Building Dubai: The City in the Desert 

If Simon won't do it, someone else should do it as a semi-parody. (Bald head and beard required.)

That'll probably happen when he has another 20 channels under his belt

@@spritemon98 so some time next week?

The first thing that came to mind was concrete. Things 20 years old looking bad

You just have to go there and make up your own mind. I met my wife in Abu Dhabi.

Next week Simon will have a new channel called Microprojects about microscopic inventions. Way to go, why not send him some magic spoon and cocaine while you're at it? He needs to see his wife and kid some time. 🤭

Side projects is the channel for that

@@slcpunk2740 that’s why they should legalize medical cocaine

Oh! That's a good one!

@@northlandgaming8460 approve proposition 208 today! XDDD

Come with me, and we'll see a world of OSHA violations.

@@garretth8224 I understood that reference

Well it can if the context means that Garfield wanted to send nermal somewhere very far away from where he lived.

If he went as an indentured worker he wouldn’t have a good time…

Selling Nermal into servitude would have provided much needed Lasagna money.

lol someone else here remembers Garfield's Abu Dhabi song.

Of the four big artificial island projects, only the Palm Jumeirah is doing decently well. That's the one you see in all the pictures. But yes, it's sinking, because the developers put three times as many houses on it as intended, to maximize profits. Then there's The World, intended as an exclusive villa district, but the only developed islands host a nightclub and a hotel resort (which aren't doing wonders for the desirability of having a villa there). Palm Jebel Ali was actually completed in 2008, but nothing has been built on it because it lies far outside the city, next to the noisy container port of Jebel Ali, and you have to go through an industrial area to get there. Palm Deira is the only uncompleted one, it had its name changed to Deira Islands, but still nothing has been built there. I think it's because of its relatively poor road and infrastructure connections (and you'd have to dig up the old town to improve that), and the generally low demand for new real estate in an already flooded market. So yeah, not very successful. And then there are the other crazy plans, like The Universe and Dubai Waterfront. I don't think those were ever feasible, sine apparently they had dredged up most of the seafloor to build the existing islands.

Dubai is just an example of extremely wasteful extravagance.

All the sewage from the Burj Khalifa has to be trucked to the treatment plant.

@@Lazy_Tim Poop-trucks! 😖

Ahahaha

Yeah that wasn't very well thought-through

I had to fly there from Perth almost every week for 5 years before I retired at the start of the pandemic when AUS sealed the border and the thought of being trapped there scared the hell out of me. Our plant was about 12 miles west of the city, and those 12 miles was like a time machine going back in time. That's 22 hours a week on a plane because I refused to live there, that's what I thought of the place.

Exactly, it's just a shitty sandpit. Ps...you flew 22 hours every week?? Somehow I don't blame you

@@tonyatthebeach Yup, 11 hours each way on an Emirates A380 business class. Just treated it as two working days. Did it for 3 years. A lot of miles, but my company kept the miles. :(

Dubai is completely different now from 12 years ago.

It’s a whole world different now

There is…..

Dubai itself isn't very reliant on oil. At least, not on oil production. It does, however, rely a lot on real estate sales. Who buys real estate in Dubai? Mostly rich folks from neighbouring countries. How do they make their money? Uh, three letter word, starts with O, ends with L, with an I somewhere in the middle. If the oil price collapses, Dubai won't be doing so well either.

Seems like you're a bad listener. He mentioned in the video that Dubai is very diversified. Also, why do you care if they run out of oil?

Hmm ... I think I'd put Niamey below Dubai. Haven't heard much good about N'djamena either, from those who have gone there. And I'd pass up on Norilsk too.

It was the 5th most visited city in 2019 in the world.

I’m genuinely curious. What mistakes?

