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Dubai, the city of........


darkknight

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  • 5 months later...

Just be aware that Dubai isn't some perfect utopian city, it has its fair share of problems too that can't be ignored. Abuse of workers, horrendous traffic jams and rising rents just to name a few. Work is being done to try and stop these but with the city growing so fast it's almost impossible.

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Not all that glitters is gold. The worker situation is sickening. But all the development is still impressive stuff to say the least. Esp. the modern-day Babylonian tower Burj Dubai. Must out-do Freedom Tower.

You're right, the worker situation is horrible, but the new towers and all the supporting new developments are awesome. I would love to see it first-hand actually.

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  • 3 months later...

Adding to the talk about the worker situation, there was a story in one of the English-language newspapers last week about the increasing rate of suicide among Indian immigrant workers. Many of them come expecting wonderful things and become disillusioned with the tough life they encounter in the UAE.

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Adding to the talk about the worker situation, there was a story in one of the English-language newspapers last week about the increasing rate of suicide among Indian immigrant workers. Many of them come expecting wonderful things and become disillusioned with the tough life they encounter in the UAE.

A lot of them have their visas taken away by the Emirate's government once they get off the plane. Most can also only afford to live in Apartments the size of a normal bedroom and have to share it with 5 or more other people. It really is aweful.

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mcheiss, since you seem very familiar with the area, I was amazed not just at the growth in Dubai, but also in neighboring Al Sharjah! It actually seems that Al Sharjah is a larger place. There are highrises all over the place there, seemingly much more than Dubai. And growth there is also rapid! It just seems to lack the flashy, glitzy stuff Dubai has been tackling. Can you speak to the relationship between Dubai and Al Sharjah?

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Sharjah is like a sister city/bedroom community to Dubai. Dubai is getting all of the fancy tourist and large commercial projects, while Sharjah is for the not so glitsy developments. A lot of people commute from Sharjah to Dubai, simply because Dubai is getting too expensive and too congested to live in. Sharjah also supplies Dubai with an oil pipeline, and is a large cargo hub in the world of aviation. So really, Sharjah is a bedroom/down to earth community to Dubai. Hope that answers your question.

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Yeah it does, thanks. I was just surprised by the high volume of high-rises in Sharjah. I expected Dubai to be the only game in town, with nothing but sand and the gulf around it, but was surprised to find that's not the case. Al Sharjah seems more urban, in a way, than Dubai, in that there seems to be more of an existing streetscape and activity of life that Dubai's expressway-side clusters of skyscrapers are currently lacking. The area of Sharjah around the lagoon was quite nice.

My friends live in Qusais. It's convenient for them because one works at DXB and the other in Sharjah. I couldn't imagine commuting from Sharjah to SZR every day. The traffic is horrendous!

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Well, at least from google earth Dubai's centre seems very dense and urban, but there's miles and miles of sprawl along the coast. Outside the skyscraper area Sharjah is also not dense and the centre of Dubai seems to be an easier place to walk around in aswell.

mcheiss is right, loads of people are moving to Sharjah now because of the rising rents in Dubai and that's actually where the biggest traffic problem comes from. Right now Dubai now has 2 lines for a metro system under construction, one that'll run along the SZR from town to jebel ali and another starting off near the sharjah border and finishing up somewhere in bur dubai (that's across the creek). Aswell there are 2 more lines planned, one between the existing and new airport and another servicing new dense areas along the creek. It's a pity that when this is finished though, the biggest traffic problem will still be there.

The only way to solve it is if the 2 emirates work together and build a proper mass transit system between them.

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BTW, about the workers issue, and all the other countless problems. I used to think aswell that Dubai will be fcked in the future.

Thing is, these problems have always been there but when you raise the profile of the place as much as has been done then these problems surface. 20 years ago nobody knew about the place now almost everyone you see will know at least a small bit about it. Now that Dubai is in the spotlight so are these problems and now is the time so tackle them, and indeed that's what's being done.

They've finally gotten rid of the despicable child camel jocky problem (am not going to blame any particular group, it's everyone who was involved's fault, including the trainers, the parents who sell their children into slavery, the people who knew what was going on but did nothing, etc). Next in line is making sure workers are not abused and stay in clean accomodation, get their pay regularly etc.

After that comes the unofficial racism that goes on at every level. This type of problem can't be solved in a day, week or year since you have to change a whole mentality but eventually they could be solved.

What I say is think where Dubai was 50 years ago, where it is now and in another 50 years. When talking about the various projects no doubt they'll learn a lot from both ones that succeed and others that don't.

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