I've been to Dubai many times and I'm regularly in contact with construction contractors who've been involved in the development of the city from the beginning. I remember having a fascinating conversation with an outstanding local engineer who was approaching retirement. We were eating lunch and looking out across Dubai Marina when I asked him about his work on the Princess Tower. He told me everything was going smoothly after a slew of initial issues and then paused in deep thought. I was about to ask him if he was ok when he looked back to me and said - "You do realise everything here exists on the knife-edge of destruction? Turn off the power or the cheap labour and mother nature will swallow everything within a year and return this place to a desert".
Having lived there for 6 years, he is right. The moment businesses leave the country, so will the people who move there for work, effectively leaving Dubai empty. The local population is only around 10% of all the people that live there, so you can imagine the amount of empty buildings that will be left behind.
I agree, and suspect that within 50 years it will stand abandoned and probably inundated by water as a fascinating, depressing monument to man's hubris, greed and short-sightedness. Hopefully we'll have learned a thing or two by then, certainly the rapidly changing climate may have taught us to be a little more humble and live conscientiously, though the pessimist in me somehow doubts it.
Jelously thinker will abandoned in the center of jungle... Their bisnis always move on.. meanwhile sinistic view just want to see a failure.... Hopefully they become more stronger and more rich....👍🏽
I lived in Dubai for 5 years. The best description I heard is, 'It's a city designed by a 12 year old on SimCity... or the 21st century version of the game!' The Palm Jumeriah, although a novelty and quite exciting to visit at the start, was soulless. They could have built what they built on land anywhere in the world. You don't get a sense of the design when on ground level, so what's the point. Go past the Atlantis Hotel at the top, and it's just hotels and building sites. You may get something from having your own private beach if you live on one of the Fronds, but the water is stagnant, very salty (therefore not very nice to swim in) and home to jellyfish. Not exactly paradise, and certainly not worth the millions people pay to live there.
I have never been anywhere near Dubai, but soulless is exactly what I thought at first. Here is the thing, the problem with these projects is that Dubai is trying to sell them as private property. Instead, this should be a tourism centre. For example, in "the world", they can literally open up entire city scapes that resemble precolonialisation world (with modern comforts ofcourse) to get a sense of being transported to the past and in a different culture of that region of the world. Everything from clothing, to food to architecture would be done as they did. How the food is served, what people did during the day etc. You book 3-4 nights stay on an island or multiple islands and experience living in say China in the Ming dynasty or celebrate celtic festivals during pre roman times or something. Literally live how the people lived ( I mean the best lives of the rich people or glorified lives of the peasants at the time). Even the entertainment is based on music and dance of that region, festivals they celebrate. Just a whole cultural experience. Like living in a fairy tale fantasy in an ancient setting in different cultures. It would be one of kind wonderful experience that people would keep coming back for. Not only would this make Dubai a tourism destination, but also a diplomatic one which Lets be honest Dubai needs a lot and is well positioned to handle as well. But that would require a lot of indepth research and commitment to handle with the sensitivity it needs. with palm island, they should just convert it into a vegas like place. UAE was looking to allow gambling in certain parts, maybe that is what they would do. Then see Americans and Europeans flock there to lose money like crazy. I have personally never understood the point of gambling and why people like it so much, but hey, to each their own. They can build tube channels where people can learn diving and then dive in the channel while jellyfish swim round them. If the water is too salty make spas and stuff that use the saltiness of the water. Heck build one to give a dead sea experience They can have other activities there too -host events, like host cricket games, WWE games, dunno other gymansttics tournaments, tennis tournaments etc on these islands. They can fore sure make money back out of them, they are not thinking in the right direction. Imagine olympics being hosted on smething like that. This aint gonna work as private property. Dubai certainly has the money and the knowhow to do stuff like this.
@@barrybarnes96 Actually that is not what it is. See, what happens is OPEC sells oil in dollars. The amount of money they get back they have to do something with it. There is only so much they can use for development in their country ( I mean normal development). The rest they used to put in US treasury, which bolstered the dollar and there was a nice quid pro quo. But USA constantly trying to dictate to OPEC to pump more or less oil or changing oil supply chains depending on which latest war they were involved in or what they were doing with world economy really pissed them off. But what to do with this extra bunch of money. Apart from diversifying their holdings, they also started making these crazy projects. It has nothing to do with Trump or Russia. Russian oligarchs have most of their holdings in londograd and St Switzerberg. Now they are moving to Turkey. UAE is actually trying to attract american buyers. That is why they were considering making gambling legal for foreigners recently to make a vegas like attraction.
Coming from a "3rd world country" a lot of my countrymen who wants to earn more would try their luck in Dubai. What's sad is most don't really make much, are severely abused, and some come home in a casket. It's a dismal place full of abuse and lacking in soul. No matter how hard things got for me, nothing will convince me to try my luck there.
Yes stories like this are not as common when us Europeans go there for work people earn well and return afew years later but when Southern Hemisphere based migrants who go there have thier passports seized on arrival sometimes andbasically become slaves...it appears the emiratians feel more comfortable slavering them more then us to protect thier western image as they shift revenue to touristm over oil and sports wash now with the World Cup
@@Idur88 Qatar and UAE are not on best terms. Dubai is the west in the Middle East. Don't ever compare Qatar with Dubai. And just letting you know these countries are being run by western government most Arabs know that shit.
thats the arab world !! moreso the muslims than the coptic christians. i dealt with them when i was in egypt. ive had a muslim bf and male friends and i married a Christian over there who acted like he was a muslim. but after separation and divorce, we still send messages back and forth but nothing special. but living in those countries is depressing for the most part. american people dont have any idea how good we have it in our USA !
@@Idur88 bruh yall are europeans white skin everyone worships you I lived in saudi for 23 yers the way saudis respect us and the way they respect you theres a stark difference haha
The craziest part about these projects. Why would you do a reclamation, when the existing land is plentiful. They could have just cut the larger palm into the natural land with water channels, and you would still see it from space. Plus the infrastructure would have been much cheaper.
I’ve actually visited the Palm Jumeirah a few times, and once you drive by the Atlantis Hotel there’s not much else to see besides another hotel and some residential complexes, and more projects under construction that have been in the works for years now. Given how much land the UAE has, it’s kinda disappointing that they didn’t use the billions of dollars to build better projects in the nation.
Dude 🤦♀️ Dubai is the world capital of laundering money. 🤪 They lost nothing. Most of major real estate projects there are made to simply launder money. They don’t have to actually build everything they announced. They just need to accept “deposits” from the families of middle eastern & African autocrats & Russian oligarchs then pay them back half of these deposit if the projects didn’t get built as planned 🤪
Imagine a sci fi story where explorers find enormous mysterious ruins with no discernable purpose but it turns out they were just badly-thought-out, abandoned vanity projects by billionaire aliens
Well, TBH, if you really want to find one, Halo's Precursors and Starcraft's Protoss does give this vibe, but the both of them are more of a Golden Age Legacy due to unforeseen disasters.
It's pretty insane that the started construction for all the projects nearly simultaneously.... If they had finished one, and analysed w what was needed, what worked, what the demand and return on investment were, they could have saved so much wastage.
Too much money No taste No culture Slavery No investment in the future of its workers No wonder Trump was enamored... Rich toxic kids that need to pay for friends, wives
there was a reason for this- its about marketing. they wanted them all to be completed by the mid 10s so they could "catch up" with the rest of the biggest capitals of the world, capitals that echo history and centuries of progress. dubai invested money in speed-running strats and projects to "put it on the map" when in reality, they were just digging themselves further in the sand.
The hubris behind this project is just so staggering. It's truly amazing how they didn't think it would be a good idea to try it out on a smaller scale before embarking on so many large projects all at once.
~ Matthew 7:24-27 New International Version The Wise and Foolish Builders 24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
“Looks cool from above but from ground level it’s just not functional”. This statement describes the entire region. All shiny and glitzy from afar, but when examined closely it is a ecological and human rights disaster.
Good description. When i was a kid, Dubai seemed like a dream place to live in when you grow up, now you realise it's all bullshit and not actually made for people.
After staying in Dubai for a while I can tell from my perspective the biggest problem I had was the awful climate hot, dry and dusty. It’s like living in a fan oven.
I reckon they built Dubai the wrong way around. Instead of building out, with new islands on the coast, they should have channelled the water in and created a load of salt water canals and lakes. The environmental damage would be minimal, since they would have created new water spaces, with new environments for the wildlife. Instead, they destroyed the environment that already existed, ruining the coastline. The entire island project was planned in haste, and had no foresight whatsoever. From the start, I felt their plans were ridiculously ambitious, and doomed to fail. The current state of Dubai attests this. Seeing half built islands doesn't surprise me in the slightest, but does disgust me. Build one palm island, see the result. Build, or not, based on the success of the first. THEN build another. Don't count your chickens before they hatch has never been more poignant. The market collapsing is a load of crap. It was a white elephant from the start because they are wanting to build a 21st century city, with a crappy infrastructure, and little thought to city planning, or public transportation. Ultimately, I reckon this project was not about the Dubai Royalty having a vision for the future because when you have a vision, you can actually see what lies ahead. An obscenely wealthy ego built Dubai. It shows.
I agree with the points, but I think the premise was never about building a functional city or even establish a long-term plan for Dubai. With the kind of development that is being done, it suggests that all of it was built in service of getting short-term profit for construction companies, hotel chains, and the like, hoping it can become the next Cayman Islands or Singapore for the ultra rich. If it all goes badly, and I think it will in the next couple decades, those interests involved in that won't care because they've already got their cash.
@@Trekpanther I see your point. Even new cities, like Songdo in South Korea have experienced teething pains, in thanks to corrupt construction companies grossly overcharging for their services. If anything, it proves that corruption is ubiquitous. In essence, the corruption increases in hand with the size of the project. However, in Songdo's case, the project itself was given the planning and foresight it needed. As a result, despite the issue of dealing with corrupt construction companies eager to profit in the short term, ultimately the project itself ensures a secure future. Whereas, in Dubai's case, none of the true vision involved in creating a totally green and state of the art city was considered. The baffling thing is, it's not as if Dubai didn't have the ability to create a project akin to Songdo. It's more that they simply weren't willing to apply this level of planning and foresight. Look at the Burj Khalifa, for example. The tallest building in the world has no public sewer access, mainly because there is no citywide service in the first place. This means they must transport all of the building's sewerage, on a daily basis, by truck from septic tanks on site to a facility that can deal with it. Then there is the rubbish to deal with. Literally, there are convoys of trucks devoted to the task of getting rid of all the shit and garbage the building produces daily. How insane is that? The tallest building on the planet deals with sewerage and sanitation using a primitive inefficient system that is far from cost effective. That fact alone speaks volumes about how poorly thought out the city is. Songdo, on the other hand, gave tremendous thought to infrastructure. The way they deal with rubbish demonstrates this perfectly. They have pioneered an ingenious system that sucks the rubbish into a network of underground pipes to waste processing centres, where it is sorted. Or, there are the interactive screens located everywhere in the city. The transport system has also been designed to give the vast majority of the inhabitants access to all their daily needs easy access and convenience, with the emphasis on short travel times. Effectively, the city works for the benefit of its residents and not against them, like in Dubai. The appalling infrastructure of Dubai cuts the residents off from each other, like islands on the land. Since the car dominates the transportation system, it grossly fails to provide an open city for the people. Instead, it forces the city to exist separately, instead of existing as one. Mind you, I believe Dubai are attempting to solve this matter and there are plans to focus on tackling their shockingly poor public transportation network. In fact, they really have no choice but to do so, as ignoring some of these issues will inevitably turn it into a ghost town. Actually, a ghost city. In my opinion, it's all too little, too late, or half-assed to begin with. Ultimately, the true lessen here is obvious. The success of a city heavily relies on its infrastructure. Songdo saw the sense in this, and planned accordingly. This has resulted in a city that looks good on the outside and is also efficient on the inside. Dubai just built a shell that looks good, but has nothing that reflects this on the inside. While Songdo has had similar issues to Dubai to begin with, at least once the construction was finished, it guaranteed an efficient, green city of the future. It may not be perfect, especially since the concept of a totally green city has never been realised before. But, it's a damn good attempt at achieving its goal and will hopefully pave the way forward in the future. Perhaps Dubai will serve a purpose in the future as an example of what not do when planning a new city and the mistakes to avoid. On the other hand, Songdo will be a shining example. Hope you don't mind reading the wall of words as much as I enjoy writing them. As a writer, it doesn't take long to compose, as type constantly from start to finish. But, typing fast and using many words doesn't count for much if nothing is said. So, I strive to avoid using empty words... ... 🤣🤣LMAO! It just hit me, I make sure my walls of words have a good infrastructure, like Songdo. If I wrote like Dubai, I wouldn't convey a single coherent thought. 🤣🤣🤣
@@RagnarNomad Thanks! If it's nicely said in your mind, then my words achieved their intended goal. But, yes. The vast egos of countless assholes on the planet (and, in most of history) is probably one of the biggest problems humans face. This means the world would be a utopia if humanity could do one thing. Eliminate all the assholes. So, about 90-95% of all of humanity, by my estimation. 😜 Peace.
Dubai is basically just one big glitzy but hollow showroom. Functionally speaking, the city is any decent city planners nightmare. I've had relatives there for 40+ years and every time I stay a couple of nights on a stopover to somewhere else, I can't wait to leave. Cant even stay a couple of nights without feeling that way. What a serious waste of resources and absolutely barren of culture and society.
I worked there for almost a yr in 2006.. and I was miserable, no heart no soul. Labour laws are not followed I was mistreated by owners of a beauty parlour.. they made us sign contracts without reading them they wouldn't allow to read. Most girls don't know how to read.. I was sick once they just left me at the cheapest hospital all alone after work. I cried
Ah man, you make it sound dreadful. My family lived there for 3 years and like our previous expat stay in Shanghai, we found all the local spots that made living there magical. It also helped that anywhere we went we were treated like celebrities. Our first day in Dubai we posted it on TH-cam and a Turkish news channel asked if they could showcase our video. 4 million views in 6 months and almost everyone recognized us. Some restaurants wouldn’t let us pay. I also surfed with some locals and went to amazing local events. That was the best! The food! So good! My son was born there! ✌🏼
I've lived in Dubai and can vouch for this video. The whole city is on a knife edge. If you visit as a tourist you'll first notice the abundance of luxury hotels with no-one in them. If you go there to work you'll notice that no-one sees themselves staying there, they make their money and go. If you live there you'll notice how arrogant the locals are and think everyone else is vermin..The place isn't real, it's a fake city that is bleached dry in the sun and heat. There's no natural water, nothing grows there, there's no industry and there's no oil money left,... I guarantee this city will fail and eventually will be a dead zone. It's only a matter of time.
