Project Details...
GROWING PAINS: Dubai in Transition ----------------------------------------------- The scale of development that has taken place in Dubai can engender feelings of wonderment and despair in equal measure. Before the economic downturn, it had one of the fastest growing economies in the world, where anything was possible and its rise to greatness was thought unstoppable. However, it has since had time to reflect. The unfinished developments and empty man made islands are potent reminders that property booms don't last forever. Over the past two decades, Dubai has sought to overcome its desert image and has focused on iconic buildings and mega projects. It adopted a strategy that spectacularised urban spaces, using superlatives such as 'the tallest, the biggest, and the greatest' as a way of appealing to investors, companies, and tourists. Dubai prides itself on a reputation of luxury and excess. As a result, it now consumes more water and electricity and produces more waste per person than nearly every other country on the planet. The rapid increase in living standards and the desire to build itself into significance has put a huge strain on the Emirate's infrastructure. The country's ancient groundwater resources are being depleted rapidly and there is an unhealthy reliance on energy intensive and expensive desalination plants to supply much of their fresh water. The government spends billions of dollars subsidising the creation of fresh water, with much of it being squandered on golf courses and landscaped gardens. In addition to the environmental challenges there is a unique social experiment taking place at the same time; whereby a powerful and wealthy local Emirati population, is completely outnumbered by a huge multicultural and in most cases poorer migrant population. Dubai is now one of the most diverse countries in the Middle East. This series was shot in 2010, during a time of transition for Dubai, when property prices had dropped substantially and the government was struggling under the weight of massive debts
Sheikh Zayed Road
Sheikh Zayed Road runs through the centre of the city and is home to most of Dubai's skyscrapers. To the left of the road, you can see Satwa, a poor district which sits juxtaposed to the towering wealth of the city's elite. To the right of the image you can see the Dubai International Financial Centre. Dubai has scoured the world for inspiration on how to build a modern metropolis. The result is a city made up of a confusing mix of visual symbols from all across the globe.
The Dubai government is currently building a new metro system to run through the city in a bid to ease the congestion on the roads and to alter the car dominated culture.
Morning Rush
Congestion builds up quickly as thousands of buses and mini-vans leave the suburban camps to deliver workers to the construction sites in central Dubai.
Workers waiting for their bus home at the end of their shift.
Locals playing cricket on their day off in Al Satwa, a district next to the glitzy Sheikh Zayed Road. This working class area was due for demolition to make way for new high rise developments, but the locals protested and so far have managed to keep their low rise district intact.
Dubai International Financial Centre
Sea VIews
An empty beach front construction site. Construction projects in Dubai have been hit hard by the worldwide economic downturn. Many have been scaled down, delayed or canceled. As a result large vacant plots can be found dotted across the city and all across the desert outskirts.
Power lines and unfinished houses, in the desert outskirts of Dubai.
Constant Battle
Residential developments on the outskirts of Dubai. Many are unfinished and the residents face a constant battle keeping back the desert, which seeks to reclaim the land.
Burying Construction Waste
A worker digs a hole in the sand on the edge of Dubai to bury rubbish from local housing developments.
Making the desert bloom
Drip-feed irrigation pipes, International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture
The International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture.
The centre was set up in 1999 to carry out experiments and investigations into the salinity tolerance of grasses, flowers and crops, with the view to growing more with saline water rather than valuable fresh water. The work they carry out is vital in learning how they can reduce the fresh water requirements of the UAE, the majority of which comes from expensive and energy-intensive desalination plants.
Salinity Trials
The International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture.
Road Sweeper
The International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture.
International Center for Biosaline Agriculture, UAE
Muslims only
Call to prayer, Al Satwa
Paper butterflies hang from the ceiling over 'Fashion Avenue' at The Dubai Mall, the World's largest. Friday nights at the Mall are popular amongst Emirati men and women.
Ski Dubai & Mall of the Emirates
Ski Dubai
Ski Dubai, located in the Mall of the Emirates. Average temperature inside -4C. Average temperature outside 30-40C in the day. It's a popular place for expatriate kids to go skiing after school, and a place for Middle Eastern locals to learn to ski.
Dubailand & Tiger Woods Golf Course Visitor Centre
Dubailand is planned to be the largest entertainment complex ever built. Like most developments it was severely delayed by the recession. Construction halted between 2008 and 2013. When I took this photograph in 2010, it appeared to be just a vast area of fenced-off desert. If completed, it will have an area of 278 km2 (107 sq mi) and include 45 “mega projects” and 200 sub projects.
