the Ming dynasty Imax theater.

The most picturesque new shopping experience unfolds under the forest of half-built 21st-century towers in the Dubai Marina (off Sheikh Zayed Road at Interchange 5). Calling itself "the Middle East's answer to the French Riviera," the vast seaside city-within-a-city is still years away from its goal of housing 70,000 people in some 200 buildings. But the palm-fringed Marina Walk, where valets park Lexus S.U.V.'s while their owners stroll among its shops and cafes, is already drawing throngs.

The marina's current hot spot is Chandelier (971-4-366-3606), a minimalist-cool Lebanese restaurant and self-proclaimed "oyster lounge." Inside angular white interiors suggesting a Middle Eastern version of Miami, crowds of dolled-up Russian couples and black-veiled Arab women sporting diamond jewelry dine on tapaslike mezze dishes (14 to 30 dirhams, or $3.75 to $8 at 3.75 dirhams to the dollar).

Dubai Marina is also home to the city's hippest new hotel of the moment, the Grosvenor West Marina Beach (971-4-399-8888; www.starwood.com; doubles from 1,500 dirhams). Packed into the 45-story building are 217 rooms and 13 restaurants and bars. The Indian fusion cuisine and ethno-chic décor at Indego come courtesy of Vineet Bhatia, who scored a Michelin star for his Zaika in London. For diners demanding royal treatment, the restaurant Mezzanine is run by Gary Robinson, a former personal chef for Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales. In the Buddha Bar, a branch of the famous Parisian D.J. lounge, a massive cross-legged statue of the establishment's namesake V.I.P. watches boisterous young professionals unwind to global house music.

Vladimir Lenin would no doubt take a dim view of the chandeliers, gilded Corinthian columns and shamelessly capitalistic amenities in the 138-room Hotel Moscow (Al Makhtoum Street, 971-4-228-8222; www.moscowhoteldubai.com; doubles from 960 dirhams), opened in 2004. But anyone with an appreciation for 19th-century Slavic kitsch will enjoy the czarist decadence.

Finally, just when you were about to abandon your search for a luxury hotel offering falconry, along comes Jumeirah Bab Al Shams Desert Resort and Spa (Dubai Al Ain Road, 971-4-832-6699, www.babalshams.com, doubles from 700 dirhams, or $80). In the dunes outside of Dubai, the 150-room fortress-style hotel offers a five-star version of old-world Arabian life. The rigors of recreational activities like falconry can be soothed, for example, in the one of three pool. And after a hard day of camel riding, your derriere will welcome the Satori spa.

But because this is Dubai, bigger fish are always lurking on the horizon waiting to swallow the current leaders. In 2008, the present crop of top hotels will have to contend with offerings from two mega fashion designers, in the form of the Palazzo Versace and Armani Hotel Dubai, as well as an underwater hotel, Hydropolis.

Similarly, the mall wars will escalate considerably in coming years with the arrival of world record aspirants like the Mall of Arabia (featuring some 1,000 shops spread over 10 million square feet) and the Dubai Mall, a 12-million-square-foot monster in the same development as the forthcoming world's tallest building, the Burj Dubai.

Even the Middle Eastern snow monopoly at the Mall of the Emirates is set for a challenge. The Dubai Sunny Mountain Ski Dome, set for completion this year or next, will house an entire indoor mountain range and a ski mountain with a very unusual twist: It will revolve.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[malec]

The Dubai Metro would be ready very late compared to when most of Dubai's other projects will be. Traffic will be a nightmare until then.
That's true. The 2 lines for the metro should have been completed now and instead, construction should have started on an extra 3 or something.
They've decided to extend both lines though and add a third aswell. The palm will also have a line that'll link to the red one I think.


A few pictures from the supertalls going up. Out of the many 1000fters planned only a few are properly under construction.

Rose rotana suites, 1093ft:

http://i4.tinypic.com/10z2pgl.jpg


Almas tower, 1148ft:

http://i4.tinypic.com/10z30c0.jpg



A 3D model I made showing the scale of all this stuff. The model shows the burj dubai complex, business bay, financial centre and the current sky"line". :)
Even if only half of this is built...
Keep in mind the model is not at all complete, only the white towers are properly modeled, the rest are only represented by boxes because, not all have been released and also, not all the ones that are released have been done.

http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/9093/bigbigbig2uu.jpg


The burj dubai shown is STR's work and is about 2600ft high in that version. The flower tower on the left is the burj al alam at 1588ft and is due to start at the end of the year.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e357/sahmad1/f92a29e3.jpg


Another centrepiece tower will be released next week in NY, it's being designed by Zaha Hadid and rumours say it's nicknamed "dancing towers" and is actually 3 towers not one. Should be interesting. The location will be where the pyramid-shaped tower is.

