The wonderful land of Dubai – the tax free land that has been a shopper’s paradise and every business man’s dream, has been going through some very rapid changes in the last few years.
I was born and brought up in Dubai and the place that has been home for me since…forever, now seems like a stranger. The buildings are taller, the roads are congested and people are more aggressive and unkind then ever before. I miss old Dubai!
With toll gates haunting your drive everyday and the ominous taxation in Dubai, where are we heading to? Demolishing buildings everywhere to pump the property boom, increasing rents, being penalised for giving a ride to your colleague, increasing prices of fuel, and inflation that can be seen even in your groceries, what kind of people do they really want staying In Dubai?
Dubai is long known as the City of Gold and the biggest contributors are expatriates who have devoted their lifetime staying in this place. It saddens me that there are families who have been here for decades at a stretch, but today the same are in a dilemma where they can no longer afford to live even a modest lifestyle in Dubai….let alone a lavish one!
Everything is possible in this glitzy land but at a price! It is great to see Dubai – which I consider as ‘home’, as developed as it is and I can be pleased to say that it has come from a barren desert to become a booming city. But at what cost? The people who have helped ‘make’ this country what it is today; have no rights to even secure a decent living here. The people who sweep the roads and groom the beautiful flowers you see everywhere in Dubai are the same people who are living in the most horrible conditions. They are the people who eat a meal - worth the same as your tip to the valet man and are content with it. Yet they are the ones who are the first to be thrown out.
Expatriates are looked down to and Emaratisation is promoted. It’s great! It is their country and they should be ahead of us and I mean it when I say it. But I wonder when all the low wage earners, bachelors and expatriates are thrown out, who will keep the Dubai roads, malls and garbage trucks clean? Who will polish and shine our very glitzy Dubai to look its best?
Dubai Sheikh Zayed Road - 1991
Dubai Sheikh Zayed Road - 2005
More Reading On:
Urban Dubai - BBC
1 comment:
I have been here in Dubai for 5+ years. It is one of the most successful cities – bold, experimental, ambitious, safe, liberal, peace loving and affluent... It has become a major business and financial center; a tourist attraction and home to some of the most valuable real estate on our planet. But there is something which is lacking in Dubai... It’s not a city. It’s a business – a Marketplace!!! Feels more like a place to do business rather than a place to stay. Things have changed a lot in the past and it is not going to stay the same forever, not any country in the world will do.
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