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Good-bye to Dubai
- AlexMuir 16y agoAny HN people in Dubai?
- kalmar 16y agoI've been there a few times, most recently in the summer of 2006 or 2007. I do not like it. If you do not like gaudy things and rampant superficiality, you probably would not like it either. I intended to visit once Burj Dubai reached full height, and also after the metro was launched, but in both cases decided seeing those things was not worth the trip.
- shrikant 16y agoI've been there off and on in the early-to-mid 90s, and kalmar's point above would've held even then - it was (and evidently still is) a tad too opulent for my taste.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- zalew 16y agoI've been in 2008 as a tourist and totally loved it. I got interested in the subject and had a long-term plan to settle there down some day. The crisis changed a lot, yet I laugh how pre-crisis it was en vogue to write about the mindblowing progress, now you only get attention if you write like everything is going down the drain there.
- megablast 16y agoPeaks and troughs, this is the only thing people seem to write about these days. They love building people/companies/countries up (Dubai, China, Apple), and then tearing them down a little while later.
- CamperBob 16y agoI think hearing about people getting arrested for possession of melatonin or flogged for kissing their wives has a larger negative impact on Dubai as a tourism/business destination than anything any financial columnists are saying. I know I wouldn't come within 2,000 miles of the place.
- zalew 16y agoYou've heared it long before, and it hasn't impacted tourism, it was still THE destination back in the day. Law is strict, but should one respect it when chooses to come there. The Gulf as a whole is not for everybody, for sure. Notice how most of the stories you read about people arrested for moral code offence, concern Britons. I'm not so surprised, as some of them forget it's not a UK colony. Once I've seen a British woman making fun of arabic incenses in a mall, made stupid facial expressions, laughed off, etc. A local approached, calmly showed her how to use it and then angrily said "it's our land, our culture. not yours". Hard to argue with that. Dubai has dozens of dark sides, but if you agree to live by the code, I still believe it can be lots of fun.
- phugoid 16y agoI've been here for over 6 years. These articles were amusing two years ago mostly due to the novelty of reading negative editorials about the city; you'd never get that from local papers here. That being said, there's nothing in the article that isn't common knowledge in this region.
- ShellDragon 16y agoYes. I am.
- kalmar 16y agoI have difficulty understanding the rather sudden and drastic change in regard of "the West" for Dubai. None of what is brought up in these articles was unknown or much hidden. I can only suppose that the marketing of Dubai's brand was simply that successful, as suggested by Syed Ali, an author cited in the article "Ali [...] accuses Western journalists of buying too easily into the Dubai myth". Could the poster or any upvoters comment on why they find this to be compelling?
- mcantelon 16y agoI think people were willing to ignore the exploitation of workers and human rights abuses when Dubai was still a money train. Now that it has crashed outrage can be expressed without financial impact.
- zalew 16y agoThat's not exactly true. BBC's 'Dubai Dreams' is sth like 2005/2006 and one episode includes slave labour.
- whakojacko 16y agoIts maybe not entirely true, but still generally the case IMO. You really didnt start seeing the mass of articles critical of Dubai until mid-2008 or so.
- blantonl 16y agoyou have to wonder if Dubai is Islam's deliberate way of showing their followers that the western world is messed up? My comment is not an attempt at being racist or judgmental, but even the "highest class" Americans probably shake their heads at what is going on there.
- kloncks 16y agoI'm sorry but I don't understand what you're getting at. Could you please elaborate on your point?
- FlemishBeeCycle 16y agoI think he is suggesting that a nebulously defined "Islam" orchestrated the rise and fall of an entire emirate as plot to convince people that "the West" is wrong?
- adrianwaj 16y agoIt could also be a lesson that "if you build, they will come" is misguided - even in the Muslim world.
- abdulhaq 16y agoThis comment is important because it is so offbase and yet is sourced in what a lot of westerners think/know about 'islam'. Frankly, it kind of depresses and scares me a bit how little people understand about the thing that supposedly is causing them so much disruption in their lives. BTW, debt at interest is totally forbidden in Islam so building an entire state and economy on it - as happens in the west also, of course - is totally 'unislamic'.
- kragen 16y agoYou know, I was thinking about this. I don't know much about sharia-compliant finance, but I have the impression that a lot of it works by giving the "lender" something like preferred shares in the venture they're financing — no voting rights, but a defined dividend, and liquidation preference. (I don't know; do you know anything about this stuff?) Dubai might be in much better shape if they had been financed this way instead of through debt at interest. It's hard to tell because the comment you're replying to is so absurd, but perhaps the commenter meant to say that Dubai is a sort of cartoon version of a European state, as imagined by some "Islamic" people who deplore the structure of such states — and thus was doomed to fail. It's hard to read it as other than a gross stereotype, though. Me, it depresses and scares me a bit how little I understand about the human world: not only the "Islamic world", to whatever extent it makes sense to lump together Indonesia, Turkey, and Egypt under a single rubric, but also Africa, India, and China.
