It's so stupid that they have ignored all the historic knowledge of how to live in the desert. And they don't even have solar power on those bridges, right? Even though that would be self-regulated energy system: The more sun, the more cooling need but also the more solar electricity.
That's the blindness induced by the bling of new technology. The kids (current generations), always think they know better than their "outdated" parents (ancestors).
@@thomasgrabkowski8283 Of course. But basic principles - creating shadows and shaded alleys, white paint etc. are still true. Putting up full-glass fassades is so stupid on so many levels... (who wants to sit there inside the building, getting burned by the sun?? Computer screens hard so see and so on.)
They absolutely use solar energy. Just type in “MBR Solar” on Google maps and you’ll see one of the largest solar parks in the world just outside the city.
@@LeoPlaw tbf most of them do. The boomer generation are some of the most ill informed, ignorant cretins out there. They have no fcuking idea about anything, but they seem to think they do. And last I checked the people who created Dubai aren't gen Zers.
What do you expect the city to be? Its in the middle of the desert with an average temperature of 40 degrees Celsius. Of course it’s going to be all artificial. Dubai is the example of a city that is better and safer than all of the cities in America combined.
I don't think it's true look at Alexandria Egypt despite having a more traditional city layout it's one of the ugliest cities and the quality of life there is about 100 times worse.
@@BariNapach thanks for your response. I meant that rich cities nowadays dont build nuch attractive and beautiful as much as they used to do, when nowadays with modern technologies we can do it easier.
Those ai generated images depicting what Dubai could have been were incredible. Imagine if the UAE had built a city specific to their own culture and people instead of trying to appeal to the world. The people and culture are the soul of a city which I wish the government had cared more about. Arabian architecture is so beautiful. I loved the Ai image of the underground metro too, It was a very nice modern/futuristic touch. I hope those ideas will be implemented to that degree of beauty somewhere in the future.
Exactly. There’s so much potential, they could have built a splendid city but now they try to imitate whatever architect’s fever dream is fashionable at the moment. The city looks like they just ordered large corporations and architecture firms to build them a city according to current principles without much further thought if it was the best or most future proof way to build
i think some small areas look hella fine. around burj kahlifa for example, where they got the pretty lake, parks, mid rise urban fabric with arabic feel to it and some modern art deco skyscrapers in the background. But if you see the city as a whole it´s all a big mess
Their idea is working more well than the one you have, in terms of generating revenue from tourism, it's just that they overdid some things and the consequences are exaggerated because of the city's size and fame.
That’s not entirely fair though. The reason Dubai gained fame in the first place was because it appealed to the very tourists they sought to attract. There was a demand for what Dubai is now today and they Emiratis met that demand. The fact of the matter is the UAE faced an existential crisis. With oil only expected to last another couple hundred years (and less than a hundred in the gulf) and other countries rapidly developing and undercutting their own industry as new deposits are discovered the only thing they could have done was rapidly build a city to quickly change their business model. Now that it has worked I perfectly agree that change is needed if the city wants to survive but the problem required a near immediate solution so you can’t fault them for the route they took (you can fault the unethical working standards but that’s not what I’m trying to defend)
4:00 The London School of Economics revealed in a recent study that on average low taxes do not attract millionaires, how to attract them is making an attractive place to live. As you said clean streets etc. It is why the UK in the 1960s which was centre of art and culture in the world had a huge influx of millionaires even though the top rate of tax was 97%. Now the actual tax rate received was lower, however well over double and some estimate show it at triple what is reciebed today. That is why the Uk was a world leader in research and development, the streets were clean and money could be put back into the arts attracting more people.
I love that. All the more reason to tax the super rich even more. Put that money back into liveable cities. Make sure small businesses don't fail and people don't end up homeless so the streets will continue to be attractive. Make them invest in the space they too want to live in. Check out Gary Stevenson, he's an ex trader from the same LSE advocating for this, especially in the UK.
