by Lionel Bascom — April 23rd, 2007 — 1 comment
The world is on a collision course, not racing to the bottom where common sense and value disappear. This race is towards the top. There has been a race to build the tallest building for as long as anyone alive can remember. The race has taken on new heights with the entry of Arabs in this race to the top.
The people building the World Trade Center, the Freedom Tower and all the other properties at Ground Zero are on a collision course with folks who seem to have more money, higher goals and unlimited ambition.
I’m talking about the folks in charge of a building project that rivals construction of the Tower of Babel – the Dubai government’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing.
They know how to surround their buildings with infrastructure. Here’s their latest:
In and around Dubai, “There will be several smaller cities that will cater to the financial, industrial, service and tourism industries.” To fill these airports, Emirates, the national airline, has just placed the biggest order that Boeing has ever had: $9.7bn for 42 777s, each capable of carrying 300 passengers non-stop more than 9,000 miles across the world. They have also ordered a fleet of the biggest airbuses on offer, each capable of carrying 555 people.
The Middle East’s answer to Disneyland, called Dubailand, which is far larger than Monaco, is costing $4.5 billion. It will employ 300,000 people in the various joylands, servicing 15 million visitors. A new urban railway, with 37 stops, begins construction shortly. Dubai is to have its own Silicon Oasis ($1.7 billion) for computer companies. A mixed development called Dubai Waterfront/Arabian Canal covers an area larger than Barbados and will house, when completed more people than Paris.The Baiyoke Tower II, situated on the Rajprarop Road in the Ratchathewi district of Bangkok, Thailand, is the country’s tallest building. It contains the Baiyoke Sky Hotel, the tallest hotel in south-east Asia and the third-tallest all-hotel structure in the world, with 673 guest rooms.
This makes the nattering over 16 acres in Lower Manhattan seem modest by any standards.
9:00 PM in Uncategorized, World Trade Center, Related Stories, Freedom Tower News
Dubai is a monument to greed.
It is not New York. It is not the hallowed ground of a massacre that took the lives of 3,000 human beings. The comparison of the playground at Dubai with anything in New York City has to include the immense discrepancy in these two icons: one stands for brazen materialism while the other will be a living memorial.
Jeanne · April 23rd, 2007 at 10:03 pm