[SilentPandaesq]

Malec,
You seam to be up on the Dubai thing. I have a random question. I had heard that alot of the residential growth in Dubai is a result of upper middle class residents of various middle eastern countries buying up property in the hopes of hedging their bets for regional conflict.

More to the point, I heard that Iranians, Saudi, Syrians and others are buying homes for vakay, but also to have a place to flee to if the other shoe drops. (This more in the case of Iranians than anyone else, who have money and little investment oppertunities).

Can you verify any of these statements? True, untrue, part true, complete and utter lies?

Also - Dubai gets only 5%-10% of revenue from oil right? Then they must be worried about the price of oil as much as other non-producing nations. If so are they taking steps to insulate themselves and their economy (i.e. mass transit, giant solar fields in the wastelands, turbines, secret fusion power plant(or gasp fission plants). A city of that size with that many apartments must have massive HVAC loads on the local grid. AC on all day, Heater on at night.

[malec]

Well I'm mostly interested in the architecture and that's it so don't know very much.

Since they don't give citizenship to foreigners coming in expatriates make up about 80% of dubai's people population. The rapid population growth there is due to more and more expats coming in so that's why the growth is so abnormal. Population there is around 1.5m, maybe more now, it grows by around 100,000 a year (not including construction workers).

I wouldn't say most but a lot of apartments and villas on the palm for example are bought as holiday homes by europeans. I think your statement is true but it's definitely not the main reason for all the apartments.

About the oil thing, it might only contribute 5% to their revenue but the city itsself is still really dependant on oil. If you want to compare it to a US city it's definitely more like a small LA or Phoenix rather than NY. You've got your strip malls, endless sprawl, highways dividing your city in 2, etc. Of course this means the place is hugely car dependant, traffic's a big problem over there.

[lofter1]

If you want to compare it to a US city it's definitely more like a small LA or Phoenix rather than NY. You've got your strip malls, endless sprawl, highways dividing your city in 2, etc. Of course this means the place is hugely car dependant, traffic's a big problem over there.
Are there any "new" cities being developed that are looking beyond the era of the automobile?

[RandySavage]

Portland, Oregon

[malec]

3 new renders from my model:
(see which towers you can recognise :))



http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/2816/1ra1.jpg

http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/172/2wb4.jpg

http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/3756/3ft1.jpg

[RandySavage]

Nice computer rendering.

The January 2007 issue of National Geographic Magazine (available mid-December 2006) will feature a story on Dubai. I can't wait to see that publication's take on the city (and their unparalleled photographs).

[TREPYE]

I was watching a doc on Dubai and they mentioned the Burj Al Arab. What freaking fabulous tower! The kind -pretty much like Gothic Cathedrals, and Art Deco Scrapers; IMO- that bring you to your knees and make you realize what beautiful grand scale figments the human imagination can produce. My favorite tower outside NYC next to the Petronas.

The Tower:

http://www.edgenewyork.com/images/uploads/news_12575.jpg

http://www.novaturas.lt/uploads/JAE_Burj%20Alarab_1.jpg

http://www.asiatravel.com/uae/arabiantower/gifs/frontview2.jpg


http://amitkulkarni.info/pics/dubai-pictures/dubai-pics/P1010236.JPG

At night:

http://www.magicaljourneys.com/UAE/images/images-burjalarab.jpg

Structural detail:

http://www.morgenlan.de/images/dubai/r/burj-g.jpg

http://www.architypes.net/files/image/burj-al-arab-exterior-1-thumb.jpg


Check that atrium and the fountain in the middle!
http://static.flickr.com/47/163440071_7b9f02a282_o.jpg

Hotel corridors that overlook the atrium:
http://www.architypes.net/files/image/cache/burj-al-arab-atrium-colors.jpg

Looking straight up:

http://www.danandrewsimages.com/dubai/interior2.JPG

[malec]

