Urban consultant Noah Raford tweeted this pic while on a trip to Dubai, high above the haze. All that’s left are the crowns of Dubai’s innumerable skyscraper, poking through like starships in a nebula. There’s an ugly side to the emirate’s urban explosion — sprawl, human rights abuses, pollution — but I can’t think of anywhere else on earth that feels like Sim City 2000 brought to life. In the middle of the desert. [Noah Raford via The Atlantic]
Glenn
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 9:29 AMLooks more like Coruscant, so I’d say what’s missing is repulsorlift car traffic lanes rather than Lando.
Ash
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 10:04 AMCloud city.
Jaezass
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 10:15 AMDubai is a testament to extravagance and wasted money. They have put all their oil profit into building things that for sure are cool, but they could have spent it wiser than they have. The only people who can live in most of their projects have more money than sense.
Abe
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 2:58 PMNot to mention all the sun Dubai gets yet no solar panels… (according to Home 2009).
Jack
Thursday, December 29, 2011 at 3:25 PMDubai doesn’t actually make much money from its oil resources (because it doesn’t have many when compared to its sister city Abu Dhabi).
Steve
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 7:48 PMIt seems extraordinary wasteful to spend billions on stupidly tall skyscrapers. In Dubai. On sand. In a country where there’s currently no shortage of land and thus has no need for tall structures.
How much energy does it take to pump water up a mile into the sky?
Ben
Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 3:30 PM“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a city look more like ‘the future’ than this one at this moment.”
Technically, cloud city existed in the past