Dubai is one of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates. It is well known for its construction of the Palm Jumeirah, a man-made island. Two other palm islands, the Palm Jebel Ali and the Palm Deira, are also planned. Interestingly enough, the Palm Jumeirah is sinking at the rate of 5 mm per year. Dubai is also well known for the Burj Khalifa, which is the world’s tallest building. All this building using borrowed money, along with the Great Recession, has caused financing problems for Dubai.
The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite has taken pictures of Dubai from 2000 through 2010. They provide an interesting time lapse look at Dubai as it grows the man-made island of Palm Jumeirah. You can also see the city itself expand into the surrounding dessert. The top image to the right was taken in 2000. The bottom image to the right was taken in 2010. From the NASA Earth Observatory web site:
In these false-color images, bare ground appears brown, vegetation appears red, water appears dark blue, and buildings and paved surfaces appear light blue or gray. The first image, acquired in November of 2000, shows the area prior to the island’s construction. The image from February 2002, shows the barest beginnings of the artificial archipelago. By October 2002, substantial progress had been made on Palm Jumeirah, with many sandy “palm fronds” inside a circular breakwater.
via : Urbanization of Dubai
I am really agreed with you and the biggest mistake there was to construct even by borrowings and when there happened a real estate bubble burst. Every investor lost its investment and have a sympathy for those investors.