<p>Oh and I forgot to mention : Life for people in the upper middle class (i.e. white collar workers) is good in almost any part of the world, including India, Pakistan, Mexico or Sudan. Only the guy on the street can give you a true picture of what a place is really like.</p>
<p>Oh! Laila I agree that vast numbers of asian workers who work in very poor conditions and that does anger me very much. However I was describing the locals and the expatraites who both live (relative to other countries) good lives. I am sorry your dad had such a terrible experience btw.</p>
<p>I still dont understand how expatriates live a better live giving up their basic rights (i.e. those of freedom of speech, civil/property/enterprise rights, so on and so forth).</p>
<p>Expatriates (even the ones working for multinationals and making good money) have to give those rights up as opposed to places like US and other European countries. The mere fact that the country is not a democracy speaks volumes about the lifestyle its residents can be expected to adopt.</p>
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Expatriates (even the ones working for multinationals and making good money) have to give those rights up as opposed to places like US and other European countries. The mere fact that the country is not a democracy speaks volumes about the lifestyle its residents can be expected to adopt.
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Who was comparing it to european countries? I was comparing it to other similar arab countries! Anyway the lifestyle in the UAE is nice (for white collar workers) and the country is clean, crime rate is low etc etc etc</p>
<p>lol okay compared to other Arab/Middle Eastern countries. Yup, then it's gold. =)</p>
<p>Is crime rate low in UAE? I would expect Dubai to be full of Pakistani/Kashmirs terrorists(D company) and their relatives.</p>
<p>There is very little crime (if not none) in the UAE. It's perfectly safe to be walking all alone in the middle of the night.
There are alot of Indians and Pakistani people there but the majority of them have jobs (regardless of how much they get payed) and they don't need to steal. They may not earn much; but they earn enough to live without having to resort to theaft or crime.
But of course, in other Arab countries, like Egypt for example, it's quite common to be mugged in broad daylight if you're walking in a secluded street.</p>
<p>^exactly what she said</p>
<p>SHE!! Who's she? :o
In case you were refering to me; I'm a guy.</p>
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Differences are low-crime rate, more traffic, mix of a ton of cultures, not enough support for the non-local poor(they're working on it though).
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<p>You forgot extremely high inflation. That, coupled with the the introduction of the VAT, will totally kill the any savings that the middle-class expatriates would have. </p>
<p>I liked the Dubai 10 years ago. The Dubai I saw this year is overpopulated with too much construction going on!</p>
<p>there is too much construction going on because of the overpopulation. They are expanding into the desert because all the people need houses. Besides, in about a year or so all the construction will be over and there will be less traffic.</p>
<p>I doubt the construction will be over in a year or so,stuck-on-1700. Most of the projects have deadlines in 2008 ( with some of them being postponed )</p>
<p>The houses that they are building near Jebel Ali ( which I assume is what your talking about ) are expensive and hence, the middle class people who live in the city itself ( Karama,etc,etc ) wont be able to move to those houses. Hopefully due to the low occupancy rate in the skyscrapers that Dubai has along with the building of new houses, the prices of real estate will go down within the next few years! One can only hope.....</p>
<p>Some of their projects (Dubailand, etc) reach critical mass in 2011, the construction is FAR from over, the traffic situation might chnage in a couple of years with new fly-overs and the metro.</p>
<p>jai, you're right, there is a lot of inflation. Kind of goes hand-in-hand with the rising economy.</p>
<p>In my mind, the metro seems to be increasing the traffic in the short term! </p>
<p>For example, The road leading to Bur Juman ( trade center road ) used to be pretty busy. With the increasing population in Dubai, it has become even more congested compared to what it used to be ( Boy, was I surprised when I was trying to come out of the Spinney's parking lot to see so many cars on the road!!! I literally had to wait for 5 minutes until I could get onto the road due to the cogestion!..). To make it even worse, the metro station is being setup right outside Bur Juman, and they have shortened the road to two lanes either way causing traffic jams! </p>
<p>Also, this might be debatable but the metro may not be used very much by the richer residents due to social status reason since "Travelling by bus/train" is not looked at very well from a social standpoint. Again, this is just my opinion. I am not sure if it will actually happen. Am really curious to know how the metro works out in Dubai.</p>
<p>okay. short term. But think into the future. The train or metro or whatever will reduce traffic and make it much easier to get aroud on the long run. If reducing the hellish traffic of Dubai means increasing it for a while(as contradictory as that may sound); then so be it. The Metro is expected to finish in 2008...as well as the Burj Dubai which is making Sheikh Zayed rd. a living hell. Be patient for a while; all the waiting won't be fruitless.</p>
<p>Again, the point that I mentioned is that not all the residents will use the metro ( especially the rich! ). Hence, it'd be interesting to see if the metro actually reduces the traffic or not... </p>
<p>Anyhow, I'm sure by 2015, these problems should be resolved although by then, the cost of living would probably be pretty high due to VAT, inflation,etc which I dont think the ruling family wishes to control...</p>
<p>The poorer people will not use taxis or buses. Instead they'll resort to using the metro and thus will contribute to decreasing traffic.
I'm amazed that a city will a little over a million can have so many cars and such horrible traffic. I mean, alot of those people don't even have cars. But it's traffic is nothing compared to what you might see in major metroplitan areas here!</p>
<p>ACtually to be honest, I would compare Dubai to NYC traffic! </p>
<p>Also, the "poorer" people dont use cars as of now. Hence, if they use the metro, residents will not see any noticeable difference in the no of cars on the road since the poor people dont make a difference to the number of cars on the road..</p>
<p>all cities are alike, NYC or Cairo; it's all the same traffic.
Here's a solution...what they need is not to make more ways to get around, but to make more bridges. if they constructed a huge intersection bridge thingy (I don't know what they're called) then it would be much easier to get around. They made one here and it's helped alot. They're also working on one near the Sharjah-Dubai borders to ease the horrible jams that happen there. But the Metro would looked cooler though.</p>
<p>They are constructing a 6 six lane bridge parallel to garhoud so that should help... </p>
<p>lets see.</p>