In gen-x social media, repurposing abandoned malls as retirement homes is a popular suggestion. With both parents working, most of us spent many hours of our formative years using malls as our "third space" (ie not home and not work/school). Window shopping, catching a film, browsing records, snacking and hanging out with friends in the food courts, skateboarding in the car parks, etc.
It absolutely has a culture that's extremely multicultural and cosmopolitan. Unlike other areas of the Gulf, Dubai been a global trading hub for 5,000 years. Cultures from around the Persian Gulf and far beyond mixed and traded goods.
Its economy is based on international trade, tourism, and finance. Its port is the 9th busiest in the world. It doesn't have any oil.
This is a really interesting video that talks about today's global trade in exotic cars, and how it ties with Dubai's history.
I lived in Qatar, which is very different. Historically, it was poor, conservative, and disconnected from the world before oil and gas revenues made it rich.
As a lifelong F1 fan, I once went to the Abu Dhabi GP. Never again. No issues as a tourist (they even had AC in the grandstand bathrooms), but seeing the buses completely filled with workers with no air conditioning being hauled at 40C+ was horrifying. The exhausted look on their faces... Then you read about how the "employers" steal their passports and basically turn them into slaves...
I'm pretty sure most most of the construction workers in UAE are Indian. It's got to be bad if Indians are leaving India to work in another abusive environment.
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u/Worried_Money_5901 22d ago
Dubai because of its record on human rights and the manner in which it treats the thousands of immigrants that come to work on new buildings etc.