It has been called “the Vegas of The Middle East” or the “New Mecca”, but goes way, way beyond that: by 2010, if all goes according to plan, it may well be the greatest city on Earth. It may already be. Dubai is in the United Arab Emirates, on the Arabian Peninsula, one hundred miles across the Gulf from Iran, about 600 miles from Basra, 1.100 from Kabul. Dubai is quite possibly the safest great city in the world. It is also the newest great city in the world.
In the 1950s, before oil was discovered there, Dubai was just a cluster of mud huts and Bedouin tents along Dubai Creek. The entire city was basically been built in the last fifty years. And actually, the cool parts- the parts that have won Dubai it’s reputation as “the Vegas of The Middle East”, the Venice of The Middle East” o
r “the Disney World of The Middle East, if Disney World were the size of San Francisco and out in the desert”- have been built in the last 10 years.
By 2010, if all goes according to plan, Dubai will have the world’s tallest skyscraper (2,300 feet), largest mall, biggest theme park, longest indoor ski run, most luxurious underwater hotel (accessible by submarine train), a huge (2,000 acre, 60,000 resident) development called International City, divided into nation-neighborhoods (England, China, Greece, France etc.) within which all homes will be required to reflect the national architectural stile.
Not to mention 4 artificially constructed islands mega archipelagoes (3 shaped as giant palm trees, the forth like the world map) built using a specially designed boat that dredges up tones of ocean-bottom sand each day and sprays it into place. The main destination is BURJ AL ARAB, Dubai’s famous hotel. It is the only hotel in the world that has 7 stars and his four-stories columns are in the lobby are plated in 24 karat- gold.
From the air, Dubai looks like Dallas circa 1985: a vast expanse of one or two-story white boxes, punctuated by clusters of freakish skyscrapers. Wandering around in Dubai you came to realize that verisimilitude and plaseure are not casually related. How could this be fake? You can see real water flowing, real palm trees, and real smell of incense and rose water.
The truth is that Dubai is very beautiful. The air is perfumed, you hear fountains, the tinkling of bells, distant chanted prayers and when the real Arabian moon comes up, yellow and attenuated, over a n Arabian wind tower, you feel you are a resident of some ancient city, or rather, some ancient city if you have dreamed the ancient city, and the ancient city have been purged of all disease, death, corruption, and you were a Founder/Elder of that city, much beloved by your Citizen, the Staff.
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It has been called “the Vegas of The Middle East” or the “New Mecca”, but goes way, way beyond that: by 2010, if all goes according to plan, it may well be the greatest city on Earth. It may already be. Dubai is in the United Arab Emirates, on the Arabian Peninsula, one hundred miles across the Gulf from Iran, about 600 miles from Basra, 1.100 from Kabul. Dubai is quite possibly the safest great city in the world. It is also the newest great city in the world.