Happy April Fools' Day from Dubai

Throughout the 2000s, Dubai was the place to be. Whether you were an architect, a contractor, an investor, or just a tourist, traveling to Dubai was an expensive but worthwhile journey. Airfare and accommodations in the modern city were in high regard and high demand.

However, as quickly as Dubai earned its place on the map, it has fallen off with more pace and intensity. Not long ago, the words amazing and future were keywords when thinking of the Middle Eastern oasis. Now, when shown a picture of the city in a word association game, the two words that first come to mind are overbuilt and debt. The rapid rise of Dubai seems like nothing more than April Fools’ joke put on by the richest pranksters.

When the majority of the developed world went through a financial crisis, the major players began to take their toys out of the sandbox. An insane amount of construction projects were delayed indefinitely or cancelled entirely. Across the entire state of the United Arab Emirates, about $430 billion worth of new development was abandoned and withdrawn.

Over the most recent years now, real estate prices in Dubai have been plummeting due to the global crash. Unfortunately, this will most likely be a problem that will only worsen before improving. Not all interest has been lost in the extremely modern city, and developers can only hope that the recovering economy will soon allow the bright lights and colossal skyline to attract people from across the world once again.

There are many optimistic economists out there, some a little foolish, but some who defend the future of Dubai with good reason:

Great cities have long been built by great gamblers, and Dubai’s sheik may well be the second greatest city-builder — after the Chinese government — of our age. Many of those gamblers have ended up bankrupt, but their structural legacies remain, providing the space that connects humanity and facilitates the success of our urban world.

Even if Dubai’s real estate prices continue to drop, which is certainly quite possible, there will remain a strong incentive to fill its buildings. If the structures remain occupied, then Dubai, and its sheik’s dream of a great metropolis, will survive.

For the sake of architectural creativity and tourism, hopefully April Fools’ Day is not observed in the U.A.E. and this is merely an awkward transition phase between growth spurts in Dubai’s young life.