Interesting documentary about this place:
Check out the 3 videos.

http://uaecommunity.blogspot.com/

[goravrama]

Being a son of a resident in Dubai for over 30 years, our family finally decided to make a permanent move to the United States for good. There is no point hitting your head on a wall and asking for citizenship because it simply cannot happen. The properties for sale are just for a diversification of the economy and to kickstart the real estate sector - expatriates should not be disillusioned into believing that Dubai is becoming a home for them - it isn't and will never be. The so-called visa that can be attained under the property too is only a 3 year renewable visa which can be cancelled at any time. I have seen many expatriates being disillusioned by the "Dubai dream" - tax-free environment, first class infrastructure, and other factors. Many in the process forget where they are from, forget to send money home and get trapped in the process, buying properties and businesses, as well as making tangible and intangible investments in a place that can never ever become their home. It is time expatriates wake up to this reality and use Dubai for their benefit, and not let Dubai get the better of them. This can be achieved by sending most of the earnings back home or using Dubai as a stepping stone for better pastures abroad in the West.

[goravrama]

Expatriates can all forget about citizenship in the UAE - it can never happen. There is no point disillusioning yourself that this is your home because it isnt and will never be. I have seen many expatriates getting carried away investing huge sums of money into this country only to find themselves leaving with nothing once everything is gone. Please be practical and send money back home, as well as use this as a stepping stone for the west. This is the whole lure and attraction to Dubai in the first place and admiring the city and its skyline will get you nowhere in the end.

[RandySavage]

National Geographic Magazine covers the Dubai Phenomenon:

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0701/feature3/index.html

There once was a sheikh who dreamed big. His realm, on the shores of the Persian Gulf, was a sleepy, sun-scorched village occupied by pearl divers, fishermen, and traders who docked their ramshackle dhows and fishing boats along a narrow creek that snaked through town. But where others saw only a brackish creek, this sheikh, Rashid bin Saeed al Maktoum, saw a highway to the world.

One day in 1959, he borrowed many millions of dollars from his oil-rich neighbor, Kuwait, to dredge the creek until it was wide and deep enough for ships. He built wharves and warehouses and planned for roads and schools and homes. Some thought he was mad, others just mistaken, but Sheikh Rashid believed in the power of new beginnings. Sometimes at dawn, with his young son, Mohammed, by his side, he'd walk the empty waterfront and paint his dream in the air with words and gestures. And it was, in the end, as he said. He built it, and they came.

His son, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, now rules Dubai, and around that creek has built towering dreams of his own, transforming the sunrise vision of his father into a floodlit, air-conditioned, skyscrapered fantasy world of a million people. With its Manhattan-style skyline, world-class port, and colossal, duty-free shopping malls, little Dubai now attracts more tourists than the whole of India, more shipping vessels than Singapore, and more foreign capital than many European countries. The people of 150 nations have moved here to live and work. Dubai has even built man-made islands—some in the shape of palm trees—to accommodate the wealthiest of them. Its economic growth rate, 16 percent, is nearly double that of China. Construction cranes punctuate the skyline like exclamation points.

Dubai is also a rare success story in the Middle East, a region with a history of failure and stagnation. Whether Dubai represents a glitzy anomaly or a model to be copied by other Arab nations is a question worth asking these days, as the Islamic world struggles to cope with modernization. Abdulrahman al Rashid, a Saudi journalist and director of the Al Arabiya news channel, put it this way: "Dubai is putting pressure on the rest of the Arab and Muslim world. People are beginning to ask their governments: If Dubai can do it, why can't we?"

Dubai, it must be said, is like no other place on Earth. This is the world capital of living large; the air practically crackles with a volatile mix of excess and opportunity. It's the kind of place where tennis stars Andre Agassi and Roger Federer play an exhibition match on the rooftop helipad of the opulent Burj al Arab megahotel; where diamond-encrusted cell phones do a brisk business at $10,000 apiece; where millions of people a year fly in just to go shopping.

Get the whole story in the pages of National Geographic magazine.

[antinimby]

Flickr 12-27-2006

The Burj Dubai is the one u/c that's farthest to the left in this pic.