I feel it's important to mention that they are starting to realize all this, They're already building a metro expansion with a lot more coming after that one as well as connecting areas that are disconnected by highways. The issue is more societal than government at this point as doing anything outside of a car is just not even in the thought process. Changes are happening though, road redesigns usually include alternative forms of transport and bike lanes. Change is happening and that's always good
I've been here for a decade now and that's to the point. Dubai is often judged for what it is, but a fairer evaluation in its context is a judgment on what it achieved in that short time, and its ambitions which are effectively very much in line with what is being presented as what they should do in the foreseeable future.
Thank you for making this video! It's one of the more level headed ones I've seen on this platform. As a resident and a student, the car centric-ness of this city is the bane of my student life. I use the metro and bus system for my commute and the capacity is not matching with the growing population. Even worse when you live near Sharjah where the end of day traffic lasts well into the night. The Blue Line of the metro is hopefully on the way which connects the green line to Mirdif and neighboring areas but I still feel like they need to address the conjestion from Business Bay to Union Station. Changing portions of the highway underground and turning them into walkable parks is definitely a good idea! I would love it if the city did that along with more dedicated bus lanes that they started to implement. Life is comfy here (as far as my introverted, hangout averse self goes) but the city planning here has lots to be desired.
Props for actually going there and visiting it before spouting out opinions on the internet. That's not an easy thing to do, but I really appreciate it when it happens!
It is sad to see what Dubai became from when I was first there, well, not including 1996 as it was just a connecting flight, but in 1999. 2004 was good too. But with the wave of social media it's gone to hell.
4:00 this isn't actually true, millionaires are threatening to leave, but when all your wealth is tied up in assets, all they can do is make baseless threats as they always do. Unless they want to fire sale all their assets. Which even Russians banned from London have struggled to do.
UAE has the highest amount of millionaires moving to it in the world do a google search. I think you’re talking about billionaires not millionaires. Millionaires can sell up everything and move out in a couple of months
Foreigners who move to Dubai: 1) crypto bros 2) men who say "escape the matrix" at least twice per hour 3) occasional open-minded twenty-something who wants to prove that every place has much to teach us (before making a YT video "Why Dubai is incredible but not for me")
Another thing to mention too: UAE has a problem beyond the extreme heat: extreme humidity. This is why traditionally, the locals lived in places like Al Ain, rather than Abu Dhabi or Dubai, which were fishing/ pearling spots. Places like Al Ain had drinking water and were far dryer, making them more hospitable
Happy to help! Midjourney 6.1: “aerial photo of a vast high density traditional Arabian city, 7 stories tall, lush streets, fountains, human scaled, haussmann urbanism meets Arabian Emirati traditional architecture, palm trees, green, domes and wind catchers, extreme population density, arabian liveable urbanism”
I’ve come across many discussions about Dubai’s urban planning, but this is by far the most genuine study, critique, and advice I’ve seen. Most other content tends to fall into one of two extremes: either ‘Dubai is the greatest city on the planet’ or ‘The Middle East is bad, I’ve never been there and never will. Here’s me talking over a Google Street View image.’ While Dubai is certainly impressive, I wouldn’t say it’s the greatest in terms of urban planning. However, it’s definitely ahead of its neighboring countries, managing a large car-dependent population while keeping things running smoothly, it really is an achievement in itself.
Thank you! 🙏🏼 Yeah I tried to be fair but to also get my criticism and ideas across. And I’m also a bit disappointed by the “black & white” view in most videos about Dubai. Indeed, it is impressive to handle such a city but the problems they are handling skillfully now are problems they could have avoided - so although it is still impressive, it would have been even more impressive if they could have solved those problems ahead of time. In any case, I think expanding the metro would be the lowest hanging fruit for now, hope they will!
Take a look at abudhabi city center, it was built way back in the 80s way before dubai even started doing the whole tourist stuff, the city is way well planned and there was an actual thoughts behind it, even people in dubai prefer abudhabi, sewage system and public transportation and walkablity and underground highways so it doesn’t create huge separation in between neighborhoods, and also future plans for metros and trams that actually surve people to go from place to another, I don’t think dubai will do good in future but this city definitely will.
