DUBAI: INSTANT CITY SCENARIOS
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year ago reports on Dubai filled the newsstands; readers were regaled, fascinated, and bewildered by stories of world’s tallest towers, largest indoor ski
resorts, hotels under the sea and man-made islands in the shape of Asia. If the word “instant” means “a point in time separating two states”, by 2008, Dubai had instantaneously transformed itself from its state as a sleepy port village to a Guinness-world-record-holding city-state. In a time span that translates to a handful of large-scale building projects for most cities, Dubai had constructed over three billion square feet of infrastructure and real estate. Unlike Rome, there were forces at play to ensure Dubai was ‘built in a day’: free-trade zones, tax free lures for foreign companies, never-before-seen tourist attractions, an endless supply of easily exploited 24-hour labor, lack of real involvement by municipal authorities, a ruler with grandiose vision, and a steady flow of expatriates that had little say in the shape of their surroundings. The question of the sustainability of this pace of development, not to mention the sustainability of the society being created did not emerge as a high priority.
DUBAI: INSTANT CITY SCENARIOS
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year ago reports on Dubai filled the newsstands; readers were regaled, fascinated, and bewildered by stories of world’s tallest towers, largest indoor ski
resorts, hotels under the sea and man-made islands in the shape of Asia. If the word “instant” means “a point in time separating two states”, by 2008, Dubai had instantaneously transformed itself from its state as a sleepy port village to a Guinness-world-record-holding city-state. In a time span that translates to a handful of large-scale building projects for most cities, Dubai had constructed over three billion square feet of infrastructure and real estate. Unlike Rome, there were forces at play to ensure Dubai was ‘built in a day’: free-trade zones, tax free lures for foreign companies, never-before-seen tourist attractions, an endless supply of easily exploited 24-hour labor, lack of real involvement by municipal authorities, a ruler with grandiose vision, and a steady flow of expatriates that had little say in the shape of their surroundings. The question of the sustainability of this pace of development, not to mention the sustainability of the society being created did not emerge as a high priority.
DUBAI: INSTANT CITY SCENARIOS
Visiting Dubai in May of 2009, as two architects who had been following the news from Dubai over the past few years with awe, we came upon a city that was far less sure of itself. The world economic crisis didn’t shut Dubai down, but it slowly began to wear down the city’s extraordinary confidence. Construction companies placed new projects on hold, and any building projects that were less than 25% complete were ordered to halt construction. How Dubai will emerge from this predicament is still up for debate. The people we encountered held differing opinions. Some felt that Dubai would pick right back up where it left off in a matter of months, only to be more successful than before. Some felt that Dubai was headed for a more humble future – indebtedness to its oil-rich neighbor Abu Dhabi and shame that its workers rights scandal in 2007 would temper the extraordinary arrogance and speed of its development.
Seeing the city at a crossroads inspired us to envision a number of different scenarios for its future. These scenarios are intended as a form of action research: to shed new light on the issues facing Dubai today - piquing the imagination, revealing emerging risks and identifying new directions for development. Our overarching goal in tendering these future scenarios is to examine whether or not Dubai is a sustainable city on many levels: in terms of long-term livability, environmental sustainability, and as the luxury world class city that it envisions itself to be.
DUBAI: INSTANT CITY SCENARIOS
We have focused on the following touch points:
Effect of market-driven values on urban planning
The city has been
growing with remarkable speed through the addition of themed developments such as Media City, Internet City, Festival City as well as countless high rises. Each development is isolated and only accessible by large roads. This prevents interaction between communities and further, the scale of these projects is such that pedestrian links between them are nearly impossible. Even Dubai’s recent addition of a metro system does not encourage interaction between popular places and only travels along one major artery in the city.
Sustainability of a megalopolis in desert
Another clear issue in Dubai is energy
use and water use. Much of the city’s development includes western-style lawns that must be irrigated with billions of gallons of water every day. In addition, food is shipped in from around the world as Dubai itself has very few natural commodities.
Effect of transience on society and space
Residents of Dubai live there
on average for seven years – this transience doesn’t encourage a commitment to city, space, or government. Instead, it encourages personal comfort. If you know you won’t be settling somewhere and possibly raising a family, you have few incentives to invest in the fabric of the city, you have few incentives to create communities with neighbors and friends.
DUBAI: INSTANT CITY SCENARIOS
Demolition of organic fabric of the city
Dubai does not have large ar-
eas of organic urban fabric as other cities do. The limited older areas that it does have were slated for demolition in order to create ever more luxury gated communities. The economic crisis put at least a temporary stop to these projects, and now the areas continue to exist intact. These are vibrant, crowded, walkable areas that stand in stark contrast to the suburban developments that lie elsewhere.
Segregation of classes, ethnicities and genders
There is very
little interaction between people of different classes, ethnicities and genders. As mentioned above, there is no space for chance interactions. Locals, or Emiratis, as they are known, do not mix with other ethnicities with the exception of the office.
