Seven years from now , Dubai will welcome some 70 million tourists to its first World Expo , housed inside a gigantic , brand fresh , solar - powered urban center . But exactly how fresh of an investment is an exhibition , these day ? And can economically volatile Dubai handle the $ 7 billion monetary value ?
A November 13 photo shew an ad in Dubai . Image : AP / Kamran Jebreili .
Dubai beat three other cities to clinch the bidding — Ekaterinburg , Izmir , and São Paulo . The expulsion for how it could serve bump up Dubai ’s gross domestic product are optimistic : it could add as many as 200,000 jobs , and supercharge the city ’s gross domestic product by one percent every year until 2020 . But there are also plenty of perturbing projection . Like so many other cities that have thirstily hosted Expos , Olympics , and World Cups , the ROI isnot alwayswhat it ’s cracked up to be .
Cities have vied to host the World ’s Fair ( or World Expo ) , for almost 200 years . Among the pick out host urban center , though , there have been winners and losers . Take Shanghai , for case — more than 70 million tourists visit its 2010 Expo , cater a noticeable prominence in its GDP . On the other script , we have the trouncing of the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition , during which the society running the show was forced to declare failure , sending New Orleans into an economical tailspin . There has n’t been an exhibition in the U.S. since .
The Louisiana World Exposition . Image : Wikipedia .
So yes : For thunder cities like Shanghai , the Expo can be a boon to draw in investors . For city on shakier ground , it can be a serious risk . Dubai is emphatically on shaky ground ; caught in a unending bubble / bust scenario , it is only a few twelvemonth out from its last major economical crisis , in which it about defaulted on its debt — in part , because of overbuilding and a glut of real demesne built during the bonanza .
exposition 2020 could easily serve to reignite that oscillation . grant to a report from Reuters , the bid itself hasdriven up speculationin the Dubai property market , with prices up 20 percent in the last yr . The forthcoming land site of the 2020 Expo will impart another 1,000 acres of new buildings to the marketplace — at a costof between $ 7 and $ 9 billion over the next seven years . Keep in judgement that rough $ 42 billion of the metropolis ’s current debtswill come dueduring the same menstruum — shaky basis , indeed .
So what are those billion move to ? 45,000 raw hotel rooms , for one thing , not to mention an extension of the urban center ’s subway system ( plus roads , tunnels , and other infrastructural investments ) . Then there are the 12.9 million straight feet of exhibition space , designed by the Dubai office of American architecture firmHOK , which work alongside a designing team fromPopulous :
https://gizmodo.com/a-first-look-at-tomorrows-super-stadiums-for-gamers-1477291013
The four - pronged master key plan calls for a massive , woven blending gimmick covered in photovoltaic panels :
Under these “ souk - same ” canopy , exhibitioner from more than 150 countries will go under up shop during the average , inside what the architects describe as “ innovation pod ” and “ best practice areas : ”
One major unanswered question regards who will be build these monumental structures — and how they ’ll be process . Dubai , likeits neighbor Qatar , has aless than pristinerecord when it comes to the human rights abuses of migrant construction workers . Another A-one - expensive , super - fast get across mental synthesis project is not likely to improve that reputation .
The Grim Secret Behind Qatar ’s Lavish New Stadiums : Human Rights Abuse
And then , of track , what will happen to these massive spaces in 2021 , when the tourist go home and the city is give with even more caparison and commercial-grade blood ? harmonise to HOK , the land site will become a “ Museum of the Future . ”
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