Reported on ssc that its current height is already 372 m (or 1220 ft.)!

http://runepixels.com/uimages6/06_12_27_5.jpg

[JerseyBrett]

I've been researching Dubai for a couple of days....Are they building walkable, urban neighborhoods? The entire city looks like Newport in Jersey City! Is the rest of Dubai like this? Doesn't seem like very much planning went into this....

[Strattonport]

Streetsblog (http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/01/05/where-the-sidewalk-ends-dubai/) made a post dealing with just that subject. Despite its burgeoning development, the city at large still circles around massive roads and the automobile.

[ablarc]

I've been researching Dubai for a couple of days....Are they building walkable, urban neighborhoods? The entire city looks like Newport in Jersey City! Is the rest of Dubai like this? Doesn't seem like very much planning went into this....
On the contrary, the reason it and Newport alike are what they are is the planning.

Streetsblog (http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/01/05/where-the-sidewalk-ends-dubai/)Despite its burgeoning development, the city at large still circles around massive roads and the automobile.
That's what you get from the planning.

Btw, that's equally true in Charlotte. You thought perhaps planners are trained to produce humane environments?

[pianoman11686]

You think it would be more humane to make people walk outside in the desert rather than sit in their air-conditioned cars? ;)

[ablarc]

You think it would be more humane to make people walk outside in the desert rather than sit in their air-conditioned cars? ;)
They had a different approach in Marakkech and Fez.

[pianoman11686]

Those two date back nearly a thousand years. Air-conditioning is much more recent.

[ablarc]

^ Either way, you're cool.

In Marakkech, you're cool and on foot in an interesting place.

[pianoman11686]

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. It's just that people have different standards these days.

The thing that gets to me about Dubai is that it wants to be known as a place that's cutting edge and, even moreso, a place where the impossible is possible: world's tallest structures, manmade communities built in the sea, skiing when its 120 degrees, and whatever else they've come up with. But from an urban planning point of view, they're not doing anything exciting. It's a bigger version of Las Vegas.

In the summer, you can't take the heat in Vegas for more than a few minutes at a time. Walking down the Strip equates to ducking into and out of the next hotel's shopping arcade/lobby. All the pavement and cars only make it worse.

[antinimby]

But from an urban planning point of view, they're not doing anything exciting. It's a bigger version of Las Vegas.You've got to understand that not everyone are urbanphiles like us, so yes, it's exciting to them.

Most people don't care or know about how the layout of streets should be, walkability, mass transit and so on.

If it looks neat and pretty, then it's good in their minds.

You don't even know how many people that I've come across that think New York is bad and places like LA with its neat freeways and manicured landscaping is the ideal.

Of course we know better but we are the minority.

[propertyportal.ae]

Is alcohol allowed in Dubai?


It sure does, it has some amazing Bar's and Clubs.

Dubai is a really crazy place, there is so much going on, its like they dont know how to say "no" here.

I really dont think there is anywhere else like it on earth at the moment.

[finnman69]

This looks like Coruscant from Star Wars

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0701/feature3/images/gallery.3.6.jpg
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0701/feature3/images/gallery.3.7.jpg
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0701/feature3/images/gallery.3.17.jpg

the best part of Dubai, no repressive regressive Islamist BS
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0701/feature3/images/gallery.3.10.jpg

[Ed007Toronto]

Is alcohol allowed in Dubai?

One of the reasons for the boom. Westerners would rather base themselves here rather than in more restricted areas of the middle east.

[Deimos]

This looks like Coruscant from Star Wars

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0701/feature3/images/gallery.3.6.jpg

Reminds me of Robert Moses' vision for NYC also in a way.

[Stern]

Or a lame, flashy, Park Avenue.

[Jasonik]

http://www.kerala.com/dubai/Fog-in-the-Desert-3.jpg

http://www.kerala.com/dubai/Fog-in-the-Desert-1.jpg

Fog in the desert.

source (http://www.kerala.com/dubai/)

[finnman69]

http://www.swg1.net/encyclo/images/coruscant.jpg
http://www.ordresith.com/preproduction/images/coruscant.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3c/Coruscantsky.jpg/800px-Coruscantsky.jpg

Ecumenopolis (from Greek: one house city) is a word invented in 1967 by the Greek city planner Constantinos Doxiadis to represent the idea that in the future urban areas and megalopoleis would eventually fuse and there would be a single continuous world-wide city as a progression from the current urbanization and population growth trends.