Seems like a bad government. It's a kingdom so makes sense. All they needed to do was lay some seed capital to create schools to make home grown experts that they have to fly in anyway. Buy knowhow and own it. Force companies to manufacture in Dubai and get into partnership with a home brand, that's basically what Japan and China did to get enough knowhow. Then copy Israel which is also a desert nation, and make nuclear desalination plants and create drip irrigation farms and nitrogen extraction for nutrients. The resources are clearly there. But the rich people already have eveything they want so why would they invest in these systems
And THAT'S WHEN YOU KNOW AS FACT THAT BILLIONAIRE CLASS WITH ACCESS TO REAL DATA KNOW THERE IS NOT GOING TO BE A SEA LEVEL RISE. propaganda is for the sheep
I lived in Dubai, so was my family. Nakheel was renowned for building rubbish and abandoned it eventually, the place were I live, international city was own by Nakheel, and by just going through the main gate, you’ll see two ongoing constructions that was stopped due to pandemic until now. As my mom commented “these are the doorkeepers Nakheel sent to us”. 😂
Yes, there was a famous one - may have been affiliated with Jebel Ali - they lied and 2 Australians were put in prison for years. Emaar and Meraas are the 2 legit, big RE firms.
We can't even imagine all the effects and devastation by those island projects on coastal & marine ecosystems and what was permanently lost under them.
They had plenty of land in the, you know desert... To build these islands and fill the gaps with water. But instead destroy hectares of coral reef, dredging to make land. Money can't buy intelligence 🤦
@@adamholmes91 yeah i mean the tallest skyscraper in Dubai doesn't have plumbing that trucks need to suck the sewage out of the building and take them to sewage treatment centers.
@@jav05 The whole place disgusts me, so many poor 3rd world slaves behind the scenes. Fooled into going there "for free" to work, only to be charged unrealistic interest on their travel and accommodation, forced to work for free and ultimately suicide. 😢
2008 brought the entire world back to their senses. This project reminds me of the Crystal Cruise line debacle. A good idea originally, that morphed into a zillion “good ideas” and ended up being an absolutely ridiculous, enormously overpriced mega disaster, with no accounting for any kind of unforeseen circumstances…. I can’t even fathom buying property on a sand mound blown in from somewhere while clearly seeing the effects of climate change all over the planet. What a waste of time, money, materials and ecosystems.
Dude 🤦♀️ Dubai is the world capital of laundering money. 🤪 They lost nothing. Most of major real estate projects there are made to simply launder money. They don’t have to actually build everything they announced. They just need to accept “deposits” from the families of middle eastern & African autocrats & Russian oligarchs then pay them back half of these deposit if the projects didn’t get built as planned 🤪
And what about when the earthquake hits and every bit of land that isn't supported on solid rock is now under water... Christchurch, NZ, had pools of water form due to an earthquake ... the land subsided in parks, in private home blocks, even in the middle of roads, and its not even reclaimed from the sea. Its just that sediments accumulated there naturally. There may be other things at Christchurch, but clearly sand in the sea is much more prone to the problem than the land at Christchurch.
I went to Dubai in June 2021 on business. I found it very depressing and oppressive. All workers are from 'poor' countries and live in terrible conditions and stress. Not an enjoyable trip.
Since graduating high school, half the people I attended with, along with cousins and relatives have gone to Dubai for work, even my closest cousin right now is preparing to move there for a new job. Everyone goes there for work in hotels and businesses
@@shi.survives.somehow yeah. I know a lot of Africans and South-East Asians find work there. It’s seasonal for them. It also sucks cuz a lot of illegal human trafficking is involved in the businesses as well.
@@shi.survives.somehow true there were mostly Indians and Nigerians at the hotels. They told us that they keep their heads down and please give them good reviews. Really nice guys.
they literally just live in the water around the new islands. if an animal sees a big thing going down to dig obviously it will move and not die, this is why the fronds are full of jellyfish
No matter how fancy or high up the condo you purchase is, when you look out the window it still looks like you live in a construction zone with all that surrounding sand..
One thing about the Palm Jumeirah that was overlooked was that the barrier island originally was supposed to be a solid arc meant to prevent ocean waves from impacting the inner palm island and eroding them. The problem was this immediately led to a great deal of stagnation of water and algal growth at the top section of the palm, which is not very appealing from a visual and smell point of view. Hence, they had to cut the various channels in the sides of the arc limiting its effects as a breakwater. This really made people question just how much work went into any feasibility studies wondering if they were more "how much will it cost" rather than what are any potential problems or will it even be worth it. Such a trash vanity project and I have no sympathy for the rich people left high and dry over it because rich people fucked up the entire world financial market. I am completely gutted however for the billions of normal peopled who the 2008 financial crash fucked over and the massive ecological damage this thing has no doubt caused.
Algae is a great provider of photosynthesis though, several times moreso than trees....they might've just fallen ass-backwards into a tactic for reducing climate change.
I'm pretty sure no feasibility studies were done and if they were, I'm absolutely certain that the developers probably said "okay, cool" and dismissed them altogether.
What's even worse is that these projects (Jumeirah, The World) have 'inspired' many copycat projects in other countries, often leading to the destruction of shorelines & habitats, and the displacement of local people who live in the area & make their living from coastal fishing or agriculture. Further compounding the problem is that sand & soil are dredged from inland areas for the land reclaimation. And the final insult? Many of these projects end up mostly unoccupied... used as holiday homes for the jet-set or as investment properties for the global elite to park their wealth.
@@izzyj.1079 Which is why they said, "Well, we're not going to promote an oil free society, so we better not build this. It will go under water anyway." If your the one shitting in the woods, you know where not to walk.
@@NobleOmnicide Yeah, 'feasability' in Dubai at the time these projects were approved was just a simple matter of ensuring the right people were paid adequately.
Been to Dubai more than a dozen times, never invested there. I always believed it would be a ghost town in my lifetime. The whole system works off slavery and fleeting wealth.
@@m.3257 I have been in 19 different countries, yes I have seen abject poverty and starvation. But, that is still no excuse for exploitation of the poor.
@@donaldmartin4980 It is no excuse and exploitation should be stopped but all people focus on Dubai while they completely negate the mess in many countries. Poverty and starvation are largely based on a corrupt and dumb elite who most people voted for. Dubai would still be a small and poor city in the desert if it wasn't for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Exploitation is still present in nearly all countries where low wage workers come to Dubai. However, despite the exploitation these countries are still poor.
I remember seeing these getting built while in the city for a military exercise and also the amount of money being thrown around for everything from Luxury Auto Shops to the indoor Ski slope. It was nuts!
Commercial Real Estate guy here - this was one of your best 👌some developers dont mind running wild with other people's money. Naive visionaries with oversized egos and narcissistic motives. This one takes the cake.
Well said! I am also here to learn how to invest after listening to a lady on tv talk about the importance of investing and how she made 7 figure in 3 month, somehow the video taught me nothing and left me even more confused, I'm a newbie and I'm open to ideas on how to invest for retirement
He has that, right here on TH-cam. Sure, Netflix or Prime, or Hulu or whatever Tv network could pick it up, and he could gain viewers and profit... but he would also very likely lose his creative freedom. It really depends what he wants to do. Personally I think most of these show that start on youtube are best kept here, because once you give yourself over to the networks and commercialize it, its not really the same show anymore.
You do realise not only there’s are plenty out there doing that subject (you do know how to search do you?); this video itself is produced by a content farm. Not one guy with a iPhone 12.
When you’re driving out to the palm you have no sense of the cool shape of the island. When you’re in your house it’s too hot to go outside. You look out the window and see everyone else’s house across the way, and are aware of your neighbors smack next to you on each side. If you do venture into the water it’s not refreshing, and sometimes has a smell. Why would a rich person invest in something so confining and transitory?
As a way to hide money from the tax man, not to live there. Possibly also to sell it at a slight profit to the next tax evading millionaire who never plans to live there either.
@@Codraroll oh yeah good answer. I would visit my mother in Sarasota and we would take the boat trip around the bay and there were hundreds of gorgeous houses on the water, never saw one person outside enjoying the beauty or the water. I always thought what a waste of wonderful real estate, the owners could at least rent them out or arrange to have some city children enjoy the day there.
The world islands are my absolute favorite. It's just so cute. They look exactly like the kind of cockamamie idea I'd have as a kid. "What if like, everyone lived on their own little island, and we swam to our neighbors' house and took a boat to buy groceries"
I had no idea about these projects! Dubai as a whole doesn't appeal to me because of the class disparity; it's all fake and manufactured "luxury." I think the Palms project shows exactly how out of touch these people are.
Fun fact: the Burj Khalifa doesn’t even have a working sewer system and the palm islands will probably sink underwater in less than 20 years because they had the genius idea of using very compressible sand to build them, but then again the whole city will probably be underwater soon due to sea level rise
Not to mention all of Dubai is built by modern slavery with many Indians immigrating to the Emirates to earn money for there families only to be kicked out after there work is done and left with nothing but the clothes on there back.
Bruh, building on sand is already very difficult when it's in the continent, imagine when it's on a pile of sand you threw by the beach just because you happened to be sitting on a ton of money. There's also the ongoing problems the Netherlands have with their land reclamation projects (which are more than piles of sands they just threw about) and the problems Italy's been facing to keep Venice from sinking (same thing). It wouldn't surprise me to discover these projects were idealised by someone who knew very well that they would fail and just wanted to get free money from someone very rich and very dumb.
We would sit and watch them building the first palm, on our week-ends off, and laugh at the fact that anyone would be stupid enough to think it would work.
The phrase that came to my mind as I watched the video was that old cliche: "More money than sense." After that, "A fool and his money are soon parted." And then the parable about building your house on sand ... For millennia, vainglorious rich and powerful people have been trying to build lasting monuments to their wealth and power, and nature--or other people--have been thwarting them. And the world is filled with the remains of ancient civilizations where the degradation of the environment and/or climate change meant the site had to be abandoned. This Dubai debacle is the latest and won't be the last.
It would possibly be a better idea to spend billions on huge desalination plants, pump the water inland and re-populate the desert with vegetation to make it fertile and useable again. Not to mention a source of carbon capture to offset all that oil.
Nice video. But I do feel they neglected to mention how the water around these islands quickly became near stagnant. Which means they aren’t good for suitable for swimming and are breeding ground for insect larvae.
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away."
I visited Dubai 3 times in 2007 while in the Navy. These construction plans were all over the city as a way to show off to foreigners what they were doing in Dubai. But it was crazy to see the duality of Dubai with the massive buildings and rich stuff compared to the poor all around.
@@Tolpuddle581 the city is still very young it built so much in half a lifetime like someone who was born in 1970's just saw it from a desert and now he's in his 40's and she's an entire city with buildings, it's still a young city what do you mean?
@@chairforce664 The *vast* majority of workers in the UAE are migrant workers from the east- Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and so on. They live in tiny workers barracks, get paid a handful of dollars for 10-12 a day of hard labor, can own *zero* property in the UAE, and their entire health and safety is dictated by their employer- there are no state measures to protect migrant workers. In the UAE, you can find weekly cases of sexual assault, beatings, and outright murder of UAE workers by the wealthy elites. There is no middle class in Dubai. The only middle class is transient- foreign workers from the West, engineers and accountants and bankers, who get seduced to spend 5-10 years in Dubai. But once again- they can own no property in the UAE. The UAE has no middle class- there is the ruling elite, their friends and family, and then there is everyone else.
Quite soon into the project there were major concerns. If lay people like us viewers (well, like me) can acknowledge that one does not build upon sand, surely there is a greater force (greed?) driving the ridiculous, improbable plans. I would not live there even if I were give a 'beach front' property.
It's not that different from the "tallest building in the world" contests - it's just dick measuring and showing off how rich the person/city/etc are. And every time one of these massive money-wasting projects happens, there's a major recession or depression. Rich ppl having enough money to throw at these kinds of projects is a sign that our economy is massively lopsided and about to crash.
Would be nice if the narrative changed from humans desiring to be rich and worshipping the rich to humans just flat out rejecting wealth and finally admitting its a synthetic concept that is a construct of humans and nothing more and we dont need it at all. One day maybe, but no, humans are trash and need wealth to impose pyschological warfare on other humans.
I remember first seeing the plan for these islands on a 2003 episode of Globe Trekker. On the episode Megan McCormick went to Dubai and was shown a slick sales presentation for the project. Years later I saw a documentary about the finished near-completed island and supposedly much of the construction work on the homes was extremely slipshod and buyers were less than pleased.
people don't understand that for the super rich real estate is more about a 'bank' for their value, than about vibrant communities. In that sense its been successful
The other issue is the super rich have never been about creating communities. It’s about gated communities with poor community ammenities. I lived there for 5 years. Even today there is no proper sewerage in buildings. Some buildings this is pumped into trucks and in some cases sprayed in the desert. I have seen this.
@@kiwiadventures3773 briefly ive lived there for about 12 years on and off. What you have is a country rapidly developing to impressive levels but opportunities are hard to hear about if you dont speak arabic
The fact that the Palm Island was designed so that the water within its confines would be stagnant speaks volumes about their disregard of sustainability, hygiene, the environment, their customers, their workforce and their sheer greed. I'd hate to live there, and hope that nature reclaims the whole presumptuous mess quickly.
Exactly what I thought back when I first saw the plans for this. Was confused because "standing water + intense heat = very bad and not at all nice swamp" is common knowledge i.e. not even something that would require specialized/higher education. I assumed at the time that they would have some kind of hidden underwater circulation system but was wrong.
@@SS-yj2le You need the right amount and type of water, soil and plant life for that to work. Nothing they’ve done there was given much afterthought…well other than how much money some folks thought they’d make…🤨
About 14 years ago I had a Geography Professor telling us about how cool these projects were. At 21, all I could think was "gee, this looks hinky." Now I know why.
@@map3384 It makes me think of all of Trump's history of failed businesses that I feel was mostly fed by him being surrounded by yes-men/women who would run with any of his stupid ideas as all they probably really cared about is drawing a pay cheque.
@@ashakydd1 If you pay close attention, you'll notice that Trump's only investment in these failures is his name. He gets paid for his prestige and someone else ends up eating the loss when things go south. Also, don't be so sure that the yes men actually get a paycheck. Trump is infamous for endlessly dragging the goal posts on payday and letting the sunk cost fallacy do the rest.
The moment I saw the design for the first palm project I thought, "they're going to build the biggest money pit the world has ever seen. I hope they at least get the islands msde so we can watch them slowly sink in the coming decades."
