Why Dubai's Man-Made Islands Are Still Empty 

A city should never be built to look good from the sky. It should be built to look good from the perspective of the people walking through its streets.

Dubai kind of feels like an experiment in what happens when you give people too much money.

Few years ago my company was doing a project for a client in Dubai. I spend a lot of time there and also learned a lot about the place. The people there are greedy, extremely greedy. And they seem not to plan too much in advance. The city itself is quite old because it was a port city. The most cosmopolitan in that part of the world. They used to have pearls there but they were so agressive in getting them that oysters went extinct in that area. They had oil. Exploited it so much that they have none now. They have no respect for the nature. They use it, use it and use it. They have this mindset that everything and everyone should serve them if they consider them inferior. There is no gratidute towards anything. People or environment. Everything is disposable. A building was on fire? Let's leave it and build a new one. Everything must look expensive but when you take a closer look it is very tacky. There is a huge waste of space (inside the buildngs, outside areas). They serve no purpose they are just meant to look "rich". But it is all the surface, everything is empty inside. Even if you go on top of Burj Kalifa you quickly realize that it isn't worth it because you won't see anything interesting (and it was around $50 at that time). The whole city is just a golden empty shell. No soul, no value.

Dubai is a perfect example of why consolidating wealth in the hands of a few can be devastating. Especially when those individuals are rich largely by virtue of what family they are born into. God damn we suck as a species sometimes.

“I live on the Netherlands” “Which city?” “Dubai”

Fun fact - a coral reef was buried underneath the sand in order for this abomination to be built.

I'm reminded of a line from a movie I once saw. It's something like "Land is a good investment because it's the one thing they're not making anymore." You can't really create sustainable land. Mother nature will always have her way.

Ah, nothing sets the mood like sailing by multiple barren sandy lots on the way to your resort island surrounded by stagnant water.

Mother Earth was like "I'm not into tattoos, thank youuu!"

Imagine having a private island like five feet from somebody else’s “private” island lol

At the start of the 2008 financial crash I was installing cabinets in new homes. Fewer homes were being built, so my work slowed. But, for some reason some people kept starting housing developments as if the crash never happened. I installed the cabinets on several of their model homes and for years afterward would drive by and see those model homes standing guard over a sea of empty overgrown weed lots. They even quit mowing the yards of the model homes and I wondered if the "homeowners association" would send them threatening letters! But then I remembered that field mice and rabbits can't read!

There’s just a thing about Dubai that makes it feel so robotic and dead. The city feels soulless

What's stupid is that it would only take a handful of marine and shoreline scientists to explain why this project wouldn't work out.

The first problem was the fact they made things that look nice from above, it shows that they are more interested in things looking pretty instead of functional

As an American, I'm almost happy Dubai exists for no other reason than it means we don't have the worst-designed cities in the world.

On another note, these island projects used so many dredging vessels, that it was difficult for Louisiana to find any to rebuild the coastline after Katrina.

When you start building a huge project in your Minecraft world but lose motivation and are too lazy to take it down.

- " I have a trillion dollars and dont know what to do with them" - " Do you wanna pour sand from the desert into the ocean?" - "Sounds good"

Definitely my worst ever trip. I got recommended to go to Dubai by a Moroccan stewardess I met in Bali and I've never seen somewhere so fake, it's like spoilt brats trying to outdo each other in a boiling hot sand pit in the middle of nowhere

Stagnant water? I am not an engineer and I thought about how was the water going to circulate like that. Wow, great job!

500 years from now: people say aliens built these islands

Living in Dubai as a child, the shells I collected on Jumeirah beach were all covered with tar while I saw the dredges at work out at The World. These projects are so damaging to the environment, and it was all in vain.

The sewer of the world's tallest building isn't even hooked up to city sewer. It has to be trucked off every day in tanker trucks.

This was another informative, educational piece of content from you, and I look forward to watching much more.

I love how they don't have proper sewage treatment over there, but build man-made islands and dumbass skyscrapers.

this is what happens when you have more money than sense

great content, beautiful presentation and very pleasant soothing narration style! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

This was great - Thanks

Imagine that youre rich enough to own an island but your neighbor on another island plays their music too damn loud.

