The Modification of a City
From Mod Mania
“As money gushes into the United Arab Emirates, wild architectural forms spring up from the sands”
The Modification of a City:
Dubai was never recognized until recent years. Back in the days Dubai was a poor and highly poverty infected Arabic country. In 1841 a smallpox epidemic broke out forcing many people to flee. Also in 1894 many homes and people were burnt down due to a massive fire.
All that Dubai had going for them at this point in time was its geographical location, which attracted plenty of ‘merchants and traders’. Nevertheless the working conditions within Dubai where classified as ‘less than human’. Some Labors were being forced to leave home and work their butts off so that their family at home could survive. Sometimes workers would not even get paid for there hard work, sometimes on the rare occasion they would get paid but not for months of end. This is what they were put through just to earn a dollar to survive the harsh working environment. Makes you wonder why they put themselves through this. Many women also put themselves through prostitution to earn some money due to the working conditions being so bad, that’s what they have to put themselves through so that they are able to pay the bills and buy some groceries.
In the 1930’s Dubai was well know for it exports on pearl but this was not for long going to be what largely transformed the landscape of Dubai to what it is today. Dubai’s pearl industry was significantly damaged by the impact of the First World War and then later once again by the great Depression.
Dubai’s major landscape transformation was definitely encouraged by the discovery of oil. This resulted in large numbers of people, mainly workers immigrating to Dubai. As a result the population of the city grew by 300% from 1968 to 1975. Tourism and free trade was now a major factor that Dubai was to embrace and focus on to further develop this city infected by poverty to become one of the worlds well known and largest city in the world. This was a very smart move, and also proves the government is up and thinking on its feet because they could see that oil wasn't going to last for every, therefore it would not be enough to support the country for ever, so the smart move was focusing on tourism and free trade, because these would be things that they would never run out off. People will always want to travel, and free trade would create strong bonds between Dubai and other city/countries. For example Dubai plans to increase their economical growth by 11 per cent by 2015 and “Sheikh Mohammed (Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates) said he would reach the 2015 target by boosting trade, transportation, tourism and financial services”, proves that they are thinking and shows that they don’t have their heads buried in the success from oil.
“The construction of Burj Al Arab, the world’s tallest freestanding hotel, as well as the creation of new residential developments, was used to market Dubai for purposes of tourism. Since 2002, the city has seen an increase in private real estate investment in recreating Dubai’s skyline with such projects as The Palm Islands, The World Islands and Burj Dubai.”
Due to this major change from poorness to wealthy-ness (I think I’m making up words here, but hey it makes sense in my mind…lol), Dubai’s population continued to grow, in 2006 the population of Dubai was 1 422 000, majority being male due to the large amount of work being produced through the construction of such a unique and wealthy city. Dubai currently is home to 15 to 20% of all the world cranes due to the massive increase in construction. All the commotion has developed insanely in the past decade or so, which I assume it also the fastest city to grow in such little time. It has been transformed from a poor Arabic city to a city that is most probably one of the wealthiest in the world, with everything in it that you can think of, a place now where every one wants to go!
These are some of the major modification that has happened and is still happening in Dubai:
•The Dubai Waterfront which when completed will be the largest waterfront in the world.
•The Palm Islands which are the largest artificial islands in the world and can be seen from space, there of these palm tree island will be constructed. They will consist of “2,000 villas, 40 luxury hotels, shopping centers, movie theaters, and many other facilities; it is expected to support a population of approximately 500,000 people and is advertised as being visible from the moon”.
•The World Islands which will consist of 300 artificially created islands in the shape of the world; each island will have an estimated cost of $25-30 million.
•The Burj al-Arab hotel which will be the world’s tallest hotel as well and the world’s most luxurious hotel.
•Hydropolis, the world’s first underwater hotel.
•The Burj Dubai which is a now the worlds tallest building, being 800m tall, it is 320m taller then the previous worlds tallest building called the Taipei 101.
•Dubai Land which will be the largest amusement park in the world, which will also be the worlds number one attraction and is expected to attract 200 000 patrons daily!
•The Dubai Mall when constructed will be the largest shopping mall in the world with over 9 million square feet of shopping and around 1000 stores.
•Ski Dubai which is the largest indoor skiing facility in the world.
•The Dubai Metro System will be the worlds largest fully automatic rail system in the world once completed.
•The Dubai World Central International Airport will become the largest airport in size when it is completed. It will also eventually become the busiest airport in the world, based on tourism and passenger volume. Therefore this shows how a city can be modified for nothing to something really special, Dubai today is still under construction to be the world most recognized city. Even so there are more construction workers in Dubai than there are actual citizens
Finally:
In conclusion even though this idea of modification of a city is a little far-fetched the idea of a city being modified from nothing to something is still a significant type of modification. The typical thing you think of when you say modifying; is a car. Modifying a car can consist of placing new wheels on it, lowering it, making it sounds 10 times louder, and the list goes on. But modification can also be related to a city. Like I have explained above you could say that Dubai back in the 1840 was like an old stock standard car but today its has been modified to something that everyone wants and wants to see, through the indroduction of amazing architecture and unique landscape.
References:
(http://www.arabianbusiness.com/index)
(http://faeriekat.wordpress.com)
(www.washingtonpost.com)
Daniel Stefan Lipinski s3197612