I mean why invest in developing farm land, infrastructure or building wells for the less fortunate people to have access to clean water, food and basic housing… When you can throw money into the bottomless pit of more luxuries than the rich and famous know what to do with. 🙄
Hard to believe the fishing village that was Dubai only became worth looking at in the mid to late 60's with the discovery of oil. I have a "Guide to Dubai" published by Conoco for prospective employees from that era with a map showing about a dozen roads, none of which had traffic lights, and an airport. There were two "modern" hotels, the Al Maktoum Hospital only had 100 beds, there was one (Western) Doctor and one Dentist in Dubai and no TV apart from 3 to 4 months a year (when conditions permitted a signal) from Dhahran and Kuwait. I visited a couple of times recently and it's amazing what the black stuff has done. The scale of Palm Jumeirah is impressive from space but on the ground it's pretty crowded.
I met the engineer who kicked this project off way back 81 . Needless to say he was Dutch and a expert in dredging . We were in Bharain Airport lounge . I remember his shoes had a hole in them when he put them up on the seat as he complained about the tax law in Holland. He was living in Australia he said and had earned 8 million dollars at this time. His complaint was that he could never go home because of the crazy dutch tax system. No matter how long you are away from there you are taxed almost half of your eanings when you return. He was in a quandary. He said he was going to reclaim all the beach areas at the front as that area was the most expensive. It was greed nothing else coz he was going to cut out those already there at first. He didn,t have time to get his shoes mended . He was making that much money. He asked me if I wanted to work there but I was on my way home from Saudi and had enough. I wonder how he ended up. Did he get enough for a new pair of shoes.
I'm surprised you never brought it up but in addition to the financial/coastal life failures was an enormous failure in the treatment of the work force used to construct all this. To call it inhumane would be a massive understatement. I think you did this subject matter a disservice by omitting that side of the story entirely.
There was a documentary 5 or 10 yrs ago about how abused and mistreated was the labor force that was mostly composed of illegals immigrating from India and South East Asia. The abuses came from the contractors and sometimes their own people. The cruelty of humans when they see "need" is horrific.
I remember watching Discovery Channel specials on the building of the first Palm, really celebrating the engineering and scale of the project. I thought then, "What a Colossal, Colossal, waste of money, time, resources, and the environment." It serves as yet another reminder of how we need to reduce our dependence upon oil and gas (This was all built using oil wealth... and slave labour).
Another case study for graduate business marketing courses: what happens to a real estate development when the developers forget to ask, *"Would anyone **_want_** to live here?"*
I was in Dubai a lot on business from 2003 to 2006 whilst the first of these monstrosities was taking shape. Sailing off the beach in the open sea first became sailing in a lagoon, then it became sailing in a building site. UGH! The pleasant 6-story beach-front hotel was first in beautiful isolation, then surrounded by building sites, then overshadowed by monstrous towers of apartments. UGH! From open roads came congestion, traffic jams and long travel times in the baking heat. To me, these projects are an ego trip to outrageous fortune, for those with far more money than sense, and have ended up looking like a really bad, half-finished tattoo. Dry sand slips through your fingers and leaves you with nothing. If you have so much money that you can afford to blow a load of it on a folly then I guess Dubai provides a prime example of what it might look like.
@@stevencooke6451 that's why they were creating 8th wonder for the world to come and visit and they might have a tourism hub to talk about but this was a rushed plan.
I‘ve been to Dubai a few times. Saw the unfinished world islands and Deira palm from the plane, and even got very close to the abandoned Jebel Ali palm with tons of leftover foundations and build sites. The history of these projects is incredibly interesting, so I’m very glad they’re getting some more attention. Great video!
I think this project could've worked out much better if the developers paced themselves a bit more and just did the islands one at a time and wait until they knew it was sustainable.
No one involved gave a shit if it was sustainable to begin with…….just middle eastern oil barons/warlords who have enough money that they can “invest” a billion dollars into a nonsense project that they couldn’t be bothered to think about for even a minute
@@phoenix5054 Why? Monarchies aren't defined by a specific style of urban planning...it has nothing to do with that. They might decide what they want built and where but nothing about a monarchy says they will build it in a certain way.
You know what the joke is... when they wanted this and procured our dutch services to build it, we warned them it was a bad idea both on general economics and because of erosion as the location is fairly bad for reclaimed islands especially with maximized coastline
they have to be the biggest clowns in history , unlimited budget , top engineers , sewage gets trucked out . LOL LOL LOL LOL imagine buying realestae there , honey what is that line of trucks , taxi driver chimes in ... they are the trucks with the cities sewage ..... TURN AROUND PLEASE !!!!!!!
Dubai has always been a bit of a joke. Oh the folly of the fleeting wealth! When your tiny nation is essentially just a barren oil reserve, you are living in a house of sticks. Let's not even begin to examine the insane wealth gap between the elites and the starving masses (mostly imported workers from Nepal, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, etc...)
1998 was my first business trip to Dubai. It was small, exotic and low rise. 10 years later it was like “Sim City”. Nothing was the same and it was impossible to understand the vision, Much less the economics behind the many billions spent. Dubai has an enormous desalination plant. Burning gas and oil to make potable water. The highly salinated waste water pumped back into the sea is like bleach on the aquatic ecosystem. Ranging out many nautical miles. For a fraction of the spend on those islands Dubai could have created the worlds largest solar powered desalination plant as well as generation of electricity. It could have re-greened a lot of the unused lands away from the coast.
Most people don't know that Abu Dhabi has waaaaay more oil money. Dubai is just a free trade port, a few very poor oil fields and a giant smoke and mirrors real estate hype. You've got to give it to them on how long they kept up the hype. After the GFC, Abu Dhabi bought everything of worth.
With Palm Jebel Ali, they were actually doing to build a whole SeaWorld resort at the crown of the island, had a full announcement at SeaWorld Orlando. The crown island would have been reformed to be in the shape of an Orca and would have had a SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Aquatica and Discovery Cove. Of course it was cancelled but you can find some concept art online of it, as well as the fact that SeaWorld restarted the park plans, this time an hour down the road in Abu Dhabi where its opening next year.
Thank God all the sea creatures were saved from that horror. Sea world is disgusting & once all the children grow up & learn the truth they stop going. Which is why the truth is so hidden, they need new blood every year through ignorance
The abandoned nearly-finished developments are honestly cooler than the finished one. There's something so spellbinding about a huge empty island in the shape of a palm leaf or the world, they almost remind me of the nazca lines
@@pocketmarcy6990 ... or archaeologists from the future! Hmmm, I wonder if the Nazca lines were some sort of indigenous people's cancelled megaproject.
"Insane concepts, cities build on the water!! Man-made land reclamation" The Netherlands : "Erm... yeah we've been doing that for a couple of centuries". The largest artifical island is in The Netherland by the way: The Flevopolder, 970 km2, finished in 1969. Its largest city is Almere with 200.000 residents out of the 400.000 on the entire island. So these projects in Dubai were never really that special or unique to begin with, thats just PR stuff.
I lived on the palm jumairah for 9 years and apart from Atlantis the “Shorlines” and the small villas in the center called “Golden Mile” there is absolutely nothing to do just a bunch on projects never finished or that have been worked on since we first moved in 2010. The worst thing is that even 14 years later the effects of the 2008 crash are apparent. For example the Dubai Pearl or the Dubai tram station hotel after 14 years of traffic blocks and “coming soon signs” Nothing was even close to complication. I Remember just before we left in 2019 a massive mall was built in the center of the jumairah. It took em 12 years. Some of my friends told me the entire mall is fostered with like 8 people. Cuz of people need to go to the mall they will go to Dubai Mall or Emirates mall (The largest in the world) From someone who lived in Dubai for a substantial time I can confidently say. In a nutshell Dubai is what you call a feature creep a way to ambitious project that struggles to maintain or finish what they started. I would love to come back out of pure nostalgia but nothing else.
Dubai knows how to build tall but has zero concept of creating vital cityscapes. Nobody walks in Dubai so street level interest is entirely neglected. When I watch street level touring of Dubai it greatly disappoints unlike the drone views of the Jetson skyline. On the ground you see lots of parking garages. You know something is wrong when the main street in town is a freeway. You also look at Dubai from a map and you realize that much of the development is random with little planning. It is a shame as with the money they had they could have created wonderful well thought out cities like korea has so beautifully done. We have created some wonderful new towns with parks and town centers here in Seattle suburbs so I have seen how it can be done.
Nakheel mall on the palm is fully built now and is actually a very nice mall. Seems to be quite popular too. The area around it is somewhat walkable too
@@satyakammisra Exactly right. For a Russian, the year 2019 was probably the worse time to move out of the Emirates. Lots os Russians are flocking to the UAE now to buy properties (August 2022). Much lower chance of greedy, hypocritical Western governments seizing stuff in the UAE.
As soon as we saw what was the buzz was about, we took note but as soon as we saw sand, we men knew it was basic physics or whatever and knew it was a a boat already sinking. But unlike those who spent, to waste,over 10 years in dubai, we did not spent 10 years in dubai and never will. I only came to see to confirm our suspicion and we were correct, now no more coming back here.
not to mention with poor hydrography planning, the sewage residence time. im not an expert, but the palm islands creating an inversed semi-closed water bay is definitely a red flag for a high water resident time.
This was just insane. If they had started with only the one project, and then done impact studies as they built it out, then it may have been at least understandable. Starting all the projects at once, was just "Bat$hit CRazy".
I was thinking the same thing. I just saw a YT video building homes in the middle of a subdivision in Colorado and in / on Vancouver Island building floating homes they transport to the marina. Factory built homes that are then secured to a foundation. Sort of.
I remember watching the documentary specials on National Geographic. It seemed really cool, but being an adult now I can see why it wasn’t such a grand idea.
I think the "homes" are essentially ways to park and transfer value for people who are wealthy and who want to avoid scrutiny and restrictions in their home country. Think oligarchs, heads of crime syndicates, petty dictators, and other types that you'd love to have as your neighbor.
You are very correct. Many empty & what initially look like abandoned villas on the Palm...all with dubious reasons why they are empty & who owns them...
What do wealthy Russians know that woke American communists don't know? Safety, security, zero taxes, no wokeness, no communists, no socialists. I mean, in NYC, you'r forced to fly in your helicopter to your super-skinny skyscraper on Billionaire's Row, owned through a dozen nested shell companies! And they're so skinny they don't even have helipads, and the NYC streets are owned by wokeness, socialists and communists, so no one goes to those properties. The party is in Dubai, and the party in Dubai never stops.
I’d love you to do a video on cancelled Dubai theme parks. One I heard years again was a reclaimed island but as part of it was going to a Killer Whale shaped island that would’ve had SeaWorld, legoland and a few other things
I lived in an apartment on the 'main artery' of Palm Jumeirah on 2008-2009. The entertainment all around was amazing: walking in any direction for about 100m metres you would find 7-star pool club amenities, together with sport-bars/pubs, coffee shops, gyms, spas, a variety of restaurants etc. I remember walking from Al Anbara (the apartment name) across the road to another block of apartments where I spent my weekends during the summer in cooled-down swimming pools and afterwards finished the day in the gym. Sounds like bliss. But it was not. My eyes opened when I was swimming in the 'ocean' (the pool club's beach) and all around us we saw HUMAN FAECES floating in the water. It was everywhere. I wanted to hurl on the spot. We were out of the water in seconds and have been disgusted by that experience ever since. Also, despite viewing truck after truck arriving on the Palm Jumeriah around 2am every single morning to remove the human excrement (the hotels and apartments apparently have nowhere to take it due to no piping etc., the excrement is stored in huge tanks below the buildings and need to be emptied daily), the turds continue to remain everywhere in the ocean water, and I never got to swim in 'paradise' again.
Lots of money for people that never had to lift a finger to 'earn' it doesn't really lead to well educated people. Just people with more money than taste.
@Michael Smith All of us did the right thing: We got a one-way ticket out of the turd-filtrated superficial-bling culture that some people just seem to love. Thanks, but no thanks, Dubai is not for me.
Dubai is an Ozymandian nightmare that is little more than a vanity project for a handful of people with far, far more money than they have any business having. Its urban planning is horrific, its sustainability is highly questionable at best, and its economy and infrastructure is built off of imported and heavily exported foreign laborers (to such an extent that most of the people living there aren't even citizens). The predictable utter failure of the most obvious vanity projects--the palm islands, the "world islands", the giant skyscraper that was never even remotely necessary given that they had tons of space in the middle of the *desert*, and a massively car-dependent city plan that is horrible EVEN THEN. In a few decades--maybe 50 years--the city will be a mess in decline with so many fundamental problems that most of the city will be salvageable.
This city won't exist in 50 years. Oil wells don't just run dry in this part of the world. There will be a a civil war or some shit first which will level most of these buildings
@@amentco8445 nope, as an American, I don’t want to live next door connected to a restaurant or some store that will be noise most of the day. I love my subdivisions. You can go ahead and live near one if you like that.
@@Labyrinth6000 Everything about your comment is dumb. Like, we don’t care if you like your quiet subdivisions, you can live that way, it’s just not sustainable planning for lots of people, and we shouldn’t be doing it for the majority of the city. Car-dependency will get a city barely anywhere. There are other people than just the upper class who want housing and the ability to go to work without a 2-ton vehicle in Dubai, America, everywhere.
By “get together” you mean tricking people into coming into Dubai for a better life and then taking their passports so they are stuck there forever and essentially making them slaves. Truly mind blowing.
It's about the same in every large city in the world. You buy a house with nice view, then within a few years someone bulds a taller building nex to you that blocks your view completely.
The speculative element of this reminds me of the Salton Sea, where in the 1950s developers attempted to sell plots of land in planned communities next to a vast accidental lake in the desert with promises of boating, golf, fishing and a relaxed lifestyle of leisure time. Whole cities were laid out, miles of paved streets with services laid, facilities such as schools and stores built to serve the predicted residents, and motels, clubs and marinas for the tourist trade. But the lake had no natural outlet and with only evaporation keeping the water level stable, gradually became saltier and more polluted until the fish began to die in their millions, causing an unbearable stench that rendered the patios and docks unusable and coating the beautiful sand beaches with a grim topping of rotting fish and crumbled bones. This was further compounded by floods in the 1970s that damaged many waterfront properties. Word got around that the Salton Sea was not the promised inland riviera paradise and investment dried up. Many of the plots were never built on or houses left uncompleted, today many roads lead nowhere. Today the sea itself is doing the same as a result of the CA drought and poor water management, but few care as the tourists and residents mostly left years ago. It's since become an unlikely attraction for photographers looking to document the ruins but ecologically it's a disaster area with the last fish having died off a couple of years ago taking the once abundant bird colonies with them. A cautionary tale if ever there was one - some of the promotional films from the time are almost laughably naive given what actually went on to happen.
Back in the 1960s & earIy1970s, I wouId go to the SaIton Sea to water ski and go fishing. Had a great time then and am sad to hear that it has deteriorated into an ecoIogicaI disaster.
@@staralioflundnv yes, from the vintage footage I've seen it looked to have been wonderful. I'd have liked to have seen it in its all too brief heyday.
