What these guys are up to...
This guy is 31 years old.
There is lots of money here, and they are beginning to spend it very wisely. This is just one example of one company, Mubadala, here in the UAE. Dubai has a strategic plan set for 2015. Abu Dhabi has set one forth for 2030. These guys are taking planning to whole new levels.
It was recently announced that Abu Dhabi was going to build a brand new capital city accomodating around 1 million residents somewhere out in the desert. Apparently their current one isn't good enough.
I remember in Brampton when Springdale was being built and thinking wow, that's a pretty big development. Now I am immune to reacting to any projects below half a billion dollars. It simply can't impress you like these multi-billion
dollar developments creating cities twice the size of Hong Kong can.
Over last summer in Toronto I remember walking by the old hummingbird Center of Front St., and how they are builinding that unique L shaped condo on top of it. That was cool. Here in the UAE, this porject wouldn't make the paper. Sure it's shaped differently, but can all 15 floors revolve at different speeds and directions whenever the owners want them too? Is there a world's biggest swimming pool with the world's longest slide in it? Are there life like animatronic dinosaures walking around outside? Get my point?
Sure it's all flash and vanity, and with every cool idea you get a really stupid one that will go next to it; but for the moment that is not the point. It's Never NeverLand here, dreams come true and get built. It's a start in the right direction.
With a maturing market, new wants and needs will arise for sustained growth and developement. Social Services, Health Care, and Education are on the agenda and I am excited to see what the UAE wil do in terms of reaching and acheiveing these intangible ideals.
If they can build a gravity defying building one year, why not a premier academic institution, the most efficent hospital or the fastest public transportation system the next? I hear whispers of these things, but no solid concrete plans. Vanity still outshines purpose, but with a maturing market, purpose must outlast vanity. If there is any place where they have this amazing opportunity to build such things, it's here in the UAE. The relatively newness of this economy, ideas, and structure, the UAE has a chance to build a social Utopia unlike anywhere else in the world. Just imagine what a $30 billion social infrastrucutre looks like.
I have some ideas, but let's just wait and see what happens.
There is lots of money here, and they are beginning to spend it very wisely. This is just one example of one company, Mubadala, here in the UAE. Dubai has a strategic plan set for 2015. Abu Dhabi has set one forth for 2030. These guys are taking planning to whole new levels.
It was recently announced that Abu Dhabi was going to build a brand new capital city accomodating around 1 million residents somewhere out in the desert. Apparently their current one isn't good enough.
I remember in Brampton when Springdale was being built and thinking wow, that's a pretty big development. Now I am immune to reacting to any projects below half a billion dollars. It simply can't impress you like these multi-billion
dollar developments creating cities twice the size of Hong Kong can.
Over last summer in Toronto I remember walking by the old hummingbird Center of Front St., and how they are builinding that unique L shaped condo on top of it. That was cool. Here in the UAE, this porject wouldn't make the paper. Sure it's shaped differently, but can all 15 floors revolve at different speeds and directions whenever the owners want them too? Is there a world's biggest swimming pool with the world's longest slide in it? Are there life like animatronic dinosaures walking around outside? Get my point?
Sure it's all flash and vanity, and with every cool idea you get a really stupid one that will go next to it; but for the moment that is not the point. It's Never NeverLand here, dreams come true and get built. It's a start in the right direction.
With a maturing market, new wants and needs will arise for sustained growth and developement. Social Services, Health Care, and Education are on the agenda and I am excited to see what the UAE wil do in terms of reaching and acheiveing these intangible ideals.
If they can build a gravity defying building one year, why not a premier academic institution, the most efficent hospital or the fastest public transportation system the next? I hear whispers of these things, but no solid concrete plans. Vanity still outshines purpose, but with a maturing market, purpose must outlast vanity. If there is any place where they have this amazing opportunity to build such things, it's here in the UAE. The relatively newness of this economy, ideas, and structure, the UAE has a chance to build a social Utopia unlike anywhere else in the world. Just imagine what a $30 billion social infrastrucutre looks like.
I have some ideas, but let's just wait and see what happens.
posted by Matt Switzer at 4:18 AM
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