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Dubai's Climate-Controlled Dome City Is a Dystopia Waiting To Happen

Daniel_Stuckey writes: Dubai is building "the world's first climate-controlled city" — it's a 4.3 mile pedestrian mall that will be covered with a retractable dome to provide its shoppers with air conditioning in the summer heat. The Mall of the World, as it's called, will become the sort of spectacular, over-the-top attraction Dubai is known for. Shortly after, it will probably become an equally spectacular real-world dystopia.

By sectioning off a 3-million-square-foot portion of the city with an air conditioned dome, Dubai is dropping one of the most tangible partitions between the haves and the have nots of the modern era—the 100 hotels and apartment complexes inside the attraction will be cool, comfortable, and nestled into a entertainment-filled, if macabre, consumer paradise."

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  1. Life on Mars? by Prien715 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Being the largest climate controlled dome of its kind, perhaps the engineering "lessons learned" could be applicable to creating a self-sustaining space colony -- one of the chief challenges being climate control. ..or else, I've just been playing too much Kerbal Space Program and reading too much Heinlein;)

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    -- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.