SimCity Dubai (by Matt)

SimCity played out in real life, with Sheik Mohammed in the command seat, keyboard at his fingertips and mouse clutched in his right hand. The cityscape is laid out before him as he points and clicks on different areas and watches hundreds of new buildings pop up across the horizon. Amused, he watches the view fill with mile-high skyscrapers and grand villas, their windows reflecting the brutal sun through the thin layer of desert sand that has blown up from parched land below.

This is Dubai. In places where 10 years ago there was nothing but barren desert, now stand entire urban neighborhoods that are complete, and built according to traditional urban design codes and sensibilities. It’s a phenomenon that I, being American (therefore accustomed to the equation: new development = suburban sprawl), find fascinating. Dubai, and it’s surrounding metropolitan neighbors (namely Sharjah and Ajman) are a modern-day version of late 19th century Manhattan. This is a place where you feel like exciting things are happening all around you, where the face of a new city is being pieced together before your very eyes. And the Sheik’s appetite to endow another new building project with the label of “the-only…(dot dot dot)…-in-the-world” is something that partly makes this place so ridiculously interesting, and is something that I’m not sure the world has ever witnessed on such a grandiose scale.
And the race to build continues… The rate at which new buildings are springing up is staggering. In many cases, whole neighborhoods are materializing so fast that the State can’t keep up. It’s common to see dirt roads flanked on each side by million-dollar villas or high-rise apartment buildings. And these roads are dirt not because it’s a non-western country (therefore, not up to standards of luxury and living as the assumption may go), but because the government simply can’t keep up. The money supply here is spilling over the top, keeping everyone busy trying to get their fair (or not-so-fair) share of it!

This seemingly limitless prosperity is great and all, but at the end of the day, where does all of this glitz and glamour leave an average person like me? Well, I have happily discovered that the “Las Vegas on speed” label is not very appropriate for Dubai or its neighbors as a whole. If it were, the area would be nothing more than its pricey resorts, indoor ski slopes, mega malls, and record-breaking skyscrapers. It’s also a city of compact and frenetic alleyways and bustling souqs, where thousands of people cram into streets to take part in the chaos. It’s a place where Arabic, Indian, Pakistani, Lebanese, and Chinese cultures are authentic and abundant. The food, architecture, extreme heat (and sweat), and smells are very real and very stimulating. In Dubai’s central areas you can soak in the hot atmosphere of a more traditional and exotic Middle Eastern culture where fishermen and craftsman brush shoulders with seven-star swingers donning Gucci.

And it’s exactly this mix of glossy glitz and pulsing tradition that at the end of the day make the UAE an exciting, real place to live.