Dubai – Shaping the world.

Within the last few decades the city of Dubai has experienced a remarkable transformation. The city was once a rather plain and underdeveloped place, but now after 20 years of almost continual construction, the city has become unrecognisable from what it once was, it has become a vast jewel shining on the deserts edge. Dubai’s complete alteration has of course largely been based upon vast oil revenues. In 1966 Dubai became part of the independent state of Qatar, later that year large reserves of oil were discovered and subsequently tendered out to international companies. Records suggest that within 7 years the population of Dubai had increased by over 300%. To cope with such a huge influx of foreigners and wealth, the government and various corporations began a huge development programme. The video below highlights the vast transformation of Dubai that has occurred within the last two decades. The first picture was taken in 1991 and the latter was taken in 2005.

The sheer amount of construction undertaken is incredible and quite startling. In recent years Dubai has become famous for its exotic and ambitious building projects. Two of the most spectacular projects, ‘The Palm Jumeirah’ and the ‘World Islands’, are currently still under construction, once complete the manmade islands will contain hundreds of hotels, residential houses, boutiques and beaches. Construction of the Palm Jumeirah began back in 2001; over 7 million tonnes of rock and over 94 million tonnes of sand was used in its construction, the total cost of its creation reached somewhere in the area of $12.3bn. The government of Dubai proudly boast that the Palm development can be seen from space and is now allegedly the ‘eighth wonder’ of the world. As well as the ambitious Palm project there is also the ‘World Islands’ development, a further manmade island based project designed to resemble the entire globe. The intention of the project is to recreate the shape of the world in the form of hundreds of little islands. These islands, once constructed, will then form a series of private and commercial areas depending upon their ownership. Unfortunately, due to the current economic crisis the project is currently on hold.

It’s clear that Dubai has become one of the hottest and most commercially viable places on the planet. Hundreds of businessmen, traders and holidaymakers take flights to Dubai every day. The cities ambitious building projects, luxury hotels, wide ranging facility centres and golden beaches, as well as huge oil revenues, ensures that for the near future Dubai will continue to be one of the greatest and most remarkable cities on Earth.