Just Burn the Money: Dubai’s Failed and Failing Megaprojects

This video is #sponsored by Ridge Wallet.

[haroon]

One of the reasons why they say ‘Indefinitely hold’ rather than ‘cancelled’ is so they can refuse to compensate the investors and return any funds/equity.

[gregoryferraro]

Dubai is an example of someone expecting to play Cities Skylines with the infinite money and demand commands enabled in real life.

[Bubbaist]

I’ll say it again, you should do a segment on Oman. It’s the rich Persian Gulf state that consciously didn’t become another Dubai. Their Sultan wanted to preserve as much of the old culture as possible while embracing the modern world. So skyscrapers are banned, but more than half of the university graduates are women. It’s not perfect and not a democracy, but it’s a wonderful place to visit with people who are very proud of there country compared to the other gulf states. Oh, and if you go there, you’ll actually meet Omanis as the Sultan wanted his people to work instead of letting foreign workers do all the work. There are a lot of foreign workers, but nothing like rest of the gulf.

[frankcoast]

This channel clearly has some beef with Dubai...and I'm totally on board with it.

[LaVidayElTristeFinal]

There are things that money can't buy. Having a beautiful landscape and a pleasant climate are two of them. That's why no matter how many trillions they burn in Dubai, it will never be an attractive place to live for most of us. It's interesting to visit it once, but that's enough. A simple log cabin with a view of the rocky mountains, or a humble B&B by a Norwegian fiord will always be a million times nicer than a corny mega skyscraper overlooking the sand plains and freeways in Dubai.

[nolongerblocked]

The King of Dubai took that Field of Dreams line "build it & they will come" from Costner _way_ too literally

[dolorismachina]

Building artificial islands in the desert where there is plenty of space for new developments has to be one of the dumbest ideas ever. Peak vanity.

[erisi]

amazing that no one ever seems to dream up and put billions into "the worlds best public transportation system" or "the worlds best sewage system"

[charlesc]

Lived and worked there for a few years and best way I could describe it is: everything feels like an elaborate prank, which somehow a lot of people keep falling for.

[cuatro]

When I visited to Dubai, it felt like being in some kind of weird lego fever dream.

[Pavlos_Charalambous]

When you have money to burn and no common sense

[paulkerr]

I love the stories of people who invested in the initial failed real estate boom - then had to leave the country to escape their debt - leaving their Ferraris/ LandCruisers etc at the airport on the way out. I have a friend who was one of them - luckily he was an airline pilot - so just went to work and didn't do his return flight.

[Twinrehz]

A quote from Ocean's Eleven comes to mind
"Once you're out the front door, you're still in the middle of the f*cking desert!"

[witoldschwenke]

Dubai is managed like if it's urban planning was controlled by a pre puberty teenager in a video game

[sneedfeed]

This guy has more YouTube channels than there are skyscrapers in Dubai

[johngalt]

I worked in Dubai for about 4 months on their toll-road software back when the Burj Dubai was being built. It was said that the national bird was the construction crane. Shiek Zayed Road is lined with all these supertalls. I could see back then that their plans were going to fail. Dubai is not a place where people naturally want to go. Its weather sucks, and who wants to go on vacation/move to a place where you have to stay inside all the time?

[Freebird]

Take a shot every time Simon says “but the project was halted due to the 2007 financial crisis.”

[charlisays]

When someone tells me that Dubai is their favourite place, it tells me all I need to know about that person 😂

[Derekzparty]

Surprised the video wasn't sponsored by Dubai.
"We're so dumb we hired Simon to tell us how dumb we are!"

[spazzypotato]

Dubai is the equivalent of the small towns in the middle of the United States with things like world's biggest ball of yarn and what not