I pitty everyone who is trying to hide their wealth by buying real estate in Dubai.
The biggest penalty we could impose on them is make them live there.
The biggest penalty we could impose on them is make them live there.
But it’s surely better than almost every other city in the world.
On which basis?
Sure, it’ll lose out to London, Paris, Barcelona, New York, Los Angeles, …
But it won’t lose out to cities like Manchester or Liverpool.
This reminds me a bit of Eddie Izzard's impression of the Queen: "A plumber? What on Eaaarrrthh is that?" Not everyone can eat at a restaurant nightly. Not everyone can eat. And some of the reason for that is designed into the current system.
In this context it makes sense to look at things from that perspective. On reddit it would of course be different.
You’ll find more slaves per capita in the US where prisoners are widely used as actual slave labor.
A decade ago this stuff may have been more common, but the government has cracked down heavily to the point that it doesn’t exist any more than it does in Europe.
They don’t even have a working sewage system.
https://dotless.ae/how-does-dubai-manage-its-sewage-water/
From 2016 so Dubai may have had a working sewage system for a year, so I could be wrong.
> Dubai: The emirate of Dubai will get a new deep tunnel sewerage system costing Dh12.5 billion in the next five years to replace more than 121 sewage pumping stations.
Pumping station meaning tankers transport the waste away.
https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/dubai-to-get-a-new-sewag...
It’s not like they’re making residents pay high taxes to pay for the tankers either.
The end user experience of the sewage system in Dubai is no different than in regular Western cities. That’s really all that matters when trying to figure out if it’s “working” or not.
I haven't ever been in a place that felt so fake and liveless. The only thing you can do is go to the mall.
It's dystopian in every aspect.
That’s not true at all. Mall is probably the last place anyone should go to in Dubai.
Instead of going to the Mall, you could drive a little and go view the wonderful collection at Louvre Abu Dhabi.
You could also go eat excellent sushi at the little (and cheap) 3 Fils at the local Fishing harbor in Jumeirah. There’s also a decent seafood restaurant next door run by local fishermen.
On Palm there’s the excellent Ibn AlBahr run by a group of Lebanese(?) fishermen.
Deira too is full of nice authentic places.
But sure, if you’re a mall enthusiast then a shitty mall is all you will find. If you seek out nice authentic places, they’re easy to find.
Most of these aren’t my favourites, but they’re definitely well loved in world class cities like London.
Do I think Dubai is a world class city? Nah. But it’s not very far.
Personally I’m really not a fan of the place, I’d only ever visit to meet with lawyers. Too warm, too much sand, most of the restaurants can also be found in much better cities (Monaco has most of the aforementioned within a short distance, and vastly better beaches)
Public transport is for naive Europeans and the slaves, oh, sorry, the Asian people exploited to serve and run their society. The whole city is full of people impressed by the so called wealth and futurism, tasteless shops, malls and skyscrapers.
When I left I said to myself I will never come back to such a hypocritical and shallow place made for wannabe Instagram millionaires and low level mobsters.
Oh and of course the culture and the politics there... you really have to look the other way.