City of Accidents

No, I'm not speaking merely about road accidents here. Even though that would be good for at least a two-hundred pages annual report, if you ask me.

Traffic here tends to be crazy, with cars changing lanes without any indication occasionally, cyclists going smaller streets the wrong way, people just popping up out of nowhere and crossing the street in the firm believe God will protect them (and if not, then it had been written anyway), taxis pushing and honking out of habit, drivers taking advantage of any tiny space you give them to squeeze in in front of you. And of course there's always construction work going on, sometimes changing a seemingly familiar route over night.

In fact, traffic, and road accidents, are considered to be one of the major problems here, maybe along with waste in some desert or beach areas and use of natural resources. According to a recent newspaper report, Dubai has one of the highest energy consumptions in the world - consuming on average 20,000 kilowatt hours of power per year per person and 130 gallons (1 gallon = about 4.56 liters) of water every day - with 70 percent of the fresh water supply provided through costly and energy-consuming desalination of sea water.

But apparently, the traffic situation has become much better with police cracking down on traffic offenders (by the way, try to avoid being handed a red copy of a form from policemen in case you are involved in an accident - because this means you are identified as the guilty party which means trouble, especially, as one expat claims, foreigners can't expect to be treated with leniency). There are many speed controls and people fail driving tests for only going slightly faster than allowed on a given road (which might also be an excuse to make money on the part of some driving schools - I hear some people failed the test 10 times and more, with government now having introduced a law according to which you may appeal if you fail your driving test two or three times). A major problem only a few years ago seem to have been nationals in fast cars zooming in and out of the traffic on Dubai's six-lane-motorways, apparently mistaking the street for kind of a hyperrealistic version of a computer racing game. Unsurprising, nationals until recently were involved in pro-rata more accidents than their absolute numbers in Dubai would suggest, but it's improving. And then there's the metro system under development at present, which is intended to be finished by September this year, which will eventually transport tens of thousands of people daily, even though nobody really knows if the deadline can be met.

Anyway, what I really wanted to write about is that many people come to Dubai by accident. Many do not make the intentional decision at some point to come here. At a party last weekend in a formidable white expat villa with a view on the Burj Dubai, large walled garden including swimming pool, I spoke to a manager from London who simply came because the package his company offered was too good to resist - and he finds he likes it here, as there is much less tax and much less crime than in his home city of almost 30 years. Then there was the language teacher from New York, who left her beloved Big Apple to be at least a bit closer to her boyfriend, who works for the US government in Iraq. Or there's the German girl who had lived with her soon-to-be Scottish husband in Berlin for some time, but who found they had to live in a place where both can find the jobs they want. Another German, working for a UK university in Dubai, just ended up in Dubai after several years in Cairo and still feels ambigious about her new home. And there's the French consultant working in Dubai's World Trade Center - in the early 80s the only high-rise building in Dubai - who just felt like a change for a couple of years. Similarly, many of the services staff such as taxi drivers or hotel employees come from countries such as India or Pakistan, in order to work, earn money, and hopefully go back some time and build their homes in the countries of origin.

The individual stories as well as the standards of living and future prospects differ, but one way or the other, they all came for the chances and promises of Dubai, and many live in something like a more or less permanent temporary arrangement. From what I know so far, you might find it to be a challenging task to find expats planning to stay forever. This, it seems, is not only true because some I spoke to miss aspects that make a place worthwhile for living over a long period for them, or because many are still young, being in their 20s or 30s - but apparently because whoever comes to Dubai, is always more than welcome as a guest. And stays a guest no matter for how long you settle down here. You will never be considered a local. There was, for instance, the desert safari tour guide whose parents are from Bangladesh - but he was born and raised in Dubai. Nonetheless, he weill never receive citizenship and the accompanying privileges such as the right to vote. In earlier posts, I have also already spoken about how other rules apply to expats than to Emiratees.

All this surprises me mainly for one thing: Dubai depends on people coming.

If you only count the dozens, probably hundreds of real estate development projects, spanning living spaces as well as office floors and hotels, you can only wonder who will ever fill them with life. Apparently, on The Palm, only the front appartments are sold so far, the rest ist partly still in construction, partly simply empty. In some areas, the most activity was speculation with properties, buying and selling flats for a profit. Dubai Mall, one of the biggest shopping centers around here - the biggest one is still in the US, but supposedly there are plans to build the biggest mall in Dubai soon. Now, honestly, were you surprised by that piece of information? -, still feels quite empty even with many people there, just because it is so huge and many shops are not yet sold.

So what if people stop coming - there are already rumors in some newspapers that places like Taipeh might be the next Dubai in the making - while the people who are here don't want to stay because they will never really feel at home for various reasons? Is this sustainable?

So up to now, there has been this huge growth, and if you want my personal opinion, we haven't seen the end of it yet, despite the global situation. But what will be next?

If you leave the city for a trip in the desert, like I did last weekend, you cannot help but be struck by the sheer unlikeliness of Dubai existing in the way it does. There's simply nothing but a few scattered buildings, brand-new streets complete with lighting, and seemingly endless desert once you leave the city and areas such as International City on the outskirts of Dubai behind you. Heat, sand, space. Three or four oil fields, most of them in the sea. And the people's determination to reach for the stars. That's about it.

What an accident.