Developers in California and Arizona that once got water from Lake Meade and the Colorado River have been building homes and businesses that don't even have any water coming to them and no prospects for it in the near future. With Lake Meade heading towards dead pool status it is even less likely yet people are throwing their money away buying these places.
@@Tlyna1952 -- Yes, Lake Mead is cIose to dead pooI but there are stiII other "straws" before that. As I understand it, Lake PoweII stiII has a reasonabIe amount of water to draw upon. Projects that have occupants in Southern Nevada do not get permits to buiId if they can not get water. They wiII hoId up a project untiI it cIears with CIark County. You are right: anyone buying homes or hoping to deveIop residentiaI properties wouId be much better served eIsewheres. Not onIy is that a risk, the continued increased costs cause most sensibIe peopIe to rethink, unIess they are iinto beIieving in miracIes and/or wiIIing to wait a Iong time.
I still remember I questioned why would they build these projects instead of reforesting the vast Desert that time. As for me, they are just extending the desert instead of decreasing the size of the desert. Utterly curious way of thinking even I understand they imagine that was to make good of waterfront. Yet it was no way to go.
It never rains there and unbearably hot during April through September months. To plant and grow trees they would have to import a shit ton of water to maintain all trees and plants. Or build a huge or multiple water converters to convert sea water to actually drinking water and use it to water all the trees etc.. constantly.
The whole impetus comes from the Ruler of Dubai. He's a get up and go starting at 6a.m. sort of guy, and expects his close aides and friends who run / own the various development companies to keep up with his wish list. Never mind the short cuts needed to keep up, get it through design without necessary due diligence so that machines on the ground / in the sea are there for Sheikh Mo to see and approve, hence you keep your fabulous lifestyle, never mind the environmental and economic disaster down the line. What's important is the net Bugatti, gold Bentley convertible, the third luxury palace for your next wife, first class trip on Emirates A380's. There is no stronger incentive than greed, pure unmitigated greed, to drive this kind of uncaring action.
I remember when these projects started 20 years ago. I thought they were outrageous, but in keeping with the never-ending hubris of the UAE and Dubai. They don't care about the ocean, or their workers who depended on the work.
Meanwhile I’ve grownup in New Orleans close to grand isle, visiting that island many times in my childhood. And let me mention that we are fighting the corrosion of grand idle right now, a NATURAL island that is sinking year by year with people living there. These man made islands would waste any building they put on them within probably 60 years if not sooner. Wouldn’t even last a lifetime unless they had those sand escalators on the shore 247 tryna put down more sediment on the shores.
I went to Grand Isle on a trip I did around the Gulf Of Mexico from Padre to Naples wanting to check out Corpus Christi. I suggested Google do a trip plan for people that want to go key to key. It is hard to tell the connections without the satellite view. I disagree with the idea it needs to be saved or preserved. It is there today to enjoy and all the homes are on stilts which is cool but just because it is natural does not mean the taxpayers should pay to protect it. I am actually disturbed that the taxpayers pay to protect New Orleans when it is 10 feet under the sea level. If you live on the beach whether in Oregon or the Gulf enjoy while you can. The Bible says build your house on a rock. Don't build it next to a stream either. All river or ocean front property should be for natural and recreation areas. Now that we are not relying on river traffic for transportation. Having the Mississippi in dykes is really a bad idea. and will be a constant drain on the people and their psyche.
@@mgratk well said- the rape of Louisiana started years ago when big oil was given a 5O year carte Blanche of destruction. 😔It’s my home state, so rich in resources & culture yet so poor for the inhabitants… heart breaking.
When I first heard they were building in water, out of sand, I had to ask myself... "how are they going to keep that sand from constantly shifting and moving... in water it's impossible!!! I thought it was a ridiculous insane idea and waste of money... money which could have saved many parts of the world from starvation and other serious troubles in many areas!!! The rich are sick!!!
These people have so much wealth, they could feed entire nations and end poverty in the world. They live excessive lives. Supercars abandoned in the desert.. I wonder if these people will go to heaven..
Do you think that any of the projections about rising sea levels have been a factor in investing huge resources into a project that is only two meters above sea level? Nah. Could be a future irony that a city built with oil wealth is detroyed by fossil fuel use.
They built them the same reason why our politicians & overlords buy beachfront houses still; because the problem you describe is false. Climate alarmism is a ploy to transfer wealth & restrict people's freedoms. Gullible people fall for it. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
Projects for the über rich built on the foundations of the poor, really makes you think of all the wasted value. ‘The lack of money is the root of all evil’- Mark Twain
@@steegily probably with terrible working conditions (it's Dubai, definitely hot and working conditions for these projects are notoriously abusive with low pay)
Flew over them in late 2015 and yeah, the scale of even Jebel Ali is pretty mind-blowing. Something like 4 Miles out to shore and 7 Miles wide or thereabouts. Even racing over it in a helicopter feels like you're in slow motion due to the sheer scale. In 2015 it at least from the air, appeared pretty filled in and a vibrant neighborhood; well as much as the heat of Dubai allows. The other islands were indeed nothing yet. Still a pretty nuts experience to see though!
As mentioned, the outer stone sea wall is there to keep the water around the palm stagnate to minimise erosion. When I visited, I went to go for a swim and got ankle deep before thinking ‘ah no thanks’. Stagnant yuck water. Not necessarily polluted - but just yuck.
The mostly constructed one, Palm Jumeirah, was originally designed with a continuous breakwater, but only after completing terraforming did they notice most of the water within was stagnant, so had to introduce breaks in the breakwater to allow some movement. Additionally, after the initial batch of houses were sold off-plan, the developer increased the number of houses, so reducing the land surrounding each house, so residents are even closer together than they expected. They've also unsurprisingly disturbed marine life, water quality, currents and tidal patterns (with the existing Dubai shoreline experiencing increased erosion).
I went to the Atlantis on The Palm back in 2013. The idea truly was fantastical, but when you're on the island you can't tell you're anywhere special lol
Dredging the sand and building the islands caused massive ecological damage. When they could have just done them in reverse. Dig channels instead of building islands.
I remember hearing about this on a show I watched as a kid - "Megastructures" I think...? - and was fascinated about the palm islands at the time. I thought they were cool and ambitious, but also felt somewhat too artificial.
Same, I saw it on some documentary or other on tv. I remember thinking it was interesting, but even then something about it felt off. Too artificial is absolutely right. Spending billions of dollars and messing with nature to build some manufactured paradise that is apparently somehow better, is just ridiculous.
@@kamallb4650 Well, you grew up and have a brain. Meanwhile the people who lead the UAE, never did have a brain and all this place will be under the ground soon anyways. Also who never considered the human factor, "why would you want to live here?"
The whole time I was wandering when you will ask the most basic question - how were they planing to water all those trees and plants, not to mention drinking water for the people living there?
1:53 Palm Jumeirah is hardly the largest manmade island ever. With its 5.72 square kilometer size it fits a cool 169 times into the real number 1: the Flevopolder in the Netherlands (970 square kilometers). Even with its never built extensions it would not have come close.
Perhaps the reason why so many wanted a home next to the water is not for the beach life, but for something more basic. In hot climates like that, a home next to a large body of water is set to have winds that give a nice cooling effect. The rich probably wanted that cool breeze feeling as opposed to the hot dry air of the vast desert.
This place doesn’t cool off in the summer. It’s a frying pan and your skin starts to sizzle almost immediately. Even at night, it’s humid and >100 F in the summer months
In the comments I’m surprised nobody has mentioned that it’s wealth these days is being based as an airport terminus, somewhere to change routes, get refuelled and do the duty free shopping. That is what is going to keep Dubai going. That alone.
Dubai is a prime example of a society that in very short time (less than 3 generations), have amassed incredible wealth and opulence.......but not because of efficiency , proper planning, development and education, but because this bedouin society just happens to have a liquid resource under their feet they can tap into that the whole world depends on last several decades. Its like those lottery winners you hear about that splurge and blow their fortunes because they do not have the discipline and organization that comes with earning and building a Fortune 500 company or society
Dubai tried to turn green by planting as many trees as possible, however, the trees couldn't stand the heat of the desert and died out. I remember a geo professor telling us the way things are headed, especially with climate change and pollution the average temperatures in the middle east will rise to 65 degrees Celcius in the next 30-40 years. That will make this place uninhabitable.
You know a recession is serious when the Dubai government says "Yeah, maybe we shouldn't build that".
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I've been to Dubai many times and I'm regularly in contact with construction contractors who've been involved in the development of the city from the beginning. I remember having a fascinating conversation with an outstanding local engineer who was approaching retirement. We were eating lunch and looking out across Dubai Marina when I asked him about his work on the Princess Tower. He told me everything was going smoothly after a slew of initial issues and then paused in deep thought. I was about to ask him if he was ok when he looked back to me and said - "You do realise everything here exists on the knife-edge of destruction? Turn off the power or the cheap labour and mother nature will swallow everything within a year and return this place to a desert".
Having lived there for 6 years, he is right. The moment businesses leave the country, so will the people who move there for work, effectively leaving Dubai empty. The local population is only around 10% of all the people that live there, so you can imagine the amount of empty buildings that will be left behind.
That's rather dismal, ngl
I agree, and suspect that within 50 years it will stand abandoned and probably inundated by water as a fascinating, depressing monument to man's hubris, greed and short-sightedness. Hopefully we'll have learned a thing or two by then, certainly the rapidly changing climate may have taught us to be a little more humble and live conscientiously, though the pessimist in me somehow doubts it.
Jelously thinker will abandoned in the center of jungle...
Their bisnis always move on.. meanwhile sinistic view just want to see a failure....
Hopefully they become more stronger and more rich....👍🏽
but what about the big buildings ????????? 🥶🥵🥵🥵😶🌫😭😭😭😭😥😥😭😭😭😭😭😭😭🤬😭😭
I lived in Dubai for 5 years. The best description I heard is, 'It's a city designed by a 12 year old on SimCity... or the 21st century version of the game!'
The Palm Jumeriah, although a novelty and quite exciting to visit at the start, was soulless. They could have built what they built on land anywhere in the world. You don't get a sense of the design when on ground level, so what's the point. Go past the Atlantis Hotel at the top, and it's just hotels and building sites. You may get something from having your own private beach if you live on one of the Fronds, but the water is stagnant, very salty (therefore not very nice to swim in) and home to jellyfish. Not exactly paradise, and certainly not worth the millions people pay to live there.
I have never been anywhere near Dubai, but soulless is exactly what I thought at first. Here is the thing, the problem with these projects is that Dubai is trying to sell them as private property. Instead, this should be a tourism centre. For example, in "the world", they can literally open up entire city scapes that resemble precolonialisation world (with modern comforts ofcourse) to get a sense of being transported to the past and in a different culture of that region of the world. Everything from clothing, to food to architecture would be done as they did. How the food is served, what people did during the day etc. You book 3-4 nights stay on an island or multiple islands and experience living in say China in the Ming dynasty or celebrate celtic festivals during pre roman times or something. Literally live how the people lived ( I mean the best lives of the rich people or glorified lives of the peasants at the time). Even the entertainment is based on music and dance of that region, festivals they celebrate. Just a whole cultural experience. Like living in a fairy tale fantasy in an ancient setting in different cultures. It would be one of kind wonderful experience that people would keep coming back for. Not only would this make Dubai a tourism destination, but also a diplomatic one which Lets be honest Dubai needs a lot and is well positioned to handle as well. But that would require a lot of indepth research and commitment to handle with the sensitivity it needs.
with palm island, they should just convert it into a vegas like place. UAE was looking to allow gambling in certain parts, maybe that is what they would do. Then see Americans and Europeans flock there to lose money like crazy. I have personally never understood the point of gambling and why people like it so much, but hey, to each their own. They can build tube channels where people can learn diving and then dive in the channel while jellyfish swim round them. If the water is too salty make spas and stuff that use the saltiness of the water. Heck build one to give a dead sea experience
They can have other activities there too -host events, like host cricket games, WWE games, dunno other gymansttics tournaments, tennis tournaments etc on these islands. They can fore sure make money back out of them, they are not thinking in the right direction. Imagine olympics being hosted on smething like that. This aint gonna work as private property. Dubai certainly has the money and the knowhow to do stuff like this.
@@wrongturnVfor That sounds like an equally garish and soulless project.
@@donjuanmckenzie4897 it is problematic, but I dont agree that it is soulless. Plus this kind of thing will only work in these islands imo.
Property for the tasteless nouveau rich like the Trumps and for Russian kleptocrats/mobsters
@@barrybarnes96 Actually that is not what it is. See, what happens is OPEC sells oil in dollars. The amount of money they get back they have to do something with it. There is only so much they can use for development in their country ( I mean normal development). The rest they used to put in US treasury, which bolstered the dollar and there was a nice quid pro quo. But USA constantly trying to dictate to OPEC to pump more or less oil or changing oil supply chains depending on which latest war they were involved in or what they were doing with world economy really pissed them off. But what to do with this extra bunch of money. Apart from diversifying their holdings, they also started making these crazy projects. It has nothing to do with Trump or Russia. Russian oligarchs have most of their holdings in londograd and St Switzerberg. Now they are moving to Turkey. UAE is actually trying to attract american buyers. That is why they were considering making gambling legal for foreigners recently to make a vegas like attraction.
Coming from a "3rd world country" a lot of my countrymen who wants to earn more would try their luck in Dubai. What's sad is most don't really make much, are severely abused, and some come home in a casket. It's a dismal place full of abuse and lacking in soul. No matter how hard things got for me, nothing will convince me to try my luck there.
Yes stories like this are not as common when us Europeans go there for work people earn well and return afew years later but when Southern Hemisphere based migrants who go there have thier passports seized on arrival sometimes andbasically become slaves...it appears the emiratians feel more comfortable slavering them more then us to protect thier western image as they shift revenue to touristm over oil and sports wash now with the World Cup
@@Idur88 Qatar and UAE are not on best terms. Dubai is the west in the Middle East. Don't ever compare Qatar with Dubai. And just letting you know these countries are being run by western government most Arabs know that shit.
@@mohourani7792 is Qatar an by Arabs and the others westerners?
thats the arab world !! moreso the muslims than the coptic christians. i dealt with them when i was in egypt. ive had a muslim bf and male friends and i married a Christian over there who acted like he was a muslim. but after separation and divorce, we still send messages back and forth but nothing special. but living in those countries is depressing for the most part. american people dont have any idea how good we have it in our USA !
@@Idur88 bruh yall are europeans white skin everyone worships you I lived in saudi for 23 yers the way saudis respect us and the way they respect you theres a stark difference haha
The craziest part about these projects. Why would you do a reclamation, when the existing land is plentiful. They could have just cut the larger palm into the natural land with water channels, and you would still see it from space. Plus the infrastructure would have been much cheaper.
👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿 💡
The smartest comment on here!
Yeah but cutting channels into precious arable land and allowing salt water to inundate ... *D'oh!*
@@Veldtian1 The land isn't arable. It's desert.
@@Veldtian1 haha clown
I’ve actually visited the Palm Jumeirah a few times, and once you drive by the Atlantis Hotel there’s not much else to see besides another hotel and some residential complexes, and more projects under construction that have been in the works for years now. Given how much land the UAE has, it’s kinda disappointing that they didn’t use the billions of dollars to build better projects in the nation.
They sucked all the money into their Ferraris
Exactly this!
Yeah, you’d think they’d do something with all that desert they have instead of continuously making Dubai bigger
Well, they have money and slaves, so they can afford to waste it even if the project fails, and some twisted rich foreign immigrants maybe loving it.
Dude 🤦♀️
Dubai is the world capital of laundering money. 🤪
They lost nothing. Most of major real estate projects there are made to simply launder money.
They don’t have to actually build everything they announced. They just need to accept “deposits” from the families of middle eastern & African autocrats & Russian oligarchs then pay them back half of these deposit if the projects didn’t get built as planned 🤪
Imagine a sci fi story where explorers find enormous mysterious ruins with no discernable purpose but it turns out they were just badly-thought-out, abandoned vanity projects by billionaire aliens
Well, TBH, if you really want to find one, Halo's Precursors and Starcraft's Protoss does give this vibe, but the both of them are more of a Golden Age Legacy due to unforeseen disasters.
It's pretty insane that the started construction for all the projects nearly simultaneously.... If they had finished one, and analysed w what was needed, what worked, what the demand and return on investment were, they could have saved so much wastage.
Too much money
No taste
No culture
Slavery
No investment in the future of its workers
No wonder Trump was enamored...
Rich toxic kids that need to pay for friends, wives
This is what happenes when you have free oil money. Similar to qatar fifa world cup
Oil gdp in dubai is only 1%
there was a reason for this- its about marketing. they wanted them all to be completed by the mid 10s so they could "catch up" with the rest of the biggest capitals of the world, capitals that echo history and centuries of progress. dubai invested money in speed-running strats and projects to "put it on the map" when in reality, they were just digging themselves further in the sand.
The hubris behind this project is just so staggering. It's truly amazing how they didn't think it would be a good idea to try it out on a smaller scale before embarking on so many large projects all at once.
its the joy of watching slaves toil like some real life Squid Games.
The fool goes headlong into destruction...
I don’t look forward to global warming’s effects, but if this eco-travesty gets inundated, I’ll say at least one good thing happened.
~ Matthew 7:24-27
New International Version
The Wise and Foolish Builders
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
The Word of God is truth @@bonniemoerdyk9809
“Looks cool from above but from ground level it’s just not functional”. This statement describes the entire region. All shiny and glitzy from afar, but when examined closely it is a ecological and human rights disaster.
Dont you just love monarchy
Lol enjoy your capitalistic slavery
Except oman
The whole place looks like they were in creative mode and were like " ya this would look sick here right guys?"
It's just "instagrammable"
Having lived in UAE, and seen the development on the islands, it is like an abandoned, half built mall. It's soulless, and charmless.
Good description.
When i was a kid, Dubai seemed like a dream place to live in when you grow up, now you realise it's all bullshit and not actually made for people.
so like the rest of dubai?
They're going to have to get rid of that eye sore one day if they want to restore dignity to the city.
@@Cujo5 And any hope of some environmental restoration.
Dubai is obscene.
After staying in Dubai for a while I can tell from my perspective the biggest problem I had was the awful climate hot, dry and dusty. It’s like living in a fan oven.
You can't compare it to florida. its way worse to be at 90% humidity than 110 degree weather but 10% humidity
@@vlz.matthew florida? hahahhahhha
I love this failed project..wise guy.
@@vlz.matthew No. No it isn't.
ha ha can confirm
I reckon they built Dubai the wrong way around. Instead of building out, with new islands on the coast, they should have channelled the water in and created a load of salt water canals and lakes. The environmental damage would be minimal, since they would have created new water spaces, with new environments for the wildlife. Instead, they destroyed the environment that already existed, ruining the coastline. The entire island project was planned in haste, and had no foresight whatsoever.
From the start, I felt their plans were ridiculously ambitious, and doomed to fail. The current state of Dubai attests this. Seeing half built islands doesn't surprise me in the slightest, but does disgust me. Build one palm island, see the result. Build, or not, based on the success of the first. THEN build another. Don't count your chickens before they hatch has never been more poignant.
The market collapsing is a load of crap. It was a white elephant from the start because they are wanting to build a 21st century city, with a crappy infrastructure, and little thought to city planning, or public transportation. Ultimately, I reckon this project was not about the Dubai Royalty having a vision for the future because when you have a vision, you can actually see what lies ahead. An obscenely wealthy ego built Dubai. It shows.
and ego, has always ever been, the true downfall of men. Nicely said.
I agree with the points, but I think the premise was never about building a functional city or even establish a long-term plan for Dubai. With the kind of development that is being done, it suggests that all of it was built in service of getting short-term profit for construction companies, hotel chains, and the like, hoping it can become the next Cayman Islands or Singapore for the ultra rich. If it all goes badly, and I think it will in the next couple decades, those interests involved in that won't care because they've already got their cash.
@@Trekpanther I see your point. Even new cities, like Songdo in South Korea have experienced teething pains, in thanks to corrupt construction companies grossly overcharging for their services. If anything, it proves that corruption is ubiquitous. In essence, the corruption increases in hand with the size of the project. However, in Songdo's case, the project itself was given the planning and foresight it needed. As a result, despite the issue of dealing with corrupt construction companies eager to profit in the short term, ultimately the project itself ensures a secure future.
Whereas, in Dubai's case, none of the true vision involved in creating a totally green and state of the art city was considered. The baffling thing is, it's not as if Dubai didn't have the ability to create a project akin to Songdo. It's more that they simply weren't willing to apply this level of planning and foresight.
Look at the Burj Khalifa, for example. The tallest building in the world has no public sewer access, mainly because there is no citywide service in the first place. This means they must transport all of the building's sewerage, on a daily basis, by truck from septic tanks on site to a facility that can deal with it. Then there is the rubbish to deal with. Literally, there are convoys of trucks devoted to the task of getting rid of all the shit and garbage the building produces daily. How insane is that? The tallest building on the planet deals with sewerage and sanitation using a primitive inefficient system that is far from cost effective.
That fact alone speaks volumes about how poorly thought out the city is. Songdo, on the other hand, gave tremendous thought to infrastructure. The way they deal with rubbish demonstrates this perfectly. They have pioneered an ingenious system that sucks the rubbish into a network of underground pipes to waste processing centres, where it is sorted. Or, there are the interactive screens located everywhere in the city. The transport system has also been designed to give the vast majority of the inhabitants access to all their daily needs easy access and convenience, with the emphasis on short travel times. Effectively, the city works for the benefit of its residents and not against them, like in Dubai.
The appalling infrastructure of Dubai cuts the residents off from each other, like islands on the land. Since the car dominates the transportation system, it grossly fails to provide an open city for the people. Instead, it forces the city to exist separately, instead of existing as one. Mind you, I believe Dubai are attempting to solve this matter and there are plans to focus on tackling their shockingly poor public transportation network. In fact, they really have no choice but to do so, as ignoring some of these issues will inevitably turn it into a ghost town. Actually, a ghost city.
In my opinion, it's all too little, too late, or half-assed to begin with. Ultimately, the true lessen here is obvious. The success of a city heavily relies on its infrastructure. Songdo saw the sense in this, and planned accordingly. This has resulted in a city that looks good on the outside and is also efficient on the inside. Dubai just built a shell that looks good, but has nothing that reflects this on the inside. While Songdo has had similar issues to Dubai to begin with, at least once the construction was finished, it guaranteed an efficient, green city of the future.
It may not be perfect, especially since the concept of a totally green city has never been realised before. But, it's a damn good attempt at achieving its goal and will hopefully pave the way forward in the future. Perhaps Dubai will serve a purpose in the future as an example of what not do when planning a new city and the mistakes to avoid. On the other hand, Songdo will be a shining example.
Hope you don't mind reading the wall of words as much as I enjoy writing them. As a writer, it doesn't take long to compose, as type constantly from start to finish. But, typing fast and using many words doesn't count for much if nothing is said. So, I strive to avoid using empty words...
... 🤣🤣LMAO! It just hit me, I make sure my walls of words have a good infrastructure, like Songdo. If I wrote like Dubai, I wouldn't convey a single coherent thought. 🤣🤣🤣
@@RagnarNomad Thanks! If it's nicely said in your mind, then my words achieved their intended goal.
But, yes. The vast egos of countless assholes on the planet (and, in most of history) is probably one of the biggest problems humans face. This means the world would be a utopia if humanity could do one thing. Eliminate all the assholes. So, about 90-95% of all of humanity, by my estimation. 😜
Peace.
The only thing keeping Dubai alive, is tourism. That's it. More specifically, American tourism in hopes of money coming in for the projects.
Dubai is basically just one big glitzy but hollow showroom. Functionally speaking, the city is any decent city planners nightmare. I've had relatives there for 40+ years and every time I stay a couple of nights on a stopover to somewhere else, I can't wait to leave. Cant even stay a couple of nights without feeling that way. What a serious waste of resources and absolutely barren of culture and society.
I worked there for almost a yr in 2006.. and I was miserable, no heart no soul.
Labour laws are not followed I was mistreated by owners of a beauty parlour.. they made us sign contracts without reading them they wouldn't allow to read. Most girls don't know how to read.. I was sick once they just left me at the cheapest hospital all alone after work.
I cried
Ah man, you make it sound dreadful. My family lived there for 3 years and like our previous expat stay in Shanghai, we found all the local spots that made living there magical. It also helped that anywhere we went we were treated like celebrities. Our first day in Dubai we posted it on TH-cam and a Turkish news channel asked if they could showcase our video. 4 million views in 6 months and almost everyone recognized us. Some restaurants wouldn’t let us pay. I also surfed with some locals and went to amazing local events. That was the best! The food! So good! My son was born there! ✌🏼
@@f0t0b0y hi Osama
@@pulp3215 Salty much?
you are jealous, admit it
I've lived in Dubai and can vouch for this video. The whole city is on a knife edge. If you visit as a tourist you'll first notice the abundance of luxury hotels with no-one in them. If you go there to work you'll notice that no-one sees themselves staying there, they make their money and go. If you live there you'll notice how arrogant the locals are and think everyone else is vermin..The place isn't real, it's a fake city that is bleached dry in the sun and heat. There's no natural water, nothing grows there, there's no industry and there's no oil money left,... I guarantee this city will fail and eventually will be a dead zone. It's only a matter of time.
Seems like a bad government. It's a kingdom so makes sense.
All they needed to do was lay some seed capital to create schools to make home grown experts that they have to fly in anyway. Buy knowhow and own it. Force companies to manufacture in Dubai and get into partnership with a home brand, that's basically what Japan and China did to get enough knowhow.
Then copy Israel which is also a desert nation, and make nuclear desalination plants and create drip irrigation farms and nitrogen extraction for nutrients.
The resources are clearly there. But the rich people already have eveything they want so why would they invest in these systems
And THAT'S WHEN YOU KNOW AS FACT THAT BILLIONAIRE CLASS WITH ACCESS TO REAL DATA KNOW THERE IS NOT GOING TO BE A SEA LEVEL RISE. propaganda is for the sheep
lol
Soulless and vulgar. Only one's left will be Instagram models and cockroaches.
Good for rich introverts
I lived in Dubai, so was my family. Nakheel was renowned for building rubbish and abandoned it eventually, the place were I live, international city was own by Nakheel, and by just going through the main gate, you’ll see two ongoing constructions that was stopped due to pandemic until now. As my mom commented “these are the doorkeepers Nakheel sent to us”. 😂
Yes, there was a famous one - may have been affiliated with Jebel Ali - they lied and 2 Australians were put in prison for years. Emaar and Meraas are the 2 legit, big RE firms.
We can't even imagine all the effects and devastation by those island projects on coastal & marine ecosystems and what was permanently lost under them.
That makes me think what’s even out there 🤔
They actually destroyed a lot of coral
They had plenty of land in the, you know desert... To build these islands and fill the gaps with water.
But instead destroy hectares of coral reef, dredging to make land.
Money can't buy intelligence 🤦
@@adamholmes91 yeah i mean the tallest skyscraper in Dubai doesn't have plumbing that trucks need to suck the sewage out of the building and take them to sewage treatment centers.
@@jav05 The whole place disgusts me, so many poor 3rd world slaves behind the scenes.
Fooled into going there "for free" to work, only to be charged unrealistic interest on their travel and accommodation, forced to work for free and ultimately suicide. 😢
2008 brought the entire world back to their senses. This project reminds me of the Crystal Cruise line debacle. A good idea originally, that morphed into a zillion “good ideas” and ended up being an absolutely ridiculous, enormously overpriced mega disaster, with no accounting for any kind of unforeseen circumstances…. I can’t even fathom buying property on a sand mound blown in from somewhere while clearly seeing the effects of climate change all over the planet. What a waste of time, money, materials and ecosystems.
Agreed. It's a stupidly ambitious and tone deaf project that would be more at home in the excesses of the 80s than now.
Dude 🤦♀️
Dubai is the world capital of laundering money. 🤪
They lost nothing. Most of major real estate projects there are made to simply launder money.
They don’t have to actually build everything they announced. They just need to accept “deposits” from the families of middle eastern & African autocrats & Russian oligarchs then pay them back half of these deposit if the projects didn’t get built as planned 🤪
2022 will be a repeat
And what about when the earthquake hits and every bit of land that isn't supported on solid rock is now under water... Christchurch, NZ, had pools of water form due to an earthquake ... the land subsided in parks, in private home blocks, even in the middle of roads, and its not even reclaimed from the sea. Its just that sediments accumulated there naturally. There may be other things at Christchurch, but clearly sand in the sea is much more prone to the problem than the land at Christchurch.
this was never a good idea.
I went to Dubai in June 2021 on business. I found it very depressing and oppressive. All workers are from 'poor' countries and live in terrible conditions and stress. Not an enjoyable trip.
It makes one wonder how much worse these immigrant workers have it in their home country.
Wonderful Islam; the religion of pieces -
Since graduating high school, half the people I attended with, along with cousins and relatives have gone to Dubai for work, even my closest cousin right now is preparing to move there for a new job. Everyone goes there for work in hotels and businesses
@@shi.survives.somehow yeah. I know a lot of Africans and South-East Asians find work there. It’s seasonal for them. It also sucks cuz a lot of illegal human trafficking is involved in the businesses as well.
@@shi.survives.somehow true there were mostly Indians and Nigerians at the hotels. They told us that they keep their heads down and please give them good reviews. Really nice guys.