@@TheBrianFlanagan Well, for one thing creating an economy where foreign workers do nearly everything (90% of the UAE's population is foreign workers). Sultan Qaboos wanted to make sure his people did a good portion of their own work. They also largely buried their culture under steel and glass, with the occasional "Culture village." Omani people often point out that the cities of the gulf states could be any big city, while Oman has managed to preserve a good deal of its culture while still becoming very modern. It's a balancing act, and not an easy one, but they didn't just bulldoze everything that came before and started pouring concrete. The other gulf nations also promoted a sense of privilege among those with long family lines in their respective countries. Oman promoted a sense of "Omaness" that included recent immigrants, minorities, etc. Not that everything is perfect. Some would say that the traditional culture being promoted is homogenized and paternalistic. But Omanis seem to be happy that their country didn't go the way of the other gulf states.

A really good read on this is "Cultivating the Past, Living the Modern: The politics of Time in the Sultanate of Oman" by Amal Sachedina.

Sounds interesting.

@@Bubbaist Yes, but the UAE didn't really have anything before oil was discovered. It was a barren wasteland for all intents and purposes.

Burj Latifa is still there

The UAE is a lot better than most of the other Gulf states. As long as you don't do anything stupid you're fine

@@brody_edwards As long as you don't speak out against them publicly and your not a tourist that gets arrested for the crime of reporting your rape and your okay with slave labor then the UAE is a great place.... Being better than most other Middle East country only gets you to the Flintstones level of sophistication, nothing to brag about... LOL

@@brody_edwards I don't think Darlene is worried about herself, just supporting a place that doesn't value human rights of others.

@@megaprojects9649 Yes, thank you. I'm older, in poor health, & I'm quite poor of finances, so I couldn't manage a trip to Dubai anyway. I just couldn't, in good conscience, spend what little I have in a place that places so little value on their women, & the working class. I know of a couple who were on their honeymoon in Dubai & got arrested for "public indecency"-- as they strolled around the city arm in arm, occasionally taking a kissing selfie near the prettiest buildings. They were very distraught by the way they were treated. Nope. No amount of slick propaganda could get me to get on a plane bound for Dubai.

@@megaprojects9649 I have seen you added a new channel called "Into the Shadows" : could you tell us more ?

1% of GDP from oil seems pretty promising if true

Don’t lie…you properly intended that pun.😀

Qatar is the same as well.

Underrated comment by far. I being there it is funny.. I wonder how they solved the border issue when the border was closed for corona...

Was just saying that it's already going downhill. Not due to resources, but poor financial decisions and general incompetence from the top down. They trying to invest in structure for tourism, but so many projects failing. Creek tower folding, Palm Islands needing constant upkeep they can't provide, and the World Islands being more of a disappointment than Jeb Bush lol

The US cares a bit more about workers rights.

unions in the US? lol.

Nakheel (the developer) admitted over a decade ago that the islands are already sinking. I assume they've done some urgent engineering in the meantime, but yes, Dubai city's shabbily built & falling apart.

He doesn't

@@SamiiRSMT fair enough. I guess that should be that he mangles then less?

Is Dubai the city Utopia that Plato wrote about? of course not It's a city that has faults like New York, As for the workers, they are not slaves. They can leave and return to their country at any time. The problem is with the agents, and by the way, they are not Emiratis. but from the same country from which the workers came, And better salaries that are in their country, otherwise he would not have come to Dubai as an expatriate from his family. Note: I am an Arab, not an Emirati, but I wanted to be fair. And by the way, I hate the rulers of the Emirates, and I hate the Dubai scheme, and I wish it was built like Singapore (a city for the community) or as a historical city in the Arab style.

Shame about the plumbing of the Burj though....

@@dannybrierley6832 And the resulting huge line of poop trucks.

You mean New York, New York?

If a resource is consumed faster than it can be replaced, that resource will eventually run out. Doesn't matter whether it take 100 years or 1000

It was a thing around 2009-2012. Still is for parts of the industrial areas, I've heard.

not an urban legend, see here - Dubai Is A Parody Of The 21st Century [reupload]

@@mmdirtyworkz Just a heads up, that video refers to an article from cirka 2010. The poop trucks existed, but were phased out of downtown areas around 2011-2012 when the sewage system finished upgrading.

@@Codraroll wrong again as per this video, poop trucks still used as the system isn't built yet, maybe in 2025 - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-b5_8Q4X05ME.html&ab_channel=LogicallyAnswered

@@mmdirtyworkz That video also only links two articles related to Burj Khalifa, one of which states the issue was resolved for that building in 2013. The other appears to be a trivia blog article from 2015, listing no sources on its own. A bigger upgrade of the Dubai sewage system is in the works, but Burj Khalifa itself appears to be connected to a wastewater grid. I've heard that poop trucks are still used in industrial areas, however.

Actually all is mostly done or planned.. Check out Dubai 2040 or soothing plan. Be cerful of haters propoganda.

Also, many of its neighbouring countries rely a lot on oil. Dubai relies a lot on foreigners buying real estate. If the oil runs dry, there won't be many customers left for Dubai's impressively large real estate sector.

@@Codraroll Indeed. It is rather hard to be a country with one single natural resource and turn it into something else. Not impossible, Las Vegas honestly have nothing and it is doing fine but Vegas is pretty easy to get to from other prosperous places. The problem with Dubai is that when oil stop being a factor the entire region will loose it's income so it can't rely on people from the middle east. They have no manufacturing and little agriculture so the question is if people will bother to visit it then. Another question is how stable the region will be once oil stops being a factor, it isn't exactly exactly super stable in the middle east already and being rich and suddenly not might make places that are stable not unstable. You can't attract tourists to a warzone after all. So I think it is a good initiative but it is too little. They will also need to get manufacturing in the region going. And there is still time for that but that time is getting shorter. Many countries in the middle east have leaders who party like there is no tomorrow and doesn't seem to consider what happen when their golden goose dies. Kinda like a young sportstar who earns tons of money and burn through it even if he knows that he wont be a star forever. Dubai's idea of investment in the region is right, but all places can't survive on tourists and with few natural resources besides oil they need to focus on manufacturing as well. There are countries who have large manufacturing sectors with few natural resources, Taiwan comes to mind. They also have the money right now to start something like that but they might not have 30 years from now and becoming a manufacturing country takes time and work, not just money. Not only that, it also takes education and that needs to start directly. Modern industry requires educated workers. Well, that is at least what I would do in their shoes. Improve education and build factories or possibly buy up factories and move them to the region. I think that also would increase the peace in the area. People with a steady income is less likely to start trouble and have a better life in general.

Yup. I swear, you would need to pay me significant money before I would come within 50 km of this repellent hellhole.

20 million tourists will not miss you 😂😂😂

and on coral reefs and with imported sand

What?! Really?

Don't really, Dubai has one of the most connected water and sewer distribution system. It's just the phasing between all Dubai megs developments had created trans years of non connection.

@@xmyvibex you realize that "one of the most connected" and "years of non connection" are contradictory, right? 🙄

is there a building 7 memorial too?

Nice until you hold hands in public

@@garretth8224 ohhh I'd be surprised that u were brainwashed. Dubai is a party city lol.

Although if you stick to the more tourist areas and do a bit of research on the laws you're fine

It's more because the current sewage system can't handle the building, although its getting fixed

Norway has spent some of its oil wealth wisely. UAE built a bunch of skyscrapers that will be useless after fossil fuel is used up.

he was pretty brutal at the end.

@@markrobinowitz8473 norway is beyond lucky, they don't need to spend 1 dollar on military and intelligence agency. i dont think i need to tell you who they gonna defend from.

@@Jack-he8jv yes, if i was going to do a masqueraded payed commercial, i'll do the same thing

@@tarazan3456 so you think the emirate payed him to shit talk their country? he said that they used slaves instead of foreign workers while not mentioning that those "slaves" make 3 times as much money as if they worked in worse conditions back home. (they make so much that they can pay for their families and send their kids to universities) the bad living conditions is only relative to yourself. compared to living in their home countries its heaven to them.

That's a different channel, yo.

@@watcherofwatchers With the same producers and host, yo.

@@j.a.weishaupt1748 Irrelevant. They are different channels with a different area of focus. Just don't watch it if you aren't interested.

NM - I found it. 😊