Dubai: The Race to the Top
At first, Dubai is a cacophony of glitter and steel. Like Vegas, you have a desert climate with skyscrapers thrust up out of the ground, lining Sheikh Zayed road in stern procession for miles. Because there is such a complex network of highways and roads, most 6 lanes wide, everyone drives here, which means there is very little pedestrian culture…what I mean by that are the sidewalks and small storefronts, the kind of thing we see near campus along Mill Avenue. There are storefronts here, but its expected you can drive right up to them, and between all your destinations. So the car dependency that we sustainability students are trained to loathe is brought to a new extreme here. I have never, ever seen so many expensive cars. Not Audi or BMW. We’re talking Ferrari, Lamborghini, the occasional Bentley or two. I was really excited when I saw my mom’s Toyota Rav 4 cruising down the highway.