Cocoon-like existence
Many of the residents of Dubai lead an incredibly
regimented and isolated life. There are very few places for chance encounters to occur; most residents spend their days at work. Recreation time is spent shopping, and perhaps meeting work colleagues at preset destinations for food or a preset athletic activity. Life is lived as a series of interiors: home, car, office, gym, home.
Brand Space
Nearly every brand you can think of exists in Dubai - from Ace Hardware, to
Fatburger, to Wagamama, to Van Cleef and Arpels. There are very few parts of the city where globally recognizable brands are not visible, whether as signage, storefront, or architecture.
DUBAI: INSTANT CITY SCENARIOS
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cenario planning is a method used by strategists to make flexible long-term plans. This process combines factors such as demographics,
geography, politics and natural resources, with plausible alternative social, technical, economic, environmental and political trends to model potential future scenarios for a city that “could be�.
In the following four scenarios, we exaggerated, eradicated or leaned toward each of these underlying trends, creating a unique pattern to the events that unfold. By making large-scale undercurrents visible, the scenarios are meant move key issues into the conversational forefront and stimulate dialogue. The total impact of the scenario planning exercise is intended to be evolutionary rather than concrete. A tenet of scenario planning is to go beyond looking at the future from a single subjective perspective, but instead to test multiple, critical and even extreme perspectives that lead to an array of outcomes. As a consequence of more thorough analysis, one is better prepared to address change.
DUBAI: INSTANT CITY SCENARIOS
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y focusing on a small group of underlyng parameters and altering degrees of influence of each parameter along a continuum, we could generate a range of distinct scenarios for the future of Dubai. These are titled: 1) Less Than Zero 2) Capitalism Rocks 3) Crisitunities and 4) Integration.
LESS THAN ZERO
CAPITALISM ROCKS
SCENARIO 2
SCENARIO 1
Individual
Community
Segregation
Inclusion
Idealism
Materialism
Traditional
Forward-Thinking
Consumption
Production
Transience
Permanence
Idealism Traditional Consumption Transience
Materialism
Idealism
Forward-Thinking
Traditional
Production
Consumption
Permanence
Transience
INTEGRATION
SCENARIO 3
Segregation
Inclusion
Segregation
CRISITUNITIES Individual
Community
Individual
SCENARIO 4
Community Inclusion Materialism Forward-Thinking Production Permanence
Individual Segregation Idealism Traditional Consumption Transience
Community Inclusion Materialism Forward-Thinking Production Permanence
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ot to be outdone by Abu Dhabi’s claim to the world’s first zerocarbon city, Dubai makes a pledge to do even better and rolls out
LESS THAN ZERO SCENARIO 1
Sustainability on the largest scale yet seen in a working city.
As the technologically-advanced countries vie for market dominance as producers of renewable energy technologies, Dubai sees an opportunity to advance its image as the future society by showcasing its prowess in this new field Focusing on its abundant natural
of research.
resources of sunshine and seawater, it first tackles its traffic problems by repaving the peripheral lanes of all major arteries with photovoltaic cells, thereby reducing solar heat gain reflected back into the atmosphere from the asphalt. This intervention generates more than sufficient energy to run a suspended personal rapid transport system. This is an on-demand, individualized
vehicle
network
powered by electricity where stations are located at 10 times the density of the Transport pods powered by solar cells whiz around the city
New York Subway System.
This move reduces combustion engine vehicles by 60%. The remaining vehicles will be powered by biofuel generated from seaweed farms in the Persian Gulf. Floating bioreactors, special facilities that use engines to break down seaweed into sugar will also provide the
LESS THAN ZERO SCENARIO 1
biomass necessary to power Dubai’s industrial processes. Dubai’s reliance on food shipped from abroad is reduced greatly with the introduction of vertical farms utilizing space in high rises left empty as a result of the economic downturn. Highly-controlled hydroponic facilities are irrigated by desalinated water and each indoor acre can produce the output of 4-6 outdoor acres, feeding Dubai’s growing population. As the world’s first large city attempting to surpass Kyoto protocols, Dubai truly becomes the city of the future. Alchemy: floating bioreactors turn seaweed into sugar biomass
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CA P I T A L I S M R O C K S
fter Dubai proves that it can resist a crash as groundshaking as the crash of 2008, it truly takes its place among the world’s greatest cities. The Dubai model, a transitory workers haven where the average resident stays for no more than seven years, where men outnumber women 5 to 1, where children born to
SCENARIO 2
non-locals can never become citizens, where companies take home 100% of earnings and where daily life is easy, proves to be more prosperous, more efficient and more comfortable than other market-driven world cities such as New York, Hong Kong and London.
Despite the economic downturn and largely due to neighbourly Abu Dhabi’s petro-dollar rescue, daily life in Dubai continues much as it had during the boom. In fact people become so comfortable as to become complacent. development offshoots, generate a wave of lifestyle branding, merging individual interests Recognizing the success of themed residential enclaves, the Dubai Municipality and its commercial
and preferred activities with residential living environments. Capitalizing on the lifestyle branding concept, retail brands diversity their product lines to cater to lifestyle groups. Specialized retail facilities cluster around matching communities, maximizing their profit from targeted Brand Space: Equestrian Ranch, Marathon Mansions, Sailors Seaboard and Mont Du Bai Alpine Cycling Village.
