Quote:
Originally Posted by Daradon
It's funny because China definitely has the population to fill the buildings, but no one with enough money to live in or own office space in them. A lot of the Arab states, have people (and businesses) with money, but correct me if I'm wrong, but their populations are fairly small.
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Yup, Dubai is no more populated than Vancouver and Abu Dhabi is only slightly larger than Calgary, yet both cities try so hard to punch above their weight in the hopes that it draws people in.
Dubai last decade had an outrageous cost of living that is now becoming reasonable yet still ridiculously high compared to countries in the region. To me, it just doesn't seem sustainable. The UAE has a very small national population so it completely relies on expats to populate their cities. I believe right now the UAE National population makes up around 30% of the total population?
But again, you can't bring tens of thousands of labourers from India and Pakistan and expect them to occupy these grandiose structures. Westerners can do it, but how many want to?
So many interesting projects in the UAE but so much uncertainty around it as well. At least Abu Dhabi has the cash to basically do what they want. The whole city is almost like a giant experiment.