Comments on: Food City: Dubai’s Self-Sufficient Ecotopia

By: stevevelegrinis

stevevelegrinis — Sun, 17 May 2009 05:32:47 +0000

obob, your comments sound very much like the words of someone who trusts blindly in journalism and has never been to dubai or asia.

The ’slaves’ you speak of are good people who have chosen to be here because the salaries and living conditions are substantially better than what is available in India or Pakistan where most of the labor in Dubai comes from. By and large most workers accomodation in Dubai is now meeting reasonable standards and temporary labour camps have been outlawed. Like anywhere there are exceptions to the rule but things are not the dystopian hell you describe. I can assure you that the treatment of labour in Dubai is quite a lot better than in other places in Southeast Asia i have seen.

Flaws and all Dubai is the prototypical 21st Century city and (just as was the case with manhattan) most people didnt like it at the time. Your refusal to accept it on its own terms is naive. The reality is that development everywhere throughout time has been built on the backs of imported and/or indentured labour. Be it the southern european and asian immigrants in Australia or the multitudes of immigrants in the US the hard work is always done by those coming from less prosperous circumstances.

Rather than sensationalise you may want to re-read the above and see that it was a speculative proposal aiming at raising consciousness about sustainable development. No labourers were harmed in the creation of this imagery.

By: obob

obob — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:19:42 +0000

Here’s a productive idea, roy: for the sake of the sustainability of the rest of the planet, let’s tell the truth about megalomaniacal hereditary vampires like Sheikh Makhtom. Did he lose his taste for little boys after he replaced the jockeys with robots? Or was that just another PR-generated mirage, like most everything else we hear about the greatness of Dubai? Get a clue: all those “great, inspiring minds” in Dubai are imported to paper over the true basis of the economy there: human slavery.

By: roy domingo

roy domingo — Fri, 15 May 2009 09:43:05 +0000

This will be build by inspiring people….and planned by great minds;
i think the shek of dubai is a very promising leader of his time:…many of this green revolotion is pupping up like mushroom; this is a good idea.dessert to green,not green to dessert;
Some critics are just impormative,they are not productive;

By: gnosis

gnosis — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:01:12 +0000

An artists’ dreams become our realities — dream on!!

By: obob

obob — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:37:21 +0000

“Theoretically” to be built by slaves, no doubt, like the rest of that dystopian hell?

Dubai can’t turn back to sand fast enough.

By: stevevelegrinis

stevevelegrinis — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:50:34 +0000

Brandon, dont worry – it was a theoretical proposal and most likely will end up going no further than what you see. Dubai has ground to a halt so it is very unlikely that it will ever be more than a conceptual idea.

By: Brandon Buttars

Brandon Buttars — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:32:29 +0000

Crazy. Man does Dubai have way too much money.