E-mail Article
Printer Friendly
Share Article
Joined up thinking
In 1807, DeWitt Clinton, one of New York City's first mayors, had a problem.
The preceding years had witnessed a huge boom for the emerging trading post with the city becoming the capital of America's rapidly emerging shipping industry.
British and Dutch immigrants flocked to the boomtown, particularly to Manhattan, and crammed into the crowded Southern tip of the island in the area known today as The Village.
As a result, real estate in Manhattan became the most expensive in the world.
The city's growth had been rapid and disorganised - leading to a chaotic road network of narrow streets that were threatening to stifle the economic prosperity of the area.
Mayor Clinton acted decisively and ordered a commission to draw up a plan to cope with the inevitable urban sprawl that was heading north up Manhattan.
Four years later, the plan was complete and the future of the city was laid out in the regular grid of 12 avenues running north to south, and 155 streets running east to west.
The grid of thoroughfares survives to this day, and has made Manhattan one of the most easily navigable city centres in the world.
It is also relatively painless to get around thanks to a public transport system that was born in 1831 with a service of horse-drawn omnibuses plying the city streets, and now includes subways, buses and the ubiquitous yellow cabs.
Fast forward 200 years and Dubai is in the process of tackling identical problems to those faced by Mayor Clinton.
A rapidly growing population and construction boom - driven by its economic success - has made Dubai one of the most expensive cities in the world.
The city limits that until 20 years ago extended only as far as the International Exhibition Centre in which Cityscape is being held, burst southwards towards Jebel Ali and its hugely successful port and free zone.
But city planning of the type executed by Mayor Clinton in New York has been lacking. Limits on what could be built and where (there used to be a limit of eight storeys for buildings along Sheikh Zayed Road!) were scrapped as rampant capitalism bulldozed all before it.
Throughout the past decade, two conflicting forces have been at work. Government-owned and private real estate developers have announced a myriad of projects - each more ambitious and dramatic in scale than the last.Internet City, Media City, Emirates Lakes and Greens, Dubailand, Palm Island, The Marina ... all commercially driven projects scattered on the map as if dropped from a plane.
In between these projects, Dubai's road system has been overburdened to breaking point, not least by the movement of the construction industry travelling to and from their enormous building sites.
Virtually no public transport policy was created in the early years of this growth, and even now is held back by limiting private sector involvement in providing services.
Until recently, even the taxi service was a monopoly controlled by the government. The bus service was squalid and stuck in the same traffic jams as cars. And dreams of a rail or metro system were just dreams.
Leadership and foresight of the type shown in New York 200 years ago are needed in Dubai and rest of the UAE today.
The metro system that is under construction is a good start. The Salik road toll, if used in conjunction with a reliable public transport service, is also a sign of progress. The current road and bridge building on a grand scale is welcome, even if it is five years too late.
But the problems of travelling to and from work from the northern emirates of Sharjah and Ajman are a national disgrace. A recent proposal for a UAE-wide railway should have been given the green light a decade ago.
And the development of the world's tallest tower at the centre of a jungle of office and residential skyscrapers that make up Business Bay shows that little has been learnt about planning.
How are tens of thousands of people expected to get to and from this financial district at rush hours? The area is already gridlocked from dawn until dusk.
What transportation arrangements are being planned for the largest of three Palm Islands that is being constructed on reclaimed land along the coast of Deira?
Nobody dares drive to Deira today because the roads in the area became unusable 10 years ago. Are the 30,000 people that are expected to live on the Palm Deira supposed to drive through those rat runs every day?
Cityscape, now the largest business-to-business real estate investment and development event in the world, is a proud showcase of mind-boggling real estate projects worth billions of dollars to the UAE economy.
But the most important organisation of all to the future success of real estate in Dubai is not exhibiting. The Road & Transport Authority (RTA) is charged with getting the city moving, but has decided not to turn up.
So, while your eyes are drawn to the top of models of the world's tallest towers, or to the horizon of coastal developments that stretch miles out to sea, spare a thought for the every day impact of these developments on the transport infrastructure and ask, can the city really accommodate any more mega projects unless the RTA shows the leadership, foresight and vision to get the population moving?
It was possible 200 years ago in New York, and should be possible in Dubai today.
Quick Links(Residental)
Filter by address:
No Comments