Can explain to me dubai

[Belize]

They didn't build a wall, and have lots of immigrant landscape workers.

Look at what the U.S. could be.

This is a joke.

[Fritters154]

Hard to say, it's supposedly extremely rare for Yemen to get hit by cyclones but that happened twice last year didn't it?

Yemen is exposed to the Arabian Sea, and I think both of those cyclones hit the island of Socotra (technically part of the country of Yemen), which is actually out in the Arabian Sea. The UAE is shielded by the country of Oman from the Arabian Sea, and has the Gulf of Oman as the only inlet to the Persian Gulf, both of which are shallow and would starve a cyclone of energy. I suppose it is possible for an extremely severe cyclone to make it across Oman and the inland UAE, eventually hitting Dubai from the inland side, but it would be fairly weak by that point

[Endtime]

I remember seeing all the construction going on when I was there in 2003-2005 time frame. Looks better now.

[Luxxor]

Id rather go to Detroit.

[Deleted]

I visited this month.

Dubai was historically a pearl fishing town which lost huge business as japanese and cultured pearls began to enter the market. The UAE is made of 7 Emirates which when oil was found in the mid 1900s became incredibly wealthy, all except the Emirate of Dubai. Dubai was not situated on a lot of oil and so its ruler Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum envisioned a bustling trade and tourist city on the coast of the gulf of Arabia. With funds from its neighbour, the emirate of Abu Dhabi, Dubai flourished on the back of mass immigration from countries such as India, Pakistan and the Philippines who built all these fantastic buildings with poor pay and conditions. Emirati's only make up 19% of the population of the UAE, and it's Emiratis that have the power.

Dubai is very safe as a white man, as safe as it goes in the world. You will be treated better than those deemed lower than you. e.g. blacks, Indians, Asians. I thought it was a weird place, it felt like being in Disneyland, everything seemed like a facade. It felt lifeless to me, no culture and the foreign workers looked miserable and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

[Ihnasir]

eeeh... most of the people in Dubai are not arabs. Its probably the safest location in all of Middle East. Its awesome, you should come and visit ^^

Nice try ISIS

[Astronom]

It wasn't really planned. From around 1995 until world financial collapse in 2008 the city was in the grip of a real estate bubble. It just kept attracting more and more money and more and more buildings were built. There wasn't really any demand for most of those buildings, except to flip them fast for easy profit. And most of the workers there are close to slaves. Especially the construction workers.

[HumbleDuck]

"Good" is subjective. To my taste, for example, Tokyo looks nicer; more "alive".

This.
I visited Dubai a couple of years back. Even though it was pretty shiny, it felt somehow fake. While a city like brugge, being much older, smaller and less " perfect" feels much more natural and alive to me.

[Deleted]

This.
I visited Dubai a couple of years back. Even though it was pretty shiny, it felt somehow fake. While a city like brugge, being much older, smaller and less " perfect" feels much more natural and alive to me.

Well put, it has no culture. Feels like disneyland

[lockedout]

You can uber a helicopter in Dubai for 600.

[moremana]

When oil is no longer a commodity it will look like Detroit


Enjoy the scenery, in 20 years it will be a wasteland

[Klingers]

OK, Dubai explained:

A fleetingly temporary palace of excess and inequality that desalinates all its drinking water, trucks out all its sewage and buses in its slave labour force of desperate south-east-asian workers with confiscated passports daily from tin shanty towns miles in the desert. That's pretty much Dubai.

Edit: Dubai doesn't actually depend on Oil anymore, hasn't for years. Their reserves ran out years ago. They've diversified their economy away from oil to among other things financial services and tourism. I think unfortunately we'll just have to wait for the rest of the middle-east to descend back into inevitable barbarism when their oil runs out and angry starving mobs finally hang the royal families that let America stick air bases in their borders. That'll eventually spill over into Dubai. Hopefully we can keep it contained there but unlikely if Europe is anything to go by :-/

[Deleted]

Dubai doesn't actually depend on Oil anymore, hasn't for years.

LOL from wiki In 2011, oil exports accounted for 77% of the UAE's state budget. http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/are/ 2013 about 65% of its export is oil based,

So they still desperate need the oil. Then you might wonder how successful semi-governmental company, like dubia airlines realy are, if they do not get goverment subsidies and have to pay "real" tax.

