Dubai Guide
Dubai Marina
Nowhere is the scale of Dubai's explosive growth as apparent as in the far south of the city. Barely ten years ago the lower reaches of the emirate south of the Burj Al Arab were largely desert, untouched apart from a discreet string of luxury hotels lining the coast. Now, virtually from nothing, an entire new city is under construction, stretching for the best part of ten kilometres from just south of Madinat Jumeirah down to the industrial zone and port at Jebel Ali. At the heart of this new urban explosion is the Dubai Marina development and the adjacent dedicated business zones of Dubai Media City and Dubai Internet City, while offshore the huge new Palm Jumeirah artificial island will soon fully open for business. Future developments include the new Jebel Ali Airport, slated eventually to become the world's largest airport, and yet more developments further south, around the so-called Dubai Waterfront, which will ultimately extend Dubai city all the way to the border with Abu Dhabi.
There's no real precedent for urban growth on this scale or at this speed, and when – if – complete the huge new residential districts and commercial and tourist facilities around here will undoubtedly shift the focus of the entire emirate decisively southwards, and perhaps in time even eclipse the old city centre itself. For the time being, however, Dubai Marina is still a work-in-progress.
One of the most striking features of Dubai's recent development is its obsession with artificial islands. The reasons for this are obvious: in its natural state, the diminutive emirate of Dubai boasts a mere 70 kilometres of coastline, totally insufficient to service the needs of its rocketing number of beach-hungry tourist visitors and residents. The solution has been to inaugurate the construction of a series of enormous man-made islands off the coast – the largest in the world – creating at a stroke an additional 520km of coastline, as well as huge new swathes of valuable commercial land surrounded by the calm blue waters of the Arabian Gulf. The islands are being constructed by the government but are being sold on to private developers, who will be free to develop them as they see fit.