Cities 27 (2010) 272284

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Cities
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cities

Viewpoint

High-rise Dubai urban entrepreneurialism and the technology of symbolic power

Michele Acuto *
School of Regulation, Justice and Diplomacy, Australian National University,
Australia
Cities Research Cluster, National University of Singapore

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 24 August 2009
Received in revised form 27 November 2009
Accepted 12 January 2010
Available online 3 April 2010
Keywords:
Dubai
Global city
Symbolic power
Icon
Skyscrapers

a b s t r a c t
Twenty-rst century metropolises are often engaged in a rivalry for primacy in many different geographical scales. Dubai, a relatively new urban settlement, is not immune from such endeavor. The Emirate has
undertaken an impressive urban revolution in a rather explicit attempt to become a novel New York.
This viewpoint explores the present evolution of the city, illustrating how a centralized and hyperentrepreneurial approach has characterized Dubais attempt to ascend in the world urban hierarchy
and establish itself as the image of the 21st century metropolis. Contrary to much of the eulogistic take
that often features in city rankings, an analysis of this venture through the citys contemporary urban
restructuring unveils the problematic social effects of Dubais quest for symbolic power that technique of worldmaking that confers inuence by constituting the given by stating and mediating it.
The compulsive sprawl of icons and vertical cities associated with this practice might set the Emirate
on a perilous course with disastrous social consequences. In this view, the article draws upon some of the
most astonishing works-in-progress of this city and the Burj Dubai in primis to explain the complexity
of this power, and the many contradictions that can arise with it as quickly as Dubais skyscrapers.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction
Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr. Robert Laing
reected on the unusual events that had taken place within this
huge apartment building during the previous three months
J.G. Ballard, High-rise (opening line).
Testied by the sprawling of city evaluations across publications worldwide, from Foreign Policys Global Cities Index onto
the Economist Urban Livability annual lists, tabloids and magazines seem to have caught up with what researchers at Loughborough Universitys GaWC Centre have been doing for more than a
decade: ranking metropolises. Ever since the early days of urban
studies, scholars have been fascinated with those dominant
metropolises where much of the human business is conducