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November 18, 2008
Dubai, Booming 'Soulless' City
Posted by Brad Abare | Filed under: Business
Una Galani and Edward Hadas wrote a short piece in the November issue of Fortune magazine about Abu Dhabi and Dubai. These two desert siblings are an hour away from each other, but the soul and identity of these respective cities are miles and miles a part. For starters, Abu Dhabi is oil rich. Dubai doesn't have a drop of oil.
Dubai has garnered a lot of press over the last several years as being a haven for billionaires and ordinary tourists, "drawn by a relaxed attitude to Islamic norms, absurdly opulent hotels, and man-made islands." It has been built on three core values: capital, competence, and ambition.
Abu Dhabi, on the other hand, has provided a lot of the funding to build Dubai. It is also attempting to learn from Dubai's excesses. "[Abu Dhabi] is pointedly marketing itself to foreign investors as a cultural center and 'sustainable' city."
As the available credit for Dubai's rapid expansion is tightened, "the squeeze might ultimately be good for [Dubai's] competence if the government focuses its more limited resources on infrastructure - as any visitor can attest, the city's own transport system is woeful - and tries to add some community to a place often described as soulless."
I'm not so sure you can just add "community" to a place with an identity and soul that never included it or incorporated it in the first place. Most of the labor was imported to build the city. The buying and selling of property in Dubai is done mostly on making a profit, not a home. Slapping a community label on a brand that exudes commodity is going to be a real challenge.
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