Digusting how much sea life and coral has been decimated only for the islands to be mostly abandoned
I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s mostly just sand sitting under 5-30 feet of water. The dredging wouldn’t work so well otherwise
they literally just live in the water around the new islands. if an animal sees a big thing going down to dig obviously it will move and not die, this is why the fronds are full of jellyfish
@@vlz.matthew Because famously the only things that live underwater are motile animals, there's no such thing as plants, corals or sponges.
No matter how fancy or high up the condo you purchase is, when you look out the window it still looks like you live in a construction zone with all that surrounding sand..
One thing about the Palm Jumeirah that was overlooked was that the barrier island originally was supposed to be a solid arc meant to prevent ocean waves from impacting the inner palm island and eroding them. The problem was this immediately led to a great deal of stagnation of water and algal growth at the top section of the palm, which is not very appealing from a visual and smell point of view. Hence, they had to cut the various channels in the sides of the arc limiting its effects as a breakwater. This really made people question just how much work went into any feasibility studies wondering if they were more "how much will it cost" rather than what are any potential problems or will it even be worth it.
Such a trash vanity project and I have no sympathy for the rich people left high and dry over it because rich people fucked up the entire world financial market. I am completely gutted however for the billions of normal peopled who the 2008 financial crash fucked over and the massive ecological damage this thing has no doubt caused.
Algae is a great provider of photosynthesis though, several times moreso than trees....they might've just fallen ass-backwards into a tactic for reducing climate change.
I'm pretty sure no feasibility studies were done and if they were, I'm absolutely certain that the developers probably said "okay, cool" and dismissed them altogether.
What's even worse is that these projects (Jumeirah, The World) have 'inspired' many copycat projects in other countries, often leading to the destruction of shorelines & habitats, and the displacement of local people who live in the area & make their living from coastal fishing or agriculture. Further compounding the problem is that sand & soil are dredged from inland areas for the land reclaimation. And the final insult? Many of these projects end up mostly unoccupied... used as holiday homes for the jet-set or as investment properties for the global elite to park their wealth.
@@izzyj.1079 Which is why they said, "Well, we're not going to promote an oil free society, so we better not build this. It will go under water anyway." If your the one shitting in the woods, you know where not to walk.
@@NobleOmnicide Yeah, 'feasability' in Dubai at the time these projects were approved was just a simple matter of ensuring the right people were paid adequately.
Been to Dubai more than a dozen times, never invested there. I always believed it would be a ghost town in my lifetime. The whole system works off slavery and fleeting wealth.
If you think it is slavery in Dubai, just visit the home countries and look at what people earn there.
@@m.3257 I have been in 19 different countries, yes I have seen abject poverty and starvation. But, that is still no excuse for exploitation of the poor.
@@donaldmartin4980 It is no excuse and exploitation should be stopped but all people focus on Dubai while they completely negate the mess in many countries. Poverty and starvation are largely based on a corrupt and dumb elite who most people voted for. Dubai would still be a small and poor city in the desert if it wasn't for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Exploitation is still present in nearly all countries where low wage workers come to Dubai. However, despite the exploitation these countries are still poor.
@@m.3257 And why exactly does that matter?
@@m.3257 garbage mentality. I hope you are not muslim.
I remember seeing these getting built while in the city for a military exercise and also the amount of money being thrown around for everything from Luxury Auto Shops to the indoor Ski slope. It was nuts!
Commercial Real Estate guy here - this was one of your best 👌some developers dont mind running wild with other people's money. Naive visionaries with oversized egos and narcissistic motives. This one takes the cake.
That, and the boom in new real estate projects that keep on popping up every single year. Just another Evergrande in the making.
Speaking of ‘oversized egos and narcissists’ I’m curious if trump invested in any of this bullshit…
@@dr.OgataSerizawa Really, curious?
Agree.
Well said! I am also here to learn how to invest after listening to a lady on tv talk about the importance of investing and how she made 7 figure in 3 month, somehow the video taught me nothing and left me even more confused, I'm a newbie and I'm open to ideas on how to invest for retirement
Seriously, this guy needs his own documentary series about abandoned retail and cancelled projects. Keep up the good work Jake!
He's better off on TH-cam
He has that, right here on TH-cam. Sure, Netflix or Prime, or Hulu or whatever Tv network could pick it up, and he could gain viewers and profit... but he would also very likely lose his creative freedom. It really depends what he wants to do. Personally I think most of these show that start on youtube are best kept here, because once you give yourself over to the networks and commercialize it, its not really the same show anymore.
You do realise not only there’s are plenty out there doing that subject (you do know how to search do you?); this video itself is produced by a content farm. Not one guy with a iPhone 12.
@@Bobby-rq5pe truth. being on "TV" hardly means anything now that everyone is watching TH-cam instead.
this guy has a own documentary series on cancelled and abandoned projects ao retail
When you’re driving out to the palm you have no sense of the cool shape of the island. When you’re in your house it’s too hot to go outside. You look out the window and see everyone else’s house across the way, and are aware of your neighbors smack next to you on each side. If you do venture into the water it’s not refreshing, and sometimes has a smell. Why would a rich person invest in something so confining and transitory?
As a way to hide money from the tax man, not to live there. Possibly also to sell it at a slight profit to the next tax evading millionaire who never plans to live there either.
@@Codraroll oh yeah good answer. I would visit my mother in Sarasota and we would take the boat trip around the bay and there were hundreds of gorgeous houses on the water, never saw one person outside enjoying the beauty or the water. I always thought what a waste of wonderful real estate, the owners could at least rent them out or arrange to have some city children enjoy the day there.
They have more money than sense, like these oil sheiks.
Nicely stated.
money laundering
The world islands are my absolute favorite. It's just so cute. They look exactly like the kind of cockamamie idea I'd have as a kid. "What if like, everyone lived on their own little island, and we swam to our neighbors' house and took a boat to buy groceries"
The continents themselves also look like they were drawn by a child.
Kind fitting then that the entire project had the foresight of a blind toddler with schizophrenia.
Haha this is the best description
I had no idea about these projects! Dubai as a whole doesn't appeal to me because of the class disparity; it's all fake and manufactured "luxury." I think the Palms project shows exactly how out of touch these people are.
Fun fact: the Burj Khalifa doesn’t even have a working sewer system and the palm islands will probably sink underwater in less than 20 years because they had the genius idea of using very compressible sand to build them, but then again the whole city will probably be underwater soon due to sea level rise
Other people call it art, where money isn’t a barrier to one’s creativeness
Agreed.
@@ultra-nationalistodst8085 yea just like Miami, can’t wait to be living closer to a reef soon.
Not to mention all of Dubai is built by modern slavery with many Indians immigrating to the Emirates to earn money for there families only to be kicked out after there work is done and left with nothing but the clothes on there back.
Bruh, building on sand is already very difficult when it's in the continent, imagine when it's on a pile of sand you threw by the beach just because you happened to be sitting on a ton of money. There's also the ongoing problems the Netherlands have with their land reclamation projects (which are more than piles of sands they just threw about) and the problems Italy's been facing to keep Venice from sinking (same thing). It wouldn't surprise me to discover these projects were idealised by someone who knew very well that they would fail and just wanted to get free money from someone very rich and very dumb.
We would sit and watch them building the first palm, on our week-ends off, and laugh at the fact that anyone would be stupid enough to think it would work.
@@donaldmulrooney942 don't you just love nepotism the down full of the roman empire
That exactly is the UAE.
Rich kids who don't know what to spend their money on. Or people who just one the lottery and waste it all on shit.
The phrase that came to my mind as I watched the video was that old cliche: "More money than sense." After that, "A fool and his money are soon parted." And then the parable about building your house on sand ... For millennia, vainglorious rich and powerful people have been trying to build lasting monuments to their wealth and power, and nature--or other people--have been thwarting them. And the world is filled with the remains of ancient civilizations where the degradation of the environment and/or climate change meant the site had to be abandoned. This Dubai debacle is the latest and won't be the last.
@@hmrdev-billnye8166 you Americans made them very rich very quickly.
It would possibly be a better idea to spend billions on huge desalination plants, pump the water inland and re-populate the desert with vegetation to make it fertile and useable again. Not to mention a source of carbon capture to offset all that oil.
@Karl with a K Ohhh get you!
nah, lets sandcastles shaped like palm trees and the globe in the ocean instead. What can possibly go wrong with sandcastle islands?
That's exactly what Israel has done. Works for them.
Yes, terraform part of the desert into jungle with wild animals and everything. That would also become a popular tourist spot.
_It's a desert for a reason._ The evaporation will always be insane, just how much energy are you willing to waste pumping water to a desert?
Nice video. But I do feel they neglected to mention how the water around these islands quickly became near stagnant. Which means they aren’t good for suitable for swimming and are breeding ground for insect larvae.
Dubai is a city that perfectly showcases everything wrong about modern humanity.
I'm glad America isn't compared to Dubai, shows how bad Dubai really is.
capitalism
@@goddammitboi but it's a possible future though, you got to admit
Obscene waste of resources, given the poverty that exist both in Dubai and the rest of the world.
this isnt specific to modern humanity. past humanity was just as shit, just didnt have the technology. the human species is shit, by nature.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Wow I was also going to post this, lol it really is fitting huh
This poem always comes to mind when I think of Dubai and the Palm Islands.
Where is this from??
@@richardcarroll9864 Percy Shelley poem
@@richardcarroll9864 "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
I visited Dubai 3 times in 2007 while in the Navy. These construction plans were all over the city as a way to show off to foreigners what they were doing in Dubai. But it was crazy to see the duality of Dubai with the massive buildings and rich stuff compared to the poor all around.
It's a monument to slavery and waste.
Well no shit every city has the poor the rich and the ones in the middle, but uae majorly is middle class
@@Tolpuddle581 the city is still very young it built so much in half a lifetime like someone who was born in 1970's just saw it from a desert and now he's in his 40's and she's an entire city with buildings, it's still a young city what do you mean?
@@chairforce664 The *vast* majority of workers in the UAE are migrant workers from the east- Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and so on. They live in tiny workers barracks, get paid a handful of dollars for 10-12 a day of hard labor, can own *zero* property in the UAE, and their entire health and safety is dictated by their employer- there are no state measures to protect migrant workers. In the UAE, you can find weekly cases of sexual assault, beatings, and outright murder of UAE workers by the wealthy elites. There is no middle class in Dubai. The only middle class is transient- foreign workers from the West, engineers and accountants and bankers, who get seduced to spend 5-10 years in Dubai. But once again- they can own no property in the UAE. The UAE has no middle class- there is the ruling elite, their friends and family, and then there is everyone else.
@@Shamino1 that was used by private companies and is illegal now, you're talking about something from 8+ years ago
Quite soon into the project there were major concerns. If lay people like us viewers (well, like me) can acknowledge that one does not build upon sand, surely there is a greater force (greed?) driving the ridiculous, improbable plans. I would not live there even if I were give a 'beach front' property.
It's not that different from the "tallest building in the world" contests - it's just dick measuring and showing off how rich the person/city/etc are. And every time one of these massive money-wasting projects happens, there's a major recession or depression. Rich ppl having enough money to throw at these kinds of projects is a sign that our economy is massively lopsided and about to crash.
There’s a metric for recessions called the Sky Scraper index. It often signals the end of a boom.
Would be nice if the narrative changed from humans desiring to be rich and worshipping the rich to humans just flat out rejecting wealth and finally admitting its a synthetic concept that is a construct of humans and nothing more and we dont need it at all.
One day maybe, but no, humans are trash and need wealth to impose pyschological warfare on other humans.
“…And you will see barefoot naked poor shepherds/Bedouins vying with one another in the construction of buildings…”
Wow. I remember hearing about the construction, but never realized the scale. Awesome video Jake!
The environmental destruction was legendary
A great big sign to future Alien visitors from space that says "we were here"?
@@OffendingTheOffendable "was"? you mean "is" :(
@@homeplanet365 Seen Adam Something and his video on Dubai?
How is your comment 6 days older than this video?
I remember first seeing the plan for these islands on a 2003 episode of Globe Trekker. On the episode Megan McCormick went to Dubai and was shown a slick sales presentation for the project. Years later I saw a documentary about the finished near-completed island and supposedly much of the construction work on the homes was extremely slipshod and buyers were less than pleased.
I hadn't thought of Globe Trekker in years..... I used to watch it regularly and remember one particular episode filmed in Libya quite well.
"Shipshod." Great word, used most appropriately here.
buyer beware lol... fuckin rich cu*ts got what they deserve
people don't understand that for the super rich real estate is more about a 'bank' for their value, than about vibrant communities. In that sense its been successful
The issue is ..sand is a poor investment.
The other issue is the super rich have never been about creating communities. It’s about gated communities with poor community ammenities. I lived there for 5 years. Even today there is no proper sewerage in buildings. Some buildings this is pumped into trucks and in some cases sprayed in the desert. I have seen this.
@@kiwiadventures3773 briefly ive lived there for about 12 years on and off. What you have is a country rapidly developing to impressive levels but opportunities are hard to hear about if you dont speak arabic
The fact that the Palm Island was designed so that the water within its confines would be stagnant speaks volumes about their disregard of sustainability, hygiene, the environment, their customers, their workforce and their sheer greed. I'd hate to live there, and hope that nature reclaims the whole presumptuous mess quickly.
Wait. Those islands could be room to grow productive mangroves that would be highly beneficial to the environment.
I love your comment the most.
@@SS-yj2le I noticed in the footage there are some already taking hold, it will be interesting to see what happens.
Exactly what I thought back when I first saw the plans for this. Was confused because "standing water + intense heat = very bad and not at all nice swamp" is common knowledge i.e. not even something that would require specialized/higher education. I assumed at the time that they would have some kind of hidden underwater circulation system but was wrong.
@@SS-yj2le You need the right amount and type of water, soil and plant life for that to work. Nothing they’ve done there was given much afterthought…well other than how much money some folks thought they’d make…🤨
About 14 years ago I had a Geography Professor telling us about how cool these projects were. At 21, all I could think was "gee, this looks hinky." Now I know why.
Absolutely right. I keep wondering wasn’t there anyone willing to stand up and say this whole thing is ridiculous?
@@map3384 It makes me think of all of Trump's history of failed businesses that I feel was mostly fed by him being surrounded by yes-men/women who would run with any of his stupid ideas as all they probably really cared about is drawing a pay cheque.
@@ashakydd1 Trump wasn’t a failure. Biden’s a failure.
@@map3384 u think people didn't dare? I think nobody in future would dare.
Nobody wants to kidnapped.
@@ashakydd1 If you pay close attention, you'll notice that Trump's only investment in these failures is his name. He gets paid for his prestige and someone else ends up eating the loss when things go south.
