I do tend to be impressed with huge construction projects, and no country in the world has more of them per square mile than Dubai. The tallest building in the world (by far), the tallest hotel in the world, Palm Island, the series of islands known as The World, the world’s largest mall, and now this: the world’s NEW largest mall.
Mall of the World
They’re calling it The Mall of the World, and it will have themed sections, one part will look like London, one part like Barcelona, and so on. It’s a very Las Vegas type concept.
I think it’s cool that they will have a waterfall, an indoor lake complete with an old fashioned sailing ship, trams to get around it, and much, much more. However, it is not, as the article from The Guardian I linked to calls it, an ‘indoor city.’ Cities have homes, where people live. Cities have schools.
The Mall of the World will have 20,000 hotel rooms, and parking for 50,000 cars. Few of the city’s 2 million residents will be able to shop there or eat in its restaurants. They might benefit by getting jobs there, I suppose, but the customers will be tourists and foreign business people.
Something that size, of course, could do a lot of good for the people of the country. But there is zero chance that it will. The people don’t get a vote in Dubai. It’s one of the last pure monarchies left on Earth. That sucks.
Cool stuff, yay! Horrible social system and massive economic disparity, boo.
But, let me end tonight’s blog on a positive note: Countries change. Governments change. Borders change. Maybe a generation from now, maybe a century from now, maybe Dubai will some day be a free and democratic nation. If so, the cool stuff will still be there.
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