Dubai islands 'falling into the sea'

[GoFlyKiteNow]

The World is sinking: Dubai islands 'falling into the sea'

The islands were intended as the ultimate luxury possession, even for Dubai.

By Richard Spencer, Dubai 9:30PM GMT 20 Jan 2011

But the World, the ambitiously-constructed archipelago of islands shaped like the countries of the globe, is sinking back into the sea, according to evidence cited before a property tribunal.

The islands were intended to be developed with tailor-made hotel complexes and luxury villas, and sold to millionaires. They are off the coast of Dubai and accessible by yacht or motor boat.

Now their sands are eroding and the navigational channels between them are silting up, the British lawyer for a company bringing a case against the state-run developer, Nakheel, has told judges.

"The islands are gradually falling back into the sea," Richard Wilmot-Smith QC, for Penguin Marine, said. The evidence showed "erosion and deterioration of The World islands", he added.

With all but one of the islands still uninhabited – Greenland – and that one a showpiece owned by the ruler of Dubai, most of the development plans have been brought to a crashing halt by the financial crisis.

The low-lying islands represent a vague shape out to sea when viewed from Dubai's beaches, but are visible by satellite or from the top of the city's Burg Khalifa, the world's tallest building, which opened to the public last year.
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[GoFlyKiteNow]

Dubai may have to knock down buildings constructed during boom.

Dubai built so much property during its boom years that it may have to start knocking some of it down again, a new report has warned.

By Richard Spencer in Dubai 1:06PM BST 20 Sep 2010

A glut of vacant office space is continuing to spiral, despite the economic crisis, thanks to the forests of new tower blocks started by developers as the boom reached it peak in 2007, researchers said.

With some "holes in the ground" awaiting further development already being filled in, further radical solutions to the problem are needed, said the authors, researching for the property firm Jones Lang LaSalle.

"The best prospect for reducing vacancies lies with initiatives to limit future supply and encourage the withdrawal of existing buildings from stock through conversion to non-office buildings or even demolition," the report concludes.

Dubai's central belief, summed up frequently as "build it and they will come", has served it well in the past. Critics queried its determination to build its ports in the 1960s but it has now become the biggest trading hub in the Middle East.

The policy crashed badly in the financial crisis, however, leaving a landscape of half-finished skyscrapers, empty artificial islands and property prices down by almost 50 per cent in six months.

There are some signs that the economy has stabilised, with prices for houses and flats bottoming out, The International Monetary Fund has signalled it is to revise its forecast of a 0.4 per cent decline in the city's output this year.
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[Watchman]

They must realise that static housing is very primitive .

The earth is dynamic .

 

[singveld]

Burg Khalifa
that is the only thing that interest me in Dubai.

Normally i dun want to spend my holiday money on terrorist state, because we know all the terrorist state gave money to terrorist which in turn kill us.
So spending money on terrorist state is like killing yourself and family.

But i want to see Burg Khalifa so much.

 

[kensington]

End of the world's prediction is true. It is the DooBye's World.