But I can see thay have a vision of diversified their economy, but they are bulding it on a weak foundation.....

[Deleted]

LOL from wiki In 2011, oil exports accounted for 77% of the UAE's state budget. http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/are/ 2013 about 65% of its export is oil based,

So they still desperate need the oil. Then you might wonder how successful semi-governmental company, like dubia airlines realy are, if they do not get goverment subsidies and have to pay "real" tax.

But I can see thay have a vision of diversified their economy, but they are bulding it on a weak foundation.....

Dubai is one of the seven emirates that make up the UaE. Unlike the other emirates Dubai didn't have tons of oil and as such diversified it's economy.

[Deleted]

Dubai is one of the seven emirates that make up the UaE. Unlike the other emirates Dubai didn't have tons of oil and as such diversified it's economy.

But the seven emirates do not run seperat economy with separate govement budgets?

[May90]

This.
I visited Dubai a couple of years back. Even though it was pretty shiny, it felt somehow fake. While a city like brugge, being much older, smaller and less " perfect" feels much more natural and alive to me.

I've only been in the airport there and seen Dubai while landing and taking off... It did look grand and veeeeeeery expensive, but it also looked a bit lifeless and mechanical - indeed, "fake" is how I would describe it. Many older cities look much more natural and lifelike.

[Deleted]

I have been there 3 years ago, this is not photoshop, all looks perfect like that, it is good fro holiday but not for living

[dwightyo39]

It looks as fake as Vegas minus all the fun sinner stuff Vegas has to offer.

[tithian]

You mean safe for males, right?

No, it's safe for everyone. Women especially are treated very well, they get priorities in queues and bus lines and stuff, they get their own "women and children" spaces in the metro (where men are fined if they go in) and generally no one would even treat women in any way that would be disrespectful. Keep in mind that there are seedy parts in the cities, but it was not uncommon to see groups of women walking in the streets etc. and never did we ever feel unsafe (but then again, I'm male).

I've visited Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and they are very western societies, but with a rich islamic background. I'm white and European btw, but there were a lot of foreigners there, Arabs are somewhere along the line of 10-20% of the total population, so it's not like you will be standing out. Of course there are a lot of Pakistani laborers, people from SE Asia and Africa, mainly working as taxi drivers, cleaners, low level staff etc. while Europeans and Americans are the high level personnel.

It's worth seeing, but it's not the paradise some of you think it is. Keep in mind that it's hot and humid as hell, so plan to go in December/January. If you ever decide to go there for work, keep in mind that it's worth it and you will be paid many times more than in EU or NA, but you should also accept that it will be a short term thing and that as a foreigner you will not have a serious future in the UAE.

[tankbug]

No, it's safe for everyone. Women especially are treated very well, they get priorities in queues and bus lines and stuff, they get their own "women and children" spaces in the metro (where men are fined if they go in) and generally no one would even treat women in any way that would be disrespectful. Keep in mind that there are seedy parts in the cities, but it was not uncommon to see groups of women walking in the streets etc. and never did we ever feel unsafe (but then again, I'm male).

I've visited Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and they are very western societies, but with a rich islamic background. I'm white and European btw, but there were a lot of foreigners there, Arabs are somewhere along the line of 10-20% of the total population, so it's not like you will be standing out. Of course there are a lot of Pakistani laborers, people from SE Asia and Africa, mainly working as taxi drivers, cleaners, low level staff etc. while Europeans and Americans are the high level personnel.

It's worth seeing, but it's not the paradise some of you think it is. Keep in mind that it's hot and humid as hell, so plan to go in December/January. If you ever decide to go there for work, keep in mind that it's worth it and you will be paid many times more than in EU or NA, but you should also accept that it will be a short term thing and that as a foreigner you will not have a serious future in the UAE.

Well, it might not be any different from a western country when you're walking the streets, but the differences come out when things go wrong. A norwegian women was raped by a coworker in a hotel there. She went to the police and was arrested for extramarital intercourse. I don't remember the outcome, but she was facing a few years in prison if convicted.