Those islands look like the most impractical places to live in the world.

I randomly found this on google maps years and years ago, I cannot even tell you how confused I was.

Congratulations 🎊 great video.

They are just like kids realizing their sand castles don’t last.

it looks like a project I’d do in my Minecraft world,,

Fun fact - they are still empty

I've seen this when it was first released 2 years ago. Still worth watching again. 😊

Can you imagine what would happen if this money was spent on improving the planet and people's lives?

I can't believe that someone didn't realize that adding those breakwater islands would make the inner water stagnant. I grew up around the Mississippi gulf coast and the beaches there suck. It's because of the barrier islands a couple of miles off the coastline. Go beyond those barrier islands and the water is beautiful, clear, has surf, and is blue. Along the coastline there are no waves and the water is brown. I certainly wouldn't want to spend millions of dollars on a house located on brown, stagnant, still water.

Thank you for adding Malay subtitle!

Dubai’s terrible reputation warned off potential investors, who would want to invest there now.

Billionaire 1: I'm bored. Billionaire 2: yea me too. Billionaire 1: wanna doodle on the ocean?

Castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually - Jimi Hendrix.

Fun Fact: Because this region is situated in the dessert and therefore experiences extreme heat they named the area the UAE which is an acronym for : United Air-conditioning Empire as every dwelling requires air conditioning to survive.

Getting utilities to these islands is absurdly expensive, not to mention that residents also need an expensive boat to reach shore and a place to dock said boat. Then they need a parking space and a car near the dock so they can go about their business on the mainland. Not to mention that you're stranded on your island during inclement weather or stranded on the mainland if you didn't beat the storm home. I guess this is par for the course when you consider they were engineered by desert dwellers who lived their entire lives in a desert wasteland.

This islands project to me is a mixture of arrogance and really bad taste

The sheer amount of environmental and ethical issues this raises is completely mind blowing, this is a perfect example of how you can't bend all the rules of nature, it will bite back eventually.

The entire city (or even country) were planned with help from consultants. These people are smart - good at constructing a business case and proving on paper that it works. Problem is they never see to it till the end - so the implementation falls onto the sponsors of the projects who were neither skilled enough nor have enough care to it. If something breaks then it get blamed on communication breakdown.

There is no way in hell id stay in a high rise building built on a pile of sand.

It’s all fun and games till the sea level rises

Dubai’s like that one kid in the class project who has a really cool idea but one that’s also pointless.

Hi. Love the video. The CC is off from the video. It needs to be synced up with the video.

Quite random but it would be kind of funny if the "world" islands started beefing and causing war/conflict

Indonesia has more than 17000 natural islands and most of them are empty. Perfect tropical weather, cheap currency, delicious foods, friendly people, famous tourist destinations, strategic geographical hub. And these investors choose to put their money on artificial islands next to a desert.

As much of a stupid idea it was, it's sad seeing an almost completed massive project like this abandoned and forgotten

"We have all this open area we can build in." "Let's make artificial islands!"

is it just me or Dubai would have the most craziest builds ever just like the deepest pool and the biggest building

Reminds me of a quote: 'You were too busy thinking you could, you didn't stop to think you should?' (Yeah. I know I've butchered the quote. I was tired and lazy to look up the quote. Real quote below:) DesertStateInEU: (Found exact quote) "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didnt stop to think if they should "

Building artificial islands when u still have plenty of undeveloped beachfront coastline makes no sense.

The phrase 'more money than sense' springs to mind.

the English (US) subtitles are timed incorrectly; they appear before the audio

Wow, these look like cultured bacteria in a petri dish.

Let me get this right. Did you say that it is SAND piled up in water, with tides all around eroding the edges? I'm going to pass on those luxury lots as an investment opportunity!

Some rich billionaire: I have a horrible idea! Let’s build lil ass islands shaped like the world… developers in Dubai: let’s go!!! 😂

Nothing bad ever came from digging up the the sea floor, am I right guys? *looks at the Netherlands*

They had so much money they started pouring sand into the ocean.