- raheemm 16y agoGosh when did risk-taking and failure become so objectionable? Dubai made some bad mistakes just like the rest of the world during the credit-fueled binge.
- jonknee 16y agoIt's just that it happened on a metropolis sized scale. A skyline had never before risen so quickly. It's now falling down at nearly the same pace. Interesting to watch and at least in my opinion, unique.
- megablast 16y agoI think China is coming close, of course they have a lot more backing than Dubai. I read somewhere that China has 70% of all the worlds cranes, busy putting up buildings. (yes, could be completely wrong, how does one go about finding that statistic out anyway).
- jonknee 16y agoChina also vastly larger than Dubai.
- joezydeco 16y agoBut exactly what are people doing in Dubai? What holds up the economy? Is there manufacturing? R&D? A healthy financial district? It seems like it was all built for "something" to show up, and it never did. So everyone is just busy hustling each other. A city full of nightclub owners.
- hugh3 16y agoLas Vegas, on the other hand, does quite nicely as a city full of nightclub owners. There's definitely a future for Dubai as the Las Vegas of the middle east, if that's where they choose to go.
- z92 16y agoI am following Dubai closely. If rents fall more, it might be a good place to settle down and work on my projects.
- riffic 16y agoI'd be careful it may affect the output of your work
- qq66 16y agoYou will seriously find a much more supportive environment in a random town in rural America for $250 a month rent than in a shallow racist metropolis openly employing slave labor.
- lsc 16y agoWhy Dubai rather than somewhere else cheap? Unless you are going just to see some place foreign (which is a valid reason to move elsewhere) I think that as another poster said, the midwestern states of the US might be the cheapest place to live, if you count the costs involved with adapting to a foreign place (I'm assuming you are an American)
- brc 16y agoWhile Dubai is held out by many as an example of capitalism at work, I actually see it as another case of socialism gone wrong. While you might scoff at the suggestion of linking socialism and Dubai together, what you effectively had with Dubai world was a government entity making investment decisions seemingly with no regard to price signals as more land sat unsold, and more buildings sat unrented, as more hotels sat unoccupied, but still the construction went forwards. It's this central government command of the economy that has arguably caused the problems with overinvestment and overbuilding, and a tightly controlled workforce (no freedom to associate, no rights) that supplied the labour to do it. If there had been proper price signalling (insistence, for example, that the existing hotels turned a profit before new ones were built) and a properly free labour force, which would have seen rising wages during contruction booms, then the growth would have slowed somewhat. Instead, because of these artificial market conditions, overinvestment continued and tripped off a speculative frenzy, which has caused the grief. I'm not pretending this is the only cause, but when you have a central authority blazing away wasting money, it's only a matter of time before the economy as a whole suffers from overinvestment in unproductive assets.
- blahedo 16y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but my impression was that there were a lot of foreign investments in Dubai real estate, not just (maybe not even primarily) the government. Certainly there were many people buying at the wildly inflated rates, ignoring the "proper price signalling" that you suggest might have solved the problem. Or are you suggesting that Dubai should have blocked the private investors from building the new hotels and condos until more of the unsold pieces were occupied? That might have been a good idea, but it is also not the unfettered market you're advocating in the rest of your post, so I'm not sure what you mean. "The market" is not a magic wand, its invisible hand not nearly so reliable as many, apparently including you, seem to think; and "socialism" is also ill-defined as "everything short of rampant unregulated capitalism". Dubai's market was pretty darn free, and its safety nets were effectively nonexistent and certainly nothing even remotely worth of the name "socialism".
- brc 16y ago
- wallflower 16y agoMy favorite picture of the Dubai skyline. Skyscrapers in the clouds back when property values were reaching towards the sky... http://www.flickr.com/photos/playing-with-light/2399114248/sizes/z/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/playing-with-light/2399114248/s... Also: http://secretdubai.blogspot.com/ http://secretdubai.blogspot.com/
- Retric 16y agoIf you really want to understand Dubai look at: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=google+maps+dubai&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Dubai+-+United+Arab+Emirates&gl=us&ei=YJBoTLGSN4T7lwfJhKigBQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CB8Q8gEwAA http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=google+maps+dubai... It's a tiny strip of a few really tall buildings between the dessert and water. A real city looks like: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=new+york&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=New+York,+NY&gl=us&ei=6ZBoTJy1PIOKlweB7Y2fBQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ8gEwAA http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=new+york&um=1... http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=new+york&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=New+York,+NY&gl=us&ei=6ZBoTJy1PIOKlweB7Y2fBQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ8gEwAA http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=new+york&um=1... http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=beijing%20china&cts=1281921421896&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=beijing%20china&... or http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=New+Delhi&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=New+Delhi,+Delhi,+India&gl=us&ei=05FoTM28O4X7lwePjYmhBQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ8gEwAA http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=New+Delhi&um=1&#...
