Look what our money bought in Dubai

[Gaspar]

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=12396243

I miss our money 

[cannon_fodder]

Cost $1200 per square foot to build.  Clearly the space constraints they are presented with justify the cost:



(note the miles, upon miles of empty desert a few blocks away).

It costs $4000 sq/ft to lease space in the building.  Odds of that filling up in this economy?

It is an American designed tower, engineered by a separate American firm, being built in Dubai by a South Korean contractor using a Belgian company for most of the sub contracting with the projected being managed by yet another American company and actually built with labor from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China and the Philippines (reports indicate no actual laborers are Dubai residents).  All paid for with oil revenue from America.   

[Hometown]

Today's equivalent to Tulsa in the 20s.

[Gaspar]

Now that's some good stimulus!

Do you realize the President Obama signed his stimulus package on the same desk that President Clinton got his package stimulated on?  

[TurismoDreamin]

I did a report on Dubai for a college project.

-They also have one of the tallest hotels...the Burj Al Arab (the one that Tiger is seen hitting a golf ball off the top of on a commercial) and btw, it is one of the few 7-star hotels in the world
-They have one of the world's largest shopping malls complete with an indoor ski resort
-Dubailand, the equivalent of Disneyworld....will be twice the size of Disneyworld
-Of course, everyone knows about the three man made "palm-tree" shaped peninsulas
-And "The World" archipelago islands
-Their Business Park district is that picture everyone sees of Dubai of the highway surrounded by towering skyscrapers on both sides
-They have (or will have) an underwater hotel (Hydropolis)
-The population growth was something incredible like 30 people per hour during one year.
-At one point 25% of the world's crane supply was in Dubai
-The waterfront development will add 12 times more coastline to Dubai
-For the ladies...the population at one point was 75% male and 25% female

There's an endless list of things going on over there, but that's what I can remember from my paper.

Oh yea, Dubai was really put on the map during the Gulf War when they established a free zone. People moved there to get away from the war, and those people set up their businesses and trade in Dubai. Then they established something like the freehold property rights law...I don't remember specifically what it was called, but it allowed foreign businesses the right to own land there and after that, everyone just came...so the Sheik built it and more showed up so they built even more and we are now at present day...in a nutshell.





And before I finish with my rambling....I must put a myth to an end with this picture:



Everyone thinks that this is the Shiekh's house and all those cars are his. This is actually not his house...it is the Emirates Palace Hotel located in a neighboring city, and those cars are basically what you get chauffeured in as a hotel guest.

[T-Town Now]

I don't find that structure attractive. If you intentionally went out to build the biggest, most visible, "I've got more money than anyone" structure possible, I think this is what you'd wind up with.

Will it be lit up in pink, purple, lime, orange, and yellow neon at night? Are they going to put a roller coaster around the top? If so, they've achieved their goals, I'd say. 

[Gaspar]

I think they should build two huge geodesic dome structures (left one slightly larger) at the base, and just call it what it is.