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

Posted by Soulskill on from the looking-forward-to-the-reality-tv-show dept.

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."

7 of 265 comments (clear)

  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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    1. Re:Life on Mars? by khallow · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Earth is already a permanent space colony.

  2. Hmm... by Shoten · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm missing the part where something in Dubai is waiting to be a dystopia...

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  3. Slaves of Dubai by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Someone sounds jealous...

    Someone is well-informed.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMh-vlQwrmU

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    1. Re:Slaves of Dubai by lgw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Slaves? WTF? Are you so blind to the conditions in much of the world that you think offering a job to someone is bad? Are you insane? These are the best jobs most of the poor in Dubai are likely to have offered in their lives.

      It's not right for the first world, so better the jobs don't exist at all? Seriously, I can't imagine how you think this is bad. These jobs are vastly better than early industrial revolution American jobs, let alone no job at all in a place with no real social safety net.

      Sheltered suburban enclave American middle class are something else. No sense of perspective at all.

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    2. Re:Slaves of Dubai by geirlk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Slaves yes.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

      http://www.vice.com/vice-news/...

      The fact that it's a tough world out there doesn't excuse Dubai or UAE in general from acting like asshat clowns. They have the economy to take care of their foreign workers, but choose to screw them over. That's really not OK.

  4. Re:Not about jealousy, but ... by Stoutlimb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Volume and mass do not matter as much as surface area. This is an ecological win. The enclosed area will also mean less evaporation, so more green spaces and more efficient use of fresh water supplies. This is a win, at least in theory.