NOTES FROM BIG BEN … Big Ben in the Real LA-LA Land BY PETER GUEST


displays are a way of life. How- ever, not everything is quite as it seems.


I Dubai is the place in the UAE that


everyone hears about.You can go skiing on snow in the desert in a man-made resort. It has something like one third of the world’s tower cranes on construction sites.And why build on sand when you build an islandmade of sand to build on? And it goes on: Everything is bigger, better and more modern in Dubai than anywhere else. What most people don’t realize is


that all this has been built on trade, not oil wealth.Most of the oil in the region


HAVE JUSTMADEA flying visit to Dubai, UAE, where it seems that conspicuous expen- diture and ostentatious


belongs toAbuDhabi, the senior partner in the UnitedArab Emirates federation. Beneath the surface, the Dubai


economy is beginning to show cracks. Burj Dubai will be the tallest building in the world, but my sources tell me the builders have not been paid for six months and have stopped work. Traffic congestion is down, but this more likely is because 30,000 car-driving ex-pats have been laid off and sent home, rather than as a result of any pro-active traffic management. Everything is given a positive spin


and a recent daily paper trumpeted the “achievement” of reducing construction- related accidents. I wonder if the fact that property companies have halved their staff and putmany projects on hold is the real reason for this. A year ago, I was being encouraged to buy property in the region,with prices Continued on Page 54


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MARCH 2009 • PARKING TODAY • www.parkingtoday.com


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