DM Blog (Dubai Marina): A Real Head Turner

This is one for Dubai aficionados:

Dubai sprouts a forest of building cranes, but still needs more.

Dubai Marina's Al Fattan Towers (top-right) and the JBR towers (above).

It's yada, yada, yada about construction crazed Dubai. The AP news article provides perspective on the scale of the building boom. Although Dubai is trying to sell itself as an upscale resort destination, offering holiday homes for the rich and up-and-coming around the world, the phenomenal building program in and of itself is causing people to take note. If not to holiday, some will just want to come and see or get in on the action. It's like having the opportunity to witness and experience the creation of Manahattan again, as happened in New York 80 years ago. Only this time, the scale is even bigger.

More than Manahattan?

The numbers are sometimes staggering if not just simply unbelievable:

30,000 cranes--in one city?
200 towers in one development (Dubai Marina)
Another 200 towers in Business Bay and the Burj Downtown
Another hundred in Jumeirah Lake Towers area, plus dozens more in Dubai Land
5 and counting--buildings to rise above 100 floors
$200 billion dollars in projects, and counting
the largest airport in the world, to handle eventually over 100 million passengers per year
the largest mall in the world, to be followed again by the largest mall in the world, to be followed again...
a theme park of dinosaurs, more ski slopes, a re-creation of the world's seven wonders, a hotel strip with 25,000 rooms, and sports facilities sufficient to stage the Olympics
three man-made islands in the shape of palms--the smallest of which is larger the Manahattan
200 resort-sized islands laid out in the shape of the world
a new waterfront development to hold a population of 500,000
a metro, trams, monorails, new freeways, dozens of overpasses, bridges and tunnels--two of the new bridges to have 24 lanes between them
yada, yada, yada!