Young construction worker, Dubai Marina
Lone Tree
Dubai Creek and dhow wharfs
It was along the Bur Dubai creek area that members of the Bani Yas tribe first settled in the 19th century, establishing the Al Maktoum dynasty in the city. Dubai's pearling industry, which formed the main sector of the city's economy, was based primarily on expeditions in the creek, prior to the invention of cultured pearls in the 1930s.
Dubai Marina
Dubai Marina is an artificial canal district carved into a 2 miles stretch of the Persian Gulf shoreline.
Site of the proposed 'Trump Tower'
Palm Jumeirah
Wire Gabions
Wire gabions sitting on the site for the proposed 'Trump Tower' on the Palm Jumeirah. These wire cubes are filled with rocks and are used in the foundations for the Palm.
Villas and mansions on a 'frond’ of the man made Palm Jumeirah, Dubai. The Palm Jumeirah is the smallest of three palm shaped extensions to the desert littoral of Dubai. They are accused of causing long term environmental damage to fragile Gulf ecosystem.
A man fishing at the mouth of Dubai Creek. The famous QE2 Ocean liner can be seen docked in Port Rashid in the distance. It sat unused from 2008 until 2013.
Quoz Industrial Area
Bangladeshi workers, Sonapur
Unfinished apartments
Quoz
Workers Accommodation
Al Muhaisnah District
Workers Accommodation
Al Muhaisnah District
Workers waiting for their morning bus into central Dubai
Washing Day
Friday is washing day and is usually the only day off for most migrant workers in Dubai. This area is commonly referred to as Sonapur (literally, 'Land of Gold' in Hindi) by expatriate labourers. The official name is Madinat Muhaisnah and Muhaisnah 2, both located in the desert fringes of Dubai. The area houses a large number of labour camps for the mainly South Asian labourers and construction workers who work on real estate projects south of Dubai Creek.
Call centre staff walking along the highway to work.
Al Muhaisnah 4
Dubai International City - Morocco District
Dubai International City is divided up into 10 different country districts. The architecture of each district is meant to reflect its home country. This is Morocco. The 'city' became very run down during the financial crisis as property prices and rental incomes plummeted. Due to its proximity to a waste water treatment plant, and frequent occurrences of overflowing, many sections of the International City smelled of sewage.
Overloaded
Sewage trucks queue in line to drop off waste at a processing plant in Warsan, Dubai. Due to the speed at which the city has developed, sewerage systems and drainage infrastructure have not been built fast enough. As a result, many developments rely on the trucks to transport the waste off site. Sometimes a driver may have to wait several days to get into the plant. There were high profile cases of drivers becoming impatient at waiting and were found to have illegally discharged the raw sewage into nearby drains.
Progress
Traditional houses in Dubai were cooled by wind towers such as this one in Bastakiya. However, this old technology has long been replaced by hundreds of thousands of air conditioning units. The UAE has a higher water and energy use per head of population than anywhere else in the world, including the US. Both water and electricity are heavily state sponsored for the local Emirati population, so they never really feel the true costs involved in living the high life in what is essentially a desert.
Al Bastakiya
An old quarter called Al Bastakiya has been preserved and recreated along the banks of Dubai Creek. You can get a sense of the old Dubai, with the cool and narrow passages that cut between the houses and wind towers. They are a far cry from the vast highways flanked by skyscrapers of concrete and glass that occupy much of modern Dubai. Bastakiya is named after the Persian merchants who came from Iran's Bastak region and settled in Dubai.
Dubai International Financial Centre
Modelled and copied from examples in New York and London. The hope is that it will become the centre of Middle Eastern and Asian finance.
Window Cleaners
Dubai International Financial Centre
House in ruins
Al Satwa
The Burj Khalifa
At 2,716 feet tall The Burj Khalifa is currently the tallest building and free-standing structure in the World. The tower stands as a potent symbol of Dubai's desire to be a World leading city, but is also a reminder of the huge amounts of debt that the city has racked up over the past decade. It was originally called the Burj Dubai, but just before it opened the name was changed to Burj Khalifa in honour of the current President of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, who gave substantial financial aid to Dubai to pay its debtors. It is visible from almost every part of the city.