Sheikh Zayed Road shaded under a climatised canopy
Efficiency reigns. Keeping people encapsulated on the house – car – work circuit allows for maximum productivity and generation of capital. The only remaining inefficiency is the weather. While temperate during the winter months, being outdoors in Dubai between April to October is nearly unbearable. In order to keep the workers and tourists comfortable the city unveils its latest Mega project: complete encapsulation of the city under a climatized canopy.
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lthough productivity has been increased, the complacency of the citizens leads to a lack of innovation in the workplace. Af ter careful study of the issue, the city d i sc o v e rs that small doses of more bitter r e a l i t i e s s e em s to enhance creativity.
Reality bites: a daily toll of news from outside the bubble to get workers’creative juices flowing
CA P I T A L I S M R O C K S SCENARIO 2
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s a chief executive at Nakheel, one of Dubai’s three premiere developers was quoted as saying in the spring of 2009, “When the world caught a cold in the economic crisis of 2008, Dubai caught pneumonia”.
CR I S I T U N I T I E S SCENARIO 3
Dubai’s economy continues to decline as a multinationals repatriate their workforce and close their Dubai flagships. New construction slows to a halt and the majority of temporary migrant workers return to their homelands. Abu Dhabi, Dubai’s neighborly benefactor now withholds financial aid due to re-emergence of tribal rivalry. The depressed aura of the city and the lack of new and spectacular attractions end the steady flow of tourists, once the lifeblood of Dubai’s rise to world recognition. With diminishing tourism, the service industry comprised of hotel workers, taxi drivers, and retail employees withers. As residents evacuate, they leave behind an overwhelming surplus of residential land and commercial space.
Dubai’s government, ever skillful at generating a strategic masterplan, considers its options for re-populating the city, while playing to the hearts and minds of the media and wider world. Dubai’s government envisions that its return to prominence and viability will be to completely erase its image as a capitalist city lacking social values. It opens its doors and offers its real estate to thousands of charities, NGOs and Not-for -Profits. Its Jewel in the Crown the Burj Dubai becomes the home of the Red Crescent and the Islamic Red Cross. Religious schools also get entire buildings as do the Red Cross, Medecins San Frontieres and Oxfam. The remaining service workers once crammed 10 to a room in the older quarters of the city; now find spacious accommodation in the skeletons of partially constructed buildings. The doctrinaire nature of many of these charitable organizations introduces an ideological component to the society. As these organizations don’t always share common philosophies, tensions begin to rise, flaring up from time to time about town. In order to quell any burgeoning political movements, the government extends its surveillance capacities, expanding its force of plain-clothed police. Quiet riot: police quell the beginnings of political action
Informal settlements take over empty commercial space
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fter rapid expansion of its residential, commercial and retail communities Dubai finds itself without free and easily accessible public space for people of all backgrounds. Even the city’s parks and beaches charge an entry fee. Throughout the city, makeshift public spaces emerge on landscaped highway medians, traffic roundabouts and at the
Hanging market and linear park enlivens the street scene
INTEGRATION SCENARIO 4
locus of bus stops. While the city’s diverse demographic groups find sources of leisure, they fail to cross paths. Public space can have many attributes, however its most important function is to serve as a backdrop where people experience a larger sense of community. For a city such as Dubai, where classes rarely mix, seeing people of different economic walks of life interacting with their families humanizes them. In many societies public space is also a forum for political expression. In an effort to make the image of the city more fair and erase patterns of exclusion, the government
city and improving accessibility to existing public space. Neighbourhoods within the historic
of Dubai has undertaken a series of civic projects aimed at generating more public space for the
core such as Satwa and Deira, slated for demolition during the boom to make way for more
Empty man-made islands serve as staging grounds for public activities and events
inward-facing privately-developed Mega projects, now experience a renaissance.
Until as recently as 1990, Dubai’s core neighborhoods had developed organically, serving the shipping trade, based around Port Rashid at the mouth of the Creek. The Municipality now funds interventions which increase permeability between these old quarters at the core of Dubai and recently developed expanses that stretch along the coastline. blocking connectivity between the beachfront and the primary business artery – Sheikh Zayed Road.
In addition to improving access to new developments, the Municipality provides incentives for shopkeepers in Satwa and Deira to refurbish their premises and enhance the existing character of these neighborhoods. Social integration is now visible on the streets of Dubai.
DUBAI: INSTANT CITY
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SCENARIOS
o what does the future hold for Dubai? As it is impossible to predict the exact events of the future, a solid strategy is one that will play out well across several possible futures. These scenarios suggest certain leading indicators which can be monitored. The scenario planning process allows us to consider in advance our responses to these potential futures, so that if and when we see the early warning signs that one of these trends is unfolding, we are prepared.