Tall buildings: Construction progress in Dubai

Dubai is a city growing day on day. Over the past twenty years it has tripled in size with no end in sight to its growth. Martha Camarillo, travel correspondent for Travel and Leisure commented, “The scale and volume of construction dwarfs humanity. Looking up at the rising skyline from any given intersection, you feel a rush of sci-fi vertigo.”

Dubai has caught the eye of the entire world over the past ten years with massive investment and grandiose construction feeding a burgeoning tourist trade and continuing economic bloom. Benefiting from rises in oil prices like no other country, and helped by a lack of government intervention and tax-free environment, Dubai’s Black Gold has fuelled massive developments including man-made islands, luxury hotels, multi-purpose resorts, shopping malls and sports complexes.

Recently, the city has seen a mass influx of people moving to the desert, drawn by its free market economy and the promise of year-round sunshine. But Dubai is still massively under-populated meaning it’s an attractive site for both investment and a place to live. Aside from its oil exports it’s the emphasis on resort tourism that has further fuelled the blossoming economy. And finance experts believe the growth is sustainable, predicting many years to come of financial prosperity.

The Financial Times commented that Dubai represented “time and time again, what can be achieved when oil resources are invested wisely.” They went on to say however, “the city’s growth is no longer dependent on natural resources. In 2003, tourism overtook oil revenues as the prime source of income. Dubai’s annual gross domestic product is now approaching US $20 billion, with annual foreign direct investment inflows of more than US $2 billion.”

The city’s diverse designs and rampant construction work is largely due to the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates. His family owns the emirate and he is at the top of all development that goes on in Dubai. The city’s ever-changing skyline, futuristic innovations, and growing scale is down to Sheikh Mohammed’s unending riches and his whimsical belief that construction holds no boundaries, both metaphorically and geographically.

Already nearing completion are two of his dreams made reality. Palm Jumeirah is an artificial island created using sand dredged from the sea bed. The island is formed to look like a giant palm tree when viewed from the