Dubai: The Story of the World’s Fastest City by Jim Krane is a fascinating and enlightening book about the development and the grandiose personalitiesDubai: The Story of the World’s Fastest City by Jim Krane is a fascinating and enlightening book about the development and the grandiose personalities that pervade Dubai’s historical landscape. The book is divided up into the historically positive developments of Dubai and the drawbacks of its aggressive growth alongside with its future challenges. Mr. Kane does an exquisite job painting the story of the rise of the late Sheikh Rashid al Maktoum who took risk by “betting the farm” on a handful of infrastructure projects and public policy that paid off handsomely in the face of naysayers. The current ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammad, who is the son of the Sheikh Rashid has followed in his father’s footsteps to make Dubai famous. The author writes with great detail, through personal interviews, historical research, and firsthand experience while living in Dubai, and leads the reader on a journey through the rise and complexities of a city that had legal slavery until 1963 and no electricity in the 1960’s while other countries sent rockets to the moon.
The author does an even handed job at portraying the positive effects, as while as the often unseen negative ones, of the rise of Dubai. The city’s ruler aims to make Dubai the greatest city in the world in education, healthcare, finance, and most every other industry, and with a treasure trove of wealth, little bureaucratic red-tape due to democracy, and a ruler with a grand vision the reader comes to believe that more improbably aspirations have been pursued. For western readers it will come as a shock that most Emiratis, as the citizens are called, favor the understood negotiation of loyalty to the leader in exchange of protection and physical benefits. The major blowbacks of the quick and feverish development of Dubai, along with light regulation, lay in the rise of women in forced prostitution, unlivable conditions for the lower class migrant workers, and blatant disregard for the environment. Furthermore, the author’s interviews with key figures in the Dubai economy, such as Tom Wright who built the legendary Brj al Arab, are among the most interesting tales in the story.
The author ends the book detailing the challenges and consequences Dubai faces in light of their swift development (at one time have a third of all cranes in the world) and risk taking mentality. Real estate was bought and sold several times before even being built in many cases. With the financial crisis, many foreigners withdrew their money and the whole economy tanked. Dubai was bailed out, in part, by its bigger brother, the oil rich Abu Dhabi, an emirate 120 km south and is slowly recovering from its economic hangover. Dubai has developed within 50 years what took other cities 200. It is a city like no other, and Jim Krane tells the story with wit, balance, and expertise. ...more