Comments by "Doncarlo" (@doujinflip) on "The Aesthetic City" channel.

  1. Indeed, even Doha is more walkable now that they built out their metro network. The Dubai Metro is seriously undersized and its style-first feel makes it seem like it was originally a pet project rather than a serious alternative to the car.
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  2. US cities were actually built by Americans, and have plenty of resources domestically to pull from. The Gulf has neither, and depends on constantly buying imports which is a tenuous situation if its economic environment changes.
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  3. Probably went to University of Texas schools too, seeing as they're similarly bent on cars occupying their plentiful flat land.
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  4. Even native Arabian spirituality. Dubai's style revolves around tacky status-seeking consumerism; Abu Dhabi, Doha, and especially Muscat have a more authentic feel. The "safety" comes from readily deporting troublesome foreign citizens and silencing publicly dissenting Emiratis. It's only safe on the open streets, once the doors are closed it can quickly become a very different story. To become the best they'd have to attract a more diverse population as permanent residents than car-driving millionaires and barely-paid temporary workers. And they'd need to build more transit-connected human-centered communities within Dubai to stop saturating its roads to Sharjah every night.
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  5. That's kind of the point. They'll readily deport a tax-consuming retiree unless they pay in to a pricey Golden Visa.
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  6. If you love driving go live in Texas, and see how "just one more lane" doesn't actually bring back the open road drivers believe the experience should be like. There's a reason car-centrism is consistently demonized in city planning documentaries.
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  7. ​ @darksavage596 From what I've seen, the Blue Line still won't include double-length trainsets that the Dubai Metro network desperately needs, nor will it reach demand centers like Global Village and Motor City.
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  8. Lack of rain and cheap imported labor keeps down maintenance costs, freeing up funds for more solid and aesthetic designs.
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  9. I was done with Dubai having twice visited even before my office assigned me to there. I mainly went because of all the places I can go from Dubai, although ironically I ended up flying competitors of Emirates because of how overpriced and tacky the EK experience has become.
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  10. Yeah I thought China's skylines were dark at night when I was there, then I see the windows of Dubai's high-rises don't show much activity either compared to Europe, the Americas, and anywhere else in Asia I've been.
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  11. Ironically the latest video hints at this in his case study of Dubai
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  12. For such a car-centric society, it amazes me how incoherent their road layout is. It's like their urban planners had no foresight for consistency in wayfinding, instead relying on "just one more flyover, bro".
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  13. Dubai has been building out its piped sewer network over the past decade or so, reaching the last neighborhoods by 2025. It's the one megaproject they didn't stall construction on. Poop trucks are a rare sight, by now mostly either scrapped or repurposed as mobile pumps for maintenance works and the yearly spring floods.
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  14. Only thing missing is a metro system from the airport, meaning you're relying on renting a car or taxi
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