June 16, 2004

Build it and they will come? Having just come back from Dubai on holiday, which I would recommend to anyone. I was amazed at the massive development work that is currently on-going. You've got The Palm, The World. Also being built is a massive theme park Dubailand, incorporating it's very own indoor ski slope. But that's not all, there's also the Jumeriah Beach Residence, Arabian Ranches and the Burj Dubai (the worlds tallest tower), to name but a few of the projects currently on the go.
posted by lloyder 20 years ago
  • Watching the Dubailand corparate video illustrates something so enormous that it is hard to comprehend. If they succeed, I will be very impressed.
  • I've been to Dubai and it's great. I would like to live there. I'm sure that I would be welcomed with opened arms, now. Perfect time to emigrate, too. Thanks, Mr Bush. Fuckhead.
  • Dubai is one of the subjects in the Bilderberg Archiv that madamjujujive recently posted to MeFi. (This is my way of ripping off her link and being topical at the same time. Beautiful photos, must-see-site.)
  • The print version of the Economist had an article about Dubai, with almost the exact tag-line as this post, if I recall. Basically it was all about "yay neo-liberalism" and such. It looks like things there are moving along, though. Hopefully that place eventually proves that an Arab state can turn into a successful democracy without heavy-handed foreign assistance. And... uh... world's tallest tower? Making the CN Tower what exactly... the world's more tallest tower plus one? The one Dubai site incorrectly described a 452m tower in Malaysia as the current record-holder. The CN Tower is 553m tall. The Dubai tower's height is going to be a closely guarded secret until it gets built... somebody tell them they need to beat out Malaysia by over 100m, because they might not know. Regardless, good post, lloyder.
  • And... uh... world's tallest tower? Making the CN Tower what exactly... The world's tallest self-supporting structure. Structures that are not self-supporting -- which are held up by guy wires -- can get much taller than the CN Tower. They're using "tower" in the sense of "building." The CN Tower isn't usually considered a building for height purposes because it's not occupied for almost all of its height -- it's "just" a big concrete pylon with a small structure partway up the top. The Burj Dubai looks from its picture like it's going to have occupiable floor space just about all the way up, like the Petronas Towers in Malaysia.
  • I was aware of the distinction between self-supporting structures and those held up by guy wires (which I was also aware can be larger than the CN Tower). I remember being quite young and quite disappointed (after a trip to the CN Tower) to hear from somebody that there was a wire-supported structure out there that was taller than the CN Tower. Disappointed because I couldn't get to the top of it. The distinction between "tower" and "building" had me confused. Thanks for the information, Xeny.