Also, don't be so sure that the yes men actually get a paycheck. Trump is infamous for endlessly dragging the goal posts on payday and letting the sunk cost fallacy do the rest.
The moment I saw the design for the first palm project I thought, "they're going to build the biggest money pit the world has ever seen. I hope they at least get the islands msde so we can watch them slowly sink in the coming decades."
I mean why invest in developing farm land, infrastructure or building wells for the less fortunate people to have access to clean water, food and basic housing… When you can throw money into the bottomless pit of more luxuries than the rich and famous know what to do with. 🙄
Hard to believe the fishing village that was Dubai only became worth looking at in the mid to late 60's with the discovery of oil. I have a "Guide to Dubai" published by Conoco for prospective employees from that era with a map showing about a dozen roads, none of which had traffic lights, and an airport. There were two "modern" hotels, the Al Maktoum Hospital only had 100 beds, there was one (Western) Doctor and one Dentist in Dubai and no TV apart from 3 to 4 months a year (when conditions permitted a signal) from Dhahran and Kuwait. I visited a couple of times recently and it's amazing what the black stuff has done. The scale of Palm Jumeirah is impressive from space but on the ground it's pretty crowded.
I love Dubaï
@@QarsherskiyEducation I can't stand the place. First visited it 26 years ago and it's not improved.
I met the engineer who kicked this project off way back 81 . Needless to say he was Dutch and a expert in dredging . We were in Bharain Airport lounge . I remember his shoes had a hole in them when he put them up on the seat as he complained about the tax law in Holland. He was living in Australia he said and had earned 8 million dollars at this time. His complaint was that he could never go home because of the crazy dutch tax system. No matter how long you are away from there you are taxed almost half of your eanings when you return. He was in a quandary. He said he was going to reclaim all the beach areas at the front as that area was the most expensive. It was greed nothing else coz he was going to cut out those already there at first. He didn,t have time to get his shoes mended . He was making that much money. He asked me if I wanted to work there but I was on my way home from Saudi and had enough. I wonder how he ended up. Did he get enough for a new pair of shoes.
@@frankmclean5816 Maybe he did. 👞
And it will return the the desolation it once was, when the oil runs out. They're a one trick pony.
I'm surprised you never brought it up but in addition to the financial/coastal life failures was an enormous failure in the treatment of the work force used to construct all this. To call it inhumane would be a massive understatement. I think you did this subject matter a disservice by omitting that side of the story entirely.
Modern slavery perpetrated on some of the poorest people in the world.
EXACTLY
In India .. we heard of that aspect
There was a documentary 5 or 10 yrs ago about how abused and mistreated was the labor force that was mostly composed of illegals immigrating from India and South East Asia. The abuses came from the contractors and sometimes their own people. The cruelty of humans when they see "need" is horrific.
So true
I remember watching Discovery Channel specials on the building of the first Palm, really celebrating the engineering and scale of the project. I thought then, "What a Colossal, Colossal, waste of money, time, resources, and the environment." It serves as yet another reminder of how we need to reduce our dependence upon oil and gas (This was all built using oil wealth... and slave labour).
What a tourist nightmare Dubai is. Can't even hold hands in public, yeah sounds like a really great place to visit.
Another case study for graduate business marketing courses: what happens to a real estate development when the developers forget to ask, *"Would anyone **_want_** to live here?"*
I was in Dubai a lot on business from 2003 to 2006 whilst the first of these monstrosities was taking shape. Sailing off the beach in the open sea first became sailing in a lagoon, then it became sailing in a building site. UGH! The pleasant 6-story beach-front hotel was first in beautiful isolation, then surrounded by building sites, then overshadowed by monstrous towers of apartments. UGH! From open roads came congestion, traffic jams and long travel times in the baking heat. To me, these projects are an ego trip to outrageous fortune, for those with far more money than sense, and have ended up looking like a really bad, half-finished tattoo. Dry sand slips through your fingers and leaves you with nothing. If you have so much money that you can afford to blow a load of it on a folly then I guess Dubai provides a prime example of what it might look like.
You're not even Arab. You're part of the problem, leave Dubaï.
You have to wonder what happens when the oil economy one day crashes.
@@stevencooke6451 Bahariterra happens
@@stevencooke6451 that's why they were creating 8th wonder for the world to come and visit and they might have a tourism hub to talk about but this was a rushed plan.
Folly Indeed!
I‘ve been to Dubai a few times. Saw the unfinished world islands and Deira palm from the plane, and even got very close to the abandoned Jebel Ali palm with tons of leftover foundations and build sites. The history of these projects is incredibly interesting, so I’m very glad they’re getting some more attention. Great video!
Dubai is literally what a child's first Sims game looks like. So many unfinished weird looking lots
I think this project could've worked out much better if the developers paced themselves a bit more and just did the islands one at a time and wait until they knew it was sustainable.
None of this is sustainable. Not one single aspect.
@@CastorRabbit yeah, maybe 30 or 40 years ago the hubris would be exusable. There's no place for shallow, squishy islands in the world as it is.
No one involved gave a shit if it was sustainable to begin with…….just middle eastern oil barons/warlords who have enough money that they can “invest” a billion dollars into a nonsense project that they couldn’t be bothered to think about for even a minute
Not how monarchies operate.
@@phoenix5054 Why? Monarchies aren't defined by a specific style of urban planning...it has nothing to do with that. They might decide what they want built and where but nothing about a monarchy says they will build it in a certain way.
You know what the joke is... when they wanted this and procured our dutch services to build it, we warned them it was a bad idea both on general economics and because of erosion as the location is fairly bad for reclaimed islands especially with maximized coastline
Gewoon poen vangen en door!
Should have gouged til the guts fell out of it.
and earthquake proofing sand dumped into water ??
who are "we"?
they have to be the biggest clowns in history , unlimited budget , top engineers , sewage gets trucked out . LOL LOL LOL LOL imagine buying realestae there , honey what is that line of trucks , taxi driver chimes in ... they are the trucks with the cities sewage ..... TURN AROUND PLEASE !!!!!!!
Dubai has always been a bit of a joke. Oh the folly of the fleeting wealth! When your tiny nation is essentially just a barren oil reserve, you are living in a house of sticks. Let's not even begin to examine the insane wealth gap between the elites and the starving masses (mostly imported workers from Nepal, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, etc...)
Completely wrong
@@baderhabib6606 -
So what is the real story?
Only a commie babbles about 'wealth gap'. They just hate the rich.
@@ainaaipa5810 it’s all
Just completely wrong everything he said
@@ainaaipa5810 guess we won’t get the ‘real story’
1998 was my first business trip to Dubai. It was small, exotic and low rise. 10 years later it was like “Sim City”. Nothing was the same and it was impossible to understand the vision,
Much less the economics behind the many billions spent.
Dubai has an enormous desalination plant. Burning gas and oil to make potable water. The highly salinated waste water pumped back into the sea is like bleach on the aquatic ecosystem. Ranging out many nautical miles.
For a fraction of the spend on those islands Dubai could have created the worlds largest solar powered desalination plant as well as generation of electricity. It could have re-greened a lot of the unused lands away from the coast.
Most people don't know that Abu Dhabi has waaaaay more oil money. Dubai is just a free trade port, a few very poor oil fields and a giant smoke and mirrors real estate hype. You've got to give it to them on how long they kept up the hype. After the GFC, Abu Dhabi bought everything of worth.
When kids comment...
@@michaelc3977 what?
Abu Dhabi is essentially Dubai's bank.
Abu Dhabi had to step in when they ran out of money building Burj Khalifa.
With Palm Jebel Ali, they were actually doing to build a whole SeaWorld resort at the crown of the island, had a full announcement at SeaWorld Orlando. The crown island would have been reformed to be in the shape of an Orca and would have had a SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Aquatica and Discovery Cove. Of course it was cancelled but you can find some concept art online of it, as well as the fact that SeaWorld restarted the park plans, this time an hour down the road in Abu Dhabi where its opening next year.
Money over ethics every time for them.
Thank God all the sea creatures were saved from that horror. Sea world is disgusting & once all the children grow up & learn the truth they stop going.
Which is why the truth is so hidden, they need new blood every year through ignorance
The abandoned nearly-finished developments are honestly cooler than the finished one. There's something so spellbinding about a huge empty island in the shape of a palm leaf or the world, they almost remind me of the nazca lines
Imagine Aliens coming across it after we’re all dead
@@pocketmarcy6990 ... or archaeologists from the future! Hmmm, I wonder if the Nazca lines were some sort of indigenous people's cancelled megaproject.
@@benjaminrobinson3842 I’d say they were some indigenous people’s completed mega project…. They don’t look incomplete to me.
Yea, reminds of that Ozymandias Poem. "Nothing remains of that colossal wreck, The lone and Level sands stretch far away"
Only thing it reminds me of is how stupid humans really are..
"Insane concepts, cities build on the water!! Man-made land reclamation" The Netherlands : "Erm... yeah we've been doing that for a couple of centuries". The largest artifical island is in The Netherland by the way: The Flevopolder, 970 km2, finished in 1969. Its largest city is Almere with 200.000 residents out of the 400.000 on the entire island. So these projects in Dubai were never really that special or unique to begin with, thats just PR stuff.
I lived on the palm jumairah for 9 years and apart from Atlantis the “Shorlines” and the small villas in the center called “Golden Mile” there is absolutely nothing to do just a bunch on projects never finished or that have been worked on since we first moved in 2010.
The worst thing is that even 14 years later the effects of the 2008 crash are apparent. For example the Dubai Pearl or the Dubai tram station hotel after 14 years of traffic blocks and “coming soon signs”
Nothing was even close to complication.
I Remember just before we left in 2019 a massive mall was built in the center of the jumairah. It took em 12 years. Some of my friends told me the entire mall is fostered with like 8 people. Cuz of people need to go to the mall they will go to Dubai Mall or Emirates mall (The largest in the world)
From someone who lived in Dubai for a substantial time I can confidently say. In a nutshell Dubai is what you call a feature creep a way to ambitious project that struggles to maintain or finish what they started.
I would love to come back out of pure nostalgia but nothing else.
Dubai knows how to build tall but has zero concept of creating vital cityscapes. Nobody walks in Dubai so street level interest is entirely neglected. When I watch street level touring of Dubai it greatly disappoints unlike the drone views of the Jetson skyline. On the ground you see lots of parking garages. You know something is wrong when the main street in town is a freeway. You also look at Dubai from a map and you realize that much of the development is random with little planning. It is a shame as with the money they had they could have created wonderful well thought out cities like korea has so beautifully done.
We have created some wonderful new towns with parks and town centers here in Seattle suburbs so I have seen how it can be done.
Nakheel mall on the palm is fully built now and is actually a very nice mall. Seems to be quite popular too. The area around it is somewhat walkable too
If you wanna live in Palm J or Marina, better speak Russian 🫶 My real estate broker, weekly dates, business partners are all Ruski.
@@satyakammisra Exactly right. For a Russian, the year 2019 was probably the worse time to move out of the Emirates. Lots os Russians are flocking to the UAE now to buy properties (August 2022). Much lower chance of greedy, hypocritical Western governments seizing stuff in the UAE.
As soon as we saw what was the buzz was about, we took note but as soon as we saw sand, we men knew it was basic physics or whatever and knew it was a a boat already sinking. But unlike those who spent, to waste,over 10 years in dubai, we did not spent 10 years in dubai and never will.
I only came to see to confirm our suspicion and we were correct, now no more coming back here.
Imagine if it had become fully realised with the estimated populations.... imagine the sewerage problems in the canals.
not to mention with poor hydrography planning, the sewage residence time. im not an expert, but the palm islands creating an inversed semi-closed water bay is definitely a red flag for a high water resident time.
if there were deep sewage problems it would be all over the news and it hasnt
This was just insane. If they had started with only the one project, and then done impact studies as they built it out, then it may have been at least understandable. Starting all the projects at once, was just "Bat$hit CRazy".
That's the Dubai way..
I was thinking the same thing. I just saw a YT video building homes in the middle of a subdivision in Colorado and in / on Vancouver Island building floating homes they transport to the marina. Factory built homes that are then secured to a foundation. Sort of.
I think they were hoping to sell them before the faults showed up.
@Karl with a K so, how much did you invest?...
I lived in Dubai for a year. The best description I heard of the city is “Dubai is like your friends rich parents house that no one wants to be at”.
I remember watching the documentary specials on National Geographic. It seemed really cool, but being an adult now I can see why it wasn’t such a grand idea.
You didn't have to be an engineer or in space to see this outcome from the get go. This only works and can be sustained in video games.
You mean all those cities I drew up on Sim City aren't realistic? Say it ain't so!
I think the "homes" are essentially ways to park and transfer value for people who are wealthy and who want to avoid scrutiny and restrictions in their home country. Think oligarchs, heads of crime syndicates, petty dictators, and other types that you'd love to have as your neighbor.
You are very correct. Many empty & what initially look like abandoned villas on the Palm...all with dubious reasons why they are empty & who owns them...
What do wealthy Russians know that woke American communists don't know? Safety, security, zero taxes, no wokeness, no communists, no socialists. I mean, in NYC, you'r forced to fly in your helicopter to your super-skinny skyscraper on Billionaire's Row, owned through a dozen nested shell companies! And they're so skinny they don't even have helipads, and the NYC streets are owned by wokeness, socialists and communists, so no one goes to those properties. The party is in Dubai, and the party in Dubai never stops.
Good point…great tax write-off.
I’d love you to do a video on cancelled Dubai theme parks. One I heard years again was a reclaimed island but as part of it was going to a Killer Whale shaped island that would’ve had SeaWorld, legoland and a few other things
I lived in an apartment on the 'main artery' of Palm Jumeirah on 2008-2009. The entertainment all around was amazing: walking in any direction for about 100m metres you would find 7-star pool club amenities, together with sport-bars/pubs, coffee shops, gyms, spas, a variety of restaurants etc. I remember walking from Al Anbara (the apartment name) across the road to another block of apartments where I spent my weekends during the summer in cooled-down swimming pools and afterwards finished the day in the gym. Sounds like bliss. But it was not. My eyes opened when I was swimming in the 'ocean' (the pool club's beach) and all around us we saw HUMAN FAECES floating in the water. It was everywhere. I wanted to hurl on the spot. We were out of the water in seconds and have been disgusted by that experience ever since. Also, despite viewing truck after truck arriving on the Palm Jumeriah around 2am every single morning to remove the human excrement (the hotels and apartments apparently have nowhere to take it due to no piping etc., the excrement is stored in huge tanks below the buildings and need to be emptied daily), the turds continue to remain everywhere in the ocean water, and I never got to swim in 'paradise' again.
dayum! it sounds like their island paradise turned to shit.
One wonders how they were able to figure out water and sewer lines. I guess not!
@@MurakamiTenshi Guess not, so much for a country with all the money in the world and they couldn't even get the basics right!
