Dubai Has Changed

I never technically grew up in Dubai, I just lived a short distance away from it and have seen it change from a dusty little town to one of the largest cities in the Middle East. I say one of the largest because it is nowhere near the top in terms of population but is fast increasing in area.

In fact, Dubai is now almost as large as Delhi and has seven times fewer occupants. However, all said and done, the city is a desert and even a temporary cut in the water or electricity supply causes havoc. Imagine trying to do anything when the temperature is 48 Celcius in the shade.

I know many people who grew up in the UAE during the eighties, who wish that things hadn't changed quite so quickly. Not that we are luddites and hate change but just that we have seen that extremely rapid development involves overlooked problems. And these problems just haven't surfaced yet.

Yes, the city has water shortages - I mean imagine pumping water almost a kilometre into the sky to supply the toilets at the top of the Burj Dubai (the tallest building in the world once it's completed). But, on top of that the city will not be able to provide for all the electricity needs either because of the rapidly expanding population. Each new household of three or four people, has a massive impact on the environment. They have huge carbon footprints, each parent has a massive car, usually some monstrosity with a small nuclear reactor for an engine. They throw out unimaginable amounts of plastic and other wrapping materials, because everythings been clingfilmed and then bubble wrapped and then carboard packaged.

There is no recycling available in the city. There isn't any way of recycling even the easiest of things such as paper, glass and metal. What a bloody waste.
Not only that, if you take the motorway out of Dubai to the east, there is a mountain of tyres that just defies belief - there must be about a billion tyres on the pile and it just keeps getting bigger.

I bet they will soon be advertising that as well - Burj Pirelli maybe...