Just Burn the Money: Dubai’s Failed and Failing Megaprojects

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One of the reasons why they say ‘Indefinitely hold’ rather than ‘cancelled’ is so they can refuse to compensate the investors and return any funds/equity.

There are things that money can't buy. Having a beautiful landscape and a pleasant climate are two of them. That's why no matter how many trillions they burn in Dubai, it will never be an attractive place to live for most of us. It's interesting to visit it once, but that's enough. A simple log cabin with a view of the rocky mountains, or a humble B&B by a Norwegian fiord will always be a million times nicer than a corny mega skyscraper overlooking the sand plains and freeways in Dubai.

Lived and worked there for a few years and best way I could describe it is: everything feels like an elaborate prank, which somehow a lot of people keep falling for.

the rich don't want to live there, the poor can't afford nothing there, and the middle class, well.. there is no middle class anymore.. what a waste of investment..

I’ll say it again, you should do a segment on Oman. It’s the rich Persian Gulf state that consciously didn’t become another Dubai. Their Sultan wanted to preserve as much of the old culture as possible while embracing the modern world. So skyscrapers are banned, but more than half of the university graduates are women. It’s not perfect and not a democracy, but it’s a wonderful place to visit with people who are very proud of there country compared to the other gulf states. Oh, and if you go there, you’ll actually meet Omanis as the Sultan wanted his people to work instead of letting foreign workers do all the work. There are a lot of foreign workers, but nothing like rest of the gulf.

Building artificial islands in the desert where there is plenty of space for new developments has to be one of the dumbest ideas ever. Peak vanity.

The King of Dubai took that Field of Dreams line "build it & they will come" from Costner way too literally

I worked in Dubai for about 4 months on their toll-road software back when the Burj Dubai was being built. It was said that the national bird was the construction crane. Shiek Zayed Road is lined with all these supertalls. I could see back then that their plans were going to fail. Dubai is not a place where people naturally want to go. Its weather sucks, and who wants to go on vacation/move to a place where you have to stay inside all the time?

Dubai is an example of someone expecting to play Cities Skylines with the infinite money and demand commands enabled in real life.

A quote from Ocean's Eleven comes to mind "Once you're out the front door, you're still in the middle of the f*cking desert!"

When someone tells me that Dubai is their favourite place, it tells me all I need to know about that person 😂

This channel clearly has some beef with Dubai...and I'm totally on board with it.

I worked in Dubai for a while. It took me about a week to realise that it was full of shoddily built Houses, Tall Buildings and Shopping Malls covered in plastic and stainless steel.

I love the stories of people who invested in the initial failed real estate boom - then had to leave the country to escape their debt - leaving their Ferraris/ LandCruisers etc at the airport on the way out. I have a friend who was one of them - luckily he was an airline pilot - so just went to work and didn't do his return flight.

I was in Dubai a few years ago and I was being driven somewhere and we went past the “Worlds Largest Picture Frame”. I told the driver it looked impressive and asked if they do anything with it like hang a giant sheet inside it to project pictures of whatever. He said “No. No picture. Only frame.” Seems like a missed opportunity.

Making money is not the same as keeping it there is a reason why investments aren't well taught in schools, the examples you gave are well stationed, this is a beautiful piece of designs and am investing my millions, people shy away from hard times, I embrace them.

Take a shot every time Simon says “but the project was halted due to the 2007 financial crisis.”

When you have money to burn and no common sense

This guy has more YouTube channels than there are skyscrapers in Dubai