Lots of money for people that never had to lift a finger to 'earn' it doesn't really lead to well educated people. Just people with more money than taste.
@Michael Smith All of us did the right thing: We got a one-way ticket out of the turd-filtrated superficial-bling culture that some people just seem to love. Thanks, but no thanks, Dubai is not for me.
So gross to ruin the ecology of the ocean for naught.
Was anything even there? Im genuinely wondering it might just be flat sand for a while or it could be a shit ton of stuff, anyone know?
@@notyouraverageyoutuber3172 I agree. It's too hot in there in summer. I don't think marine life can ever survive in that hostile environment.
What ocean?
Dubai is an Ozymandian nightmare that is little more than a vanity project for a handful of people with far, far more money than they have any business having. Its urban planning is horrific, its sustainability is highly questionable at best, and its economy and infrastructure is built off of imported and heavily exported foreign laborers (to such an extent that most of the people living there aren't even citizens).
The predictable utter failure of the most obvious vanity projects--the palm islands, the "world islands", the giant skyscraper that was never even remotely necessary given that they had tons of space in the middle of the *desert*, and a massively car-dependent city plan that is horrible EVEN THEN. In a few decades--maybe 50 years--the city will be a mess in decline with so many fundamental problems that most of the city will be salvageable.
This city won't exist in 50 years. Oil wells don't just run dry in this part of the world. There will be a a civil war or some shit first which will level most of these buildings
What you got against the urban planning?
@@Labyrinth6000 It's US cities but worse. There is plenty to go against on their urban 'planning' if you can even believe they planned ahead.
@@amentco8445 nope, as an American, I don’t want to live next door connected to a restaurant or some store that will be noise most of the day. I love my subdivisions. You can go ahead and live near one if you like that.
@@Labyrinth6000 Everything about your comment is dumb. Like, we don’t care if you like your quiet subdivisions, you can live that way, it’s just not sustainable planning for lots of people, and we shouldn’t be doing it for the majority of the city. Car-dependency will get a city barely anywhere. There are other people than just the upper class who want housing and the ability to go to work without a 2-ton vehicle in Dubai, America, everywhere.
They're gonna find this in the future and be like BUT WHAT DOES IT MEEEEEAN?!
Its mindblowing how people can just get together and build massive objects like this.
Spending billions on *DIRT* .....
Yeah all the slaves got together and worked happily ever after.
By “get together” you mean tricking people into coming into Dubai for a better life and then taking their passports so they are stuck there forever and essentially making them slaves. Truly mind blowing.
You mean rich ppl get together?
Ah yes billionaires and slavery, how mundblowing
Imagine having a coastline home, a magnificent open view, and now suddenly your view is an island of homes that now have what you once had.
It's about the same in every large city in the world. You buy a house with nice view, then within a few years someone bulds a taller building nex to you that blocks your view completely.
you can still see the dubai skyline
The speculative element of this reminds me of the Salton Sea, where in the 1950s developers attempted to sell plots of land in planned communities next to a vast accidental lake in the desert with promises of boating, golf, fishing and a relaxed lifestyle of leisure time.
Whole cities were laid out, miles of paved streets with services laid, facilities such as schools and stores built to serve the predicted residents, and motels, clubs and marinas for the tourist trade.
But the lake had no natural outlet and with only evaporation keeping the water level stable, gradually became saltier and more polluted until the fish began to die in their millions, causing an unbearable stench that rendered the patios and docks unusable and coating the beautiful sand beaches with a grim topping of rotting fish and crumbled bones.
This was further compounded by floods in the 1970s that damaged many waterfront properties. Word got around that the Salton Sea was not the promised inland riviera paradise and investment dried up. Many of the plots were never built on or houses left uncompleted, today many roads lead nowhere.
Today the sea itself is doing the same as a result of the CA drought and poor water management, but few care as the tourists and residents mostly left years ago. It's since become an unlikely attraction for photographers looking to document the ruins but ecologically it's a disaster area with the last fish having died off a couple of years ago taking the once abundant bird colonies with them.
A cautionary tale if ever there was one - some of the promotional films from the time are almost laughably naive given what actually went on to happen.
wow, man!
Back in the 1960s & earIy1970s, I wouId go to the SaIton Sea to water ski and go fishing. Had a great time then and am sad to hear that it has deteriorated into an ecoIogicaI disaster.
@@staralioflundnv yes, from the vintage footage I've seen it looked to have been wonderful. I'd have liked to have seen it in its all too brief heyday.
Developers in California and Arizona that once got water from Lake Meade and the Colorado River have been building homes and businesses that don't even have any water coming to them and no prospects for it in the near future. With Lake Meade heading towards dead pool status it is even less likely yet people are throwing their money away buying these places.
@@Tlyna1952 -- Yes, Lake Mead is cIose to dead pooI but there are stiII other "straws" before that. As I understand it, Lake PoweII stiII has a reasonabIe amount of water to draw upon.
Projects that have occupants in Southern Nevada do not get permits to buiId if they can not get water. They wiII hoId up a project untiI it cIears with CIark County.
You are right: anyone buying homes or hoping to deveIop residentiaI properties wouId be much better served eIsewheres. Not onIy is that a risk, the continued increased costs cause most sensibIe peopIe to rethink, unIess they are iinto beIieving in miracIes and/or wiIIing to wait a Iong time.
I still remember I questioned why would they build these projects instead of reforesting the vast Desert that time. As for me, they are just extending the desert instead of decreasing the size of the desert. Utterly curious way of thinking even I understand they imagine that was to make good of waterfront. Yet it was no way to go.
Forests need Jurassic levels of carbon in the atmosphere for it to feed on. They could do that but they can’t get their story straight on carbon.
It never rains there and unbearably hot during April through September months. To plant and grow trees they would have to import a shit ton of water to maintain all trees and plants. Or build a huge or multiple water converters to convert sea water to actually drinking water and use it to water all the trees etc.. constantly.
"Reforesting" implies a prior "Foresting" Maybe far far far long ago.
The whole impetus comes from the Ruler of Dubai. He's a get up and go starting at 6a.m. sort of guy, and expects his close aides and friends who run / own the various development companies to keep up with his wish list. Never mind the short cuts needed to keep up, get it through design without necessary due diligence so that machines on the ground / in the sea are there for Sheikh Mo to see and approve, hence you keep your fabulous lifestyle, never mind the environmental and economic disaster down the line. What's important is the net Bugatti, gold Bentley convertible, the third luxury palace for your next wife, first class trip on Emirates A380's. There is no stronger incentive than greed, pure unmitigated greed, to drive this kind of uncaring action.
so, he's like, an asshole
“Third luxury palace for your next wife” was my favourite part
@@kaitlyn__L he meant next ex wife 😂
@@jonasbaine3538 no need to discard the used ones, he can just keep racking ‘em up
I remember when these projects started 20 years ago. I thought they were outrageous, but in keeping with the never-ending hubris of the UAE and Dubai. They don't care about the ocean, or their workers who depended on the work.
Meanwhile I’ve grownup in New Orleans close to grand isle, visiting that island many times in my childhood. And let me mention that we are fighting the corrosion of grand idle right now, a NATURAL island that is sinking year by year with people living there. These man made islands would waste any building they put on them within probably 60 years if not sooner. Wouldn’t even last a lifetime unless they had those sand escalators on the shore 247 tryna put down more sediment on the shores.
The gulf coast area is suffering all that erosion because all the artificial controls on the Mississippi starve the area of natural sediment.
I went to Grand Isle on a trip I did around the Gulf Of Mexico from Padre to Naples wanting to check out Corpus Christi. I suggested Google do a trip plan for people that want to go key to key. It is hard to tell the connections without the satellite view. I disagree with the idea it needs to be saved or preserved. It is there today to enjoy and all the homes are on stilts which is cool but just because it is natural does not mean the taxpayers should pay to protect it. I am actually disturbed that the taxpayers pay to protect New Orleans when it is 10 feet under the sea level. If you live on the beach whether in Oregon or the Gulf enjoy while you can. The Bible says build your house on a rock. Don't build it next to a stream either. All river or ocean front property should be for natural and recreation areas. Now that we are not relying on river traffic for transportation. Having the Mississippi in dykes is really a bad idea. and will be a constant drain on the people and their psyche.
@@mgratk well said- the rape of Louisiana started years ago when big oil was given a 5O year carte Blanche of destruction. 😔It’s my home state, so rich in resources & culture yet so poor for the inhabitants… heart breaking.
It's really too bad they didn't stop after completing the first project. I always thought it was so beautiful.
When I first heard they were building in water, out of sand, I had to ask myself... "how are they going to keep that sand from constantly shifting and moving... in water it's impossible!!! I thought it was a ridiculous insane idea and waste of money... money which could have saved many parts of the world from starvation and other serious troubles in many areas!!! The rich are sick!!!
@Angie W Hoarding is a sign of mental illness.
The vast majority
These people have so much wealth, they could feed entire nations and end poverty in the world. They live excessive lives. Supercars abandoned in the desert.. I wonder if these people will go to heaven..
You do realize both HK and JPN have airports on reclaimed land, don’t you?
Do you think that any of the projections about rising sea levels have been a factor in investing huge resources into a project that is only two meters above sea level? Nah. Could be a future irony that a city built with oil wealth is detroyed by fossil fuel use.
They built them the same reason why our politicians & overlords buy beachfront houses still; because the problem you describe is false. Climate alarmism is a ploy to transfer wealth & restrict people's freedoms. Gullible people fall for it.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
Projects for the über rich built on the foundations of the poor, really makes you think of all the wasted value.
‘The lack of money is the root of all evil’- Mark Twain
At least the poor got some jobs from it
@@steegily probably with terrible working conditions (it's Dubai, definitely hot and working conditions for these projects are notoriously abusive with low pay)
the excess of money is the root of all evil in this case
I drove past the universal project every day to school for about 8 years and remember always thinking wow, wonder when it will be finished
Flew over them in late 2015 and yeah, the scale of even Jebel Ali is pretty mind-blowing. Something like 4 Miles out to shore and 7 Miles wide or thereabouts. Even racing over it in a helicopter feels like you're in slow motion due to the sheer scale. In 2015 it at least from the air, appeared pretty filled in and a vibrant neighborhood; well as much as the heat of Dubai allows. The other islands were indeed nothing yet. Still a pretty nuts experience to see though!
It was Palm Jumeirah, if it was inhabited.
I remember being young watching TV and hearing about this project, I thought it was pretty stupid then, and still do.
As mentioned, the outer stone sea wall is there to keep the water around the palm stagnate to minimise erosion. When I visited, I went to go for a swim and got ankle deep before thinking ‘ah no thanks’. Stagnant yuck water. Not necessarily polluted - but just yuck.
Thank you for another great video
The mostly constructed one, Palm Jumeirah, was originally designed with a continuous breakwater, but only after completing terraforming did they notice most of the water within was stagnant, so had to introduce breaks in the breakwater to allow some movement. Additionally, after the initial batch of houses were sold off-plan, the developer increased the number of houses, so reducing the land surrounding each house, so residents are even closer together than they expected. They've also unsurprisingly disturbed marine life, water quality, currents and tidal patterns (with the existing Dubai shoreline experiencing increased erosion).
The houses are very close together.
I went to the Atlantis on The Palm back in 2013. The idea truly was fantastical, but when you're on the island you can't tell you're anywhere special lol
Dredging the sand and building the islands caused massive ecological damage. When they could have just done them in reverse. Dig channels instead of building islands.
If u think that’s damage look a China’s waters, they’re extinct
Building islands is ok, building fucking massive land extensions isnt. The only islands was that world thing.
you cannot imagine the smell in a hot day there. its like sitting next to a pluming drains
I remember hearing about this on a show I watched as a kid - "Megastructures" I think...? - and was fascinated about the palm islands at the time.
I thought they were cool and ambitious, but also felt somewhat too artificial.
Same, I saw it on some documentary or other on tv. I remember thinking it was interesting, but even then something about it felt off. Too artificial is absolutely right. Spending billions of dollars and messing with nature to build some manufactured paradise that is apparently somehow better, is just ridiculous.
I remember. I thought it was cool n innovative. Scary how dumb I was.
@@kamallb4650 Well, you grew up and have a brain.
Meanwhile the people who lead the UAE, never did have a brain and all this place will be under the ground soon anyways. Also who never considered the human factor, "why would you want to live here?"
The whole time I was wandering when you will ask the most basic question - how were they planing to water all those trees and plants, not to mention drinking water for the people living there?
Another desalination plant?
Steal from Palestine's aquifere? Oh wait that's what YOU GUYS do 😂
How did they live without water for centuries?
1:53 Palm Jumeirah is hardly the largest manmade island ever. With its 5.72 square kilometer size it fits a cool 169 times into the real number 1: the Flevopolder in the Netherlands (970 square kilometers). Even with its never built extensions it would not have come close.
Nobody beats the Dutch at taking land back from the sea, no one
How the Dutch can farm on that "land" full of salt blows my mind.
@@nojuanatall3281 they’re the Dutch, they can basically do anything they want with reclaimed land, doesn’t matter how they’re doing it
HOW THE HELL WAS THAT BUILT IN 1955
@mipmipmipmipmip bro flevoland is where you go into hiding
It'll be crazy to see Dubai looking like that city in Maze Runner in 30 years
Perhaps the reason why so many wanted a home next to the water is not for the beach life, but for something more basic. In hot climates like that, a home next to a large body of water is set to have winds that give a nice cooling effect. The rich probably wanted that cool breeze feeling as opposed to the hot dry air of the vast desert.
This place doesn’t cool off in the summer. It’s a frying pan and your skin starts to sizzle almost immediately. Even at night, it’s humid and >100 F in the summer months
It’s smelly as hell in summer at the palm
In the comments I’m surprised nobody has mentioned that it’s wealth these days is being based as an airport terminus, somewhere to change routes, get refuelled and do the duty free shopping. That is what is going to keep Dubai going. That alone.
Dubai is a prime example of a society that in very short time (less than 3 generations), have amassed incredible wealth and opulence.......but not because of efficiency , proper planning, development and education, but because this bedouin society just happens to have a liquid resource under their feet they can tap into that the whole world depends on last several decades. Its like those lottery winners you hear about that splurge and blow their fortunes because they do not have the discipline and organization that comes with earning and building a Fortune 500 company or society
Believe me not everybody is rich and arrogant out there
Good analogy.
Sheik Zaid must be turning in his grave.
@@yukisuperstylish lol whatever
Very well said
Dubai tried to turn green by planting as many trees as possible, however, the trees couldn't stand the heat of the desert and died out. I remember a geo professor telling us the way things are headed, especially with climate change and pollution the average temperatures in the middle east will rise to 65 degrees Celcius in the next 30-40 years. That will make this place uninhabitable.
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