The gulf countries ignoring and not innovating on native architectural and city philosophies is a depressing reality about modern Middle Eastern times.
Dubai's case always makes me sad and disappointed because with all that history, culture and beautiful architecture they choose to build their city like a generic car dependant American city.
It's just a couple of decades old and did enable them to achieve their short/mid-term goals. There is still plenty of time for evolution, the plans and directions Dubai is now aiming for are very much in line with the recommendations from this video.
Actually they don't have culture nor architecture culture , they were nomad , they never experienced the true Arabian cities that's why they picked 2000's American City and built a copy
It's disgusting how Dubai had the opportunity and resources to design one of the world's most beautiful, pedestrian-friendly and well served by excellent mass transit cities on the planet and instead they recreated Houston.
As someone who lived there for my entire life, it’s quite noticeable and sadly been ignored for soo many years until recently when it almost feels like it’s too late. I study architecture here and it’s been an important topic and our jobs is to create something that could save the city, and notice that i only said the city because funny enough the other cities have a more compact and more sustainable infrastructure unlike dubai, abudhabi in example has a more centreic design in the city where urban planning was way more focused on making sure people have all options to either walk or drive or use public transportation, same with sharjah and ajman which are also both same concept as abudhabi, while dubai just wanted to become the realstate and rich people paradise where everything is made to optimize profit and luxury then actually being an organic city with life, the solution exists, its just that dubai is was rush planned and didn’t care much about other things like sewage system or public transportation since their only goal was to look as shiny as possible, it been lately addressed and there are plans to build more metros and more urban centers fouced on making sure everyone is satisfied and sustainable for the future, but i think it’s probably too late for dubai unless they go full on demolising all existing urban sprawls and roads, which are highly unlikely…
They built everything from scratch, imagine if they had experimented with new ways of integrating both cars and walkable paths. Maybe they would have discovered better way to lay out the infrastructure for both.
Those images at 10:00 and further are AI generated? I'd love to see more videos what great cities could look like. Detailed. What Dubai could look like, perfect Paris, perfect LA, perfect Mexico city and so on. :-)
It indeed is. Although I often get criticism on using AI, I think it is useful for such use cases - just to give an idea of what it could be like! Looking cool right?
@@the_aesthetic_city There are only two major sections of people who opine about AI: people who have used it and who are convinced it's awesome tech, and people who haven't yet used it and who criticize its use. People who have used it but are still saying we shouldn't use AI are a tiny minority. I say that because AI is so useful for things like generating imagery and summarizing topics via LLMs (I am less optimistic about other uses, like generating novel research or genuine displays of intelligence), I almost don't understand how you can't be blown away by it.
@@ekszentrik It is actually dangerous because it will generate approximate pseudo architecture which will prevent people from learning about true style and building. You may think it's funny and obvious that everybody knows people do not have 6 fingers, but on complex topics AI impressions are dangerous methods that can give wildly deviating ideas to untrained observers. Further is not only what is wrong, but also what is trained on what is wrong the AI public data generation cascade.
@@TheSquidPro True. I guess I made my post actually under a different mental headspace: I personally use StableDiffusion to generate imagery that doesn't exist in the real world (in my example, characters with unconventional fashion), while in the video I was thinking "Ah, he uses it to generate images how a future Arab city with trad architecture could look like", which is likewise a "non-really existing thing". However, on reflection, the vid uploader was actually pretty lazy for not researching real world examples of modern Arab architecture to use as example (which is scarcely possible with my personal AI use). I agree, the pollution with AI content regarding things that actually exist is a massive issue. The only solution is training people that everything they see post-2023 is potentially AI.
9:14 Dubai, Qatar, Kuwait & Singapore are city states. I think energy consumption per capita of the Cities of USA & Canada would be higher than the Arab Gulf City States.
This was a fascinating subject, easy sub! Really cool that you went there and shot all this footage. Do wonder about your proposed solution though, what conditions are needed that someone will develop that 6-7 story urbanism with walkable areas... as like a new district? It's not flashy, but it does seem like that style is getting a lot of interest organically online. Guess we will have to see where Dubai is in 5 years, and will any of Saudi Arabia's projects like Jeddah Tower or Neom pull interest from it. Kinda all over the place with this comment lol but it's a very interesting subject
Awesome video! The AI pictures of what Dubai could be are so beautiful! If turned reality, it could compete with any European city in aesthetics. Adam Something made an interesting video about Dubai 20 minutes city. Which they’re claiming they’ll make Dubai more walkable and be more bike friendly than Amsterdam by 2040. Would it be awesome if you make a video about Rio de Janeiro. It’s very dense, walkable and lively city in its south zone, where hundreds of thousands live in. It also has a great and affordable rental bike infrastructure and much safer thank people may think. Thank you!
Gustavo Petro didn’t say that phrase it was Enrique Peñalosa, the mayor that design transmilenio in Colombia and provoked the explosion or BRT world wide
Yes I saw someone here saying that - apologies as the quote is spread widely on the internet with credit to Petro. I can fix it in the subtitles probably
I appreciate the very clear and thoughtful encapsulation of the problems of Dubai, the manifestation of all that is wrong with modern city planning. I would add that they don't just need money and will, but also spirit and intelligence.
The renderings for the future "Arabic" Dubai look like something from a Star Wars prequal movie. But I love the passive cooling system using the Qanat. Humans have been very clever long before the industrial revolution and the high energy civilization created by fossil fuels. Thanks for highlighting that.
speaking of actual thousand year old cities, take a look at Mecca. the holiest and one of the oldest cities in the world. its architecture doesn’t reflect that, plus its a bit strange how luxury hotels simply tower over the Kaaba. the vibe doesn’t match the lore.
Ask there countries leader's whom are trying to appese Western media and leader's by selling their culture 😅. Look at Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan modern and old blend which reflects their culture and silk road history
Seeing modern Dubai feels like the future, uplifting, and my heart beats faster. But would I want to live there? Uhm, no. Seeing the architecture built on the region's traditional architecture feels so enchanting and much more conducive to living there. Still, I wonder how the actual people living there would see it. Would it be perceived as clichéd Oriental, a Westerner's romanticized view of the Orient? I wonder.
I think many people just don't really care, as long as they are comfortable. They will probably like the spectacle and the views from the towers. But the moment something doesn't work anymore, it's done - and those people will leave.
@@the_aesthetic_city Well, there have been accusations that Westerners want to keep people from these countries in the past. Modern Dubai is a statement against that, and that is probably part of its attraction. But you are right, of course. If it's not comfortable and sustainable for people anymore, the city is done. What I liked most about the traditional style cities you showed was that they are actually car-free. A city to walk in - I truly love that. I also loved the quote about development being rich people using public transport.
It'll never happen. People would rather the whole thing dries up and blows away than be perceived as going backwards - no matter how forwards those solutions actually are. Dubai will barely exist in a century.
I recently watched a video ahout Dubai by Arab basically talking about how amazing it is but not focusing on any of the negatives, and I thought that was very misleading. I love how this video is more objective with some valid opinions thrown in, like "a developed city is not one where the poor drive, but where the rich take public transportation". Love this channel, keep it up
Dubai already died financially. Since the measures against money laundering they lost the real accelerator investments. They invest more abroad and try to repeat the "Dubai model" in several places around the world like Ras al-Hikma in Egypt.
First of all, great topic and good work. 👍 That being said, I have a few comments. 1) Could you please set a slower pace for the image swapping and also the spinning. I was struggling with nausea when trying to focus the view. 2) The tips on ‘ saving Dubai’ are very good, apart from the one with the metro. I never understood why the metro lines have to be weird shapes instead of a grid of lines which would work much better being more flexible. 3) I think it's too late to save Dubai. This video should have been watched before they built all this....
'Tis hard to figure why anyone would want to visit artificial and plastic Dubai when he could journey to the authentic, sustainable and exquisitely-managed cities of Kinshasa, Port-au-Prince, Lagos, Islamabad, N'Djamena, Dhaka, Khartoum and Sana'a. In the country of the latter, the Houthi Home Stays in the North are supposed to be heavenly. Not to be missed is Beirut, which has undergone a thorough process of decolonization over the last few years, and where one can currently enjoy the excitement of free fireworks' shows on a nightly basis.
I’ve never been, so I must reserve judgement, but I spent some time in Bahrain and had the same complaints. Once it ceases to be fashionable, I fear Dubai’s metaphorical collapse will come quickly.
11:17 Petro is a bad example. I am from Colombia, he has prohibited colombian pezrol companies to extraxt oil and gas, as a result, ecopetrol now buys 30% of the gas to Venezuela (a dictatorship). Petro put colombians like me in a difficult position only to help a dictatorship
Hey if your looking for authentic Arabian Architecture, there no place like YEMEN, explore or watch videos on Sanaas old Town, Shibam, and the highland villages that all of these are authentic and has characyeristics that you mentioned of an ideall city, and as a fan of traditional Architecture and a Yemenite Arab all apreaciate if you make a video about Yemeni Architecture or refer them in a video, thanks for the video.
It just shows that money and intelligence dont always go hand in hand. They may have billions maybe even trillions of dollars but they dont even know how to design a functional city.
To be fair, it's easier to say all this in hindsight when we can more clearly see the problems that it brings. Back when bad cities were being designed, it wouldn't have been as easy to see that.. you might've even liked the futuristic looks and being able to drive everywhere if you didn't have these RU-vid videos to learn about this. Urban planning is an ongoing study, and mostly relies on analysing existing planning because it has so many variables. Now that many cities have gone this route, we can analyse them over time and see how it "performs" and learn from them. The push to build more walkable and human scale cities is driving a change in how cities develop further. Just like any science, humanity experiments, analyses results and tries to learn and push the field. It's just that a field like urban planning is a lot slower to progress. My point is to try to think a bit more nuanced.. as they say things aren't just black and white
@@MrBsehratmaannking This whole thing was such a waste tho. Cities worked perfectly fine back then. Sure they werent perfect and had some flaws but overall they were pretty good since city design had thousands of years of experimentation and improvements. But then the modernists came and decided to completely reinvent the wheel for absolutely no reason. Why reinvent something that already works. What we shouldve done was to just improve upon the already existing city design principles. We keep thinking we are better and smarter than the people from the past which leads to us making these type of mystakes. The saying "Those Who Do Not Learn History Are Doomed To Repeat It” fits perfectly to this topic.
I remember having seen very interesting videos about Masdar. A city that was humane, nice to live in, and would use natural energy to be self sufficient. truly the dream
@@clemradio It still used high tech but it was a nice attempt. Solar power, underground electric public transport, no cars, passive cooling, locally sourced building materials, narrow streets, low rises, water recycling...
Surely a place in the desert should be able to generate more than enough solar and wind energy to sustain itself.... plus it's wealthy enough to kick-start and possibly subsidise that industry. The city itself just needs to evolve and green itself... maybe put up some of those canvas shade thingies. I would assume that right now the biggest hurdles would be political.
Very well balanced. It’s so nice to see someone highlight the cleanliness and fantastic service. It’s become trendy to hate on these cities, for all the reasons that have now become obvious. One more thing to note is that these places are an oasis in an extremely unstable Middle East. Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo are all examples of old, traditional and ‘sustainable’ cities, which have been and will be around far longer than Dubai. But the past and far future do not matter when you want a good job, a place to raise your family and somewhere you can live in safety now and in the next 20 years. The Gulf states ARE an anomaly, but for the Arab world, they are a welcome one. Could they be better? Yes! But trust me, I have lived in these countries, and they could be far, far worse.
Dubai looks like a fantastic sci-fi movie set... until people try to live in it. Few walkable streets, extreme heat, and endless traffic - it's a city built for cars, not people. When will they realize urban sprawl isn't the future? 🚗🌆 They seem to slowly get that they need to change something.
I think there was a missing point here that Elon recently mentioned, in the near future most of our energy will be solar, which makes UAE a prime candidate to have it in spades just like now
I am not a Muslim or an Arab but I study history and many of the buildings in the past in the Middle East are very amazing, And now I am building my dream house in Asia with the concept of Middle Eastern buildings in the past.😊
The sad thing is that in an attempt to house new millionaire investors and residents, property prices are going through the roof and rents are simply unaffordable. As a result the middle income group is forced to retreat to other emirates and commute morning and evening on congested jammed roads to Dubai for work and other reasons. There’s no public transportation between the emirates so people buy more cars and petrol and remain stuck in traffic for hours on end.
They abuse Filipino people like myself in that city!.!. That’s one of the reasons why I don’t want to visit that city!.!. The concept of Human Rights doesn’t exist in that city!.!.
I like these kind of videos of imagining what cities could be. Do you have ideas for new Ukraine if everything works out eventually? Anna from Ukraine showed doors as important aspect of their older buildings. It was vlog 215. I saw new buildings being build in Bucha. Looks kind of American style. I guess they don't have time to choose. Anything would do for those people left without home. However new cities would be required to be build from scratch.
What dubai government does which others do not, is change and adapt with the times... living here it is crazy how they have realized their past mistakes and work to better it with fresh ideas.
Great topic This video has a very contradicting part. Sprawling cities make it hard to reach places, but right after that, you say why build skyscrapers with so much land available. The biggest problem with these city planning videos is that they blanketly villanize car dependent cities as if everyone loves public transit. Public transit never addresses comfort, cleanliness, or punctuality. and i've lived in Toronto and London cities that have extensive networks. Dense cities have a hygine problem and generally have crime issues as well. But those facts never seem to be addressed when bringing up these solutions Can any city planning content creators create a video from a prospective of someone who enjoys driving? Or wants to live in a space bigger than a tiny condo? Because this point of view is very narrow and doesnt serve a significant portion of the population in those same cities.
On our way to Florence last month, we had to transfer at Dubai airport. I had no desire to stop by for extra days in Dubai. I didn't know why. Now I understand after watching this episode. You are so right. I agree with everything you said.
Thanks for this great video! I still have to visit, but this was exactly how I imagined it. The most puzzling thing is that all the surrounding countries-like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahrainare trying to replicate what Dubai has done. If they focused more on local architecture and creating denser city centers, it would likely work much better. And no, Dubai wants to attract wealthy people because they believe that's where the value lies and less problems and more money. Personally, I think that's a big mistake on their part. You sadly forgot to tell about the Dubai poop trucks.
No way that Maarten van Rossem supports you on Patreon, that's awesome! Now, regarding Dubai - I have no idea what it's like as I've never been there, but it does look overblown and overrated, in the same way that the average modernist and internationalist city in Qatar, Bahrain and now Saudi Arabia is trying to be. This stuff only works insofar they have money, but given the change of the environment, that'll eventually become unsustainable. It's like a worse version of Las Vegas. The Arabian world has more interesting places to be and it's an actual shame they didn't apply these practices instead of wasting time, space, money and resources on _this._
Dubai is lacking in spirituality...but what spirituality is that? Western Christian spirituality? You have people who go to masjids to pray 5 times a day in Dubai. Western spirituality = 0 to at Christmas and Easter or once per week. Safety is a big reason many like Dubai. Safety comes from Salam (peace). Where is the peace in Western culture where the problems are many and many are looking for the exit. Dubai made an amazing transformation and is still changing. At least the leader's stated aim is to make it the best in the world. How long did it take Western cities to reach where they are now?
I visited Dubai in 2015 and traveled into the back countryside. The UAE has extremely deep infrastructure much more solid than strip development in the United States for example. The UAE is built to last.
Too late now. Yes it was envisaged that it would be a New York styled city. That doesn't work in a desert. Plainly hi rise is not for a desert climate. So what next, pass. But I think you are correct, it won't last 1,000 years, perhaps not even one hundred