- sjs 16y agoSince when does the shape of a city define it as being "real" or not? Maybe I'm missing something. Any modern city that had all that prime beach land waiting to be developed would probably grow in a similar manner. Now that Dubai is rather "long" it's growing out into the desert too. e.g. newer areas such as Barsha and whatever that area is called where the dragon market is (edit: Mirdif). If you don't like Manhattan then it might just look like a strip of tall buildings sandwiched between two straights, but you can't say that it's not a real city. Dubai is certainly a giant bubble, but it's as real a city as any other city.
- known 16y agoI think Dubai is doing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace_and_extend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace_and_extend
- ryanlchan 16y agoDubai strikes me as the ultimate endorsement for agile development. Even seemingly unlimited investment, near dictatorial power, and a war room stocked with the smartest development minds in the world could not turn a small patch of desert into a world class tourism and financial center. None of the pieces made sense, yet they charged onwards to some higher, more perfect vision only Dubai could see. Could've been a lot easier if they'd just failed early, and failed fast.
- olihb 16y agoI think it might be a bit early to write Dubai off. Maybe the overbuilding will drive the rent down and attract businesses. The middle-east seem to be a very good emerging new market. I'm pretty sure that innovation and real solid businesses don't come from hype, but away from the media spotlights and pundits.
- siculars 16y ago> The middle-east seem to be a very good emerging new market. Not bloody likely. In which way, exactly, is the Middle East a "good emerging new market"? Beyond their natural resources and strategic positioning there is nothing at all to speak of in any industry.
- crux 16y agoDubai's culture is so openly shallow and materialistic, and its social structure is so patently corrupt—its once-vaunted development and luxury are so directly built on the backs of slaves and oppressed people—that I must confess, I think it's the only place in the world that I think less of people for living in. China, Israel—of all the places whose governments I disapprove of, I would never morally judge someone simply for moving to that state or living in that city. But when I meet people, personally or in my business, who live in Dubai, I really do immediately think less of them as people. I am worse inclined to them; I find myself thinking it a moral failure to participate in the waste and vanity that that city produces. It's probably not fully defensible, but there you have it.
- phugoid 16y agoWell, I'm a Canadian expat in Dubai and I find it interesting that you're ill-disposed toward me though we've never met. I also wear Nike sneakers that were sewn by children working in some god-awful Pacific Asian export zone sweat shop. Don't you?
- endtime 16y agoDo you not realize that you live in a country where slavery exists? Do you not find the expat culture in Dubai to be vapid and vile? If not, I'd be interested to hear why; everything I've read about Dubai indicates that is very much that way. If you do, then I don't know why you're surprised that someone might think less of you for choosing to live there.
- sjs 16y agoIt's not really all that different in North America is it? If you want to stretch the word slavery like that. We exploit people all over the world. I don't think it's fair to be that judgemental towards someone unless you cease to participate in any activities that facilitate someone somewhere being exploited.
- endtime 16y ago
- lionhearted 16y agoIt's in fashion to bash Dubai, but the article isn't exactly well written. The author just grabs at everything potentially unappealing he can and throws it in a pot: > (The UAE was one of only three nations—the others were Saudi Arabia and Pakistan—to recognize the Islamic fundamentalist government in Afghanistan.) There's no analysis of why there - notice how Dubai is one of the most progressive countries in the Middle East about dress, culture, and women working, and yet gets no trouble/bombings from fundamentalists? They kind of have to appease knuckleheads geopolitically. Saudi Arabia do the same thing because they control Mecca and Medina and want to recognize all even nominally Muslim countries. Pakistan shares a really large, poorly guarded border with Afghanistan and a lot of citizens live along that border with no particular loyalty to either country's government - again, not rocking the boat for geopolitical reasons. A lot of world nations recognize backwards places, which just means they'll negotiate with them - most of the world countries recognize North Korea, for instance, where the rampant abuses are 1000x worse than anything you could imagine in Dubai. That's not to say nothing is wrong in Dubai, but its demise has been greatly exaggerated, and this particular article isn't particularly well written.
- tomwalker 16y agoI have a good friend that lives in Dubai and echoes the article in saying that racism is incredibly apparent- "British stick with British, Americans with Americans, Indians with Indians etc." I will be very interested to see what the place will be like in 50 years time.
- hugh3 16y ago"British stick with British, Americans with Americans, Indians with Indians etc." That's not so much racism as pretty much the way it is with expat communities all over the world. Dubai, though, has far worse racial problems than that.
- tomwalker 16y agoSorry, I was just paraphrasing a line from the article. He has talked a lot about the slave labour and the way groups are treated unfairly.
- api 16y agoDubai is the Pets.Com of the real estate bubble. There are things like it in China that have yet to crash. Look folks... cities must grow organically. You cannot create an instant New York or London with loads of debt. Buildings do not make a city. Culture makes a city. The buildings are built after the city is built, to contain it. I also look at Dubai as the peak of something else: the idea that you can literally create reality if you have enough hype. The same idea was beneath a lot of hand-wavey dot.com business plans and bad accounting practices of recent years.
- maukdaddy 16y agoDubai is the Pets.Com of the real estate bubble without the awesome puppet. FTFY