Imagine the world islands going to war between each other

Dubai feels like it’s trying to bring the Capital from the Hunger Games to life

The subtitles are completely out of sync. @neo please update.

200 years from now: it was aliens

The Earth has enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not for every man's greed. -Mahatma Gandhi

I think Dubai would be an interesting place to visit. Maybe one day.

That perfect last sentence - "What happens when the city stops being built and just has to be lived..."

"The World" looks like a botched island project on Cities Skylines.

Expectation: A luxurious palace on a private tropical island paradise. Reality: A McMansion on a hill of wet sand surrounded by a stagnant saltwater moat.

I reckon if you hadn't told me they were meant to resemble the world map, I never would have guessed. As It barely resembles it.

They were so concerned about CAN we do this? They never stopped to think SHOULD we do this?

"Yo where do you live" "I live in the Florida part of the world islands in Dubai in the UAE"

- Why Dubai's man-made islands are still empty? - Because it was a stupid idea. Directed by Robert B. Weide

My husband a car guy, said $200,000 vehicles go to scrap to be destroyed, because why fix a dent when you can get new. And women don’t have many rights, you can shop or eat, no tight clothes or you get fined, and women can’t yell. Why would people spend their money on a wasteland. Not worth the hype. Great video.

I doubt anyone would want to see artificial snow in Dubai at this time

The fact they opened an Atlantis hotel there is fitting. Dubai might end up being a real life Atlantis with the way they've changed their coast line.

This seems like playing SIM City in real life. Starting off Grand Projects and then not knowing whether it would go ahead as planned....

I bet you could still hear your neighbor's subwoofer from their island tho

This topic would make a great 1970’s era disaster movie. (I can’t believe engineers signed off on any of these projects!)

Dubai is literally humankind's ode to its own decadence.

I was only a teen back then, and I remember thinking, that’s such a horrible idea.

Living on a tiny island seems cool, but is pretty inconvenient - you either have a long hot walk to the boat, or need a car on the island, then have to “park” the boat, get into another car,,,with all the same in reverse, transferring whatever you bought that day each time. You could just have the items delivered, but that will cost tons, let alone dealing with the trash pick up, sewage/plumbing, and whether it makes sense to build your mansion on a island that could be covered in water 20 years later. Even in Dubai, not sure there would be enough buyers with both the funds and willing to overlook the drawbacks.

Another scummy thing about this is that the workers of these new buildings and hotels are probably all underpaid and still incredibly poor.

Today’s adventure of “What comes in my recommended.”

A classic example of “just because you can doesn’t mean you should”

Islands are barriers towards external forces, wether natural or Man-inflicted. It is mentioned, to avoid erosion of the beaches. Besides that, it becomes a shield against any future enemies before they really land on the mainland. Islands also mark the territory of a nation. No one really knows the other signficances of these barriers as specified by their design and construction, except those who had planned them. Now, this approach have been adopted by many other nations, for similar purposes. The difference is that, Dubai made them under the guise of attractive tourist attractions. Others made them just as floaters, some say as stopovers for their fishermen.

The Line in Saudi Arabia feels like a project with just about the same chance at actually succeeding as this debacle.

“the world” seems so futuristic and creepy. kinda like something they THOUGHT would be the future but never actually happened. kinda like flying cars and robot maids.

This is like Starting a minecraft world and then leaving

Seems like it would be such a drag to live on some little patch of sand. You'd be kind of screwed if you just needed to nip down to the corner shop for a pint of milk.

This would be the greatest destination on Earth. A true experience of a lifetime. Wow going across the world without going across the world.

Humans in 5000 years be like: „It’s Aliens“

Moral of story: Arrogant idea... Humbling outcome.

Como a areia fica parada 😮??? E com certeza eles verificaram se tinha corais nestas costeiras , e areias não prejudica o oceano pois é formado plas águas e areias e todo seu ecossistemas de vida marinha. 😊

Okay this explains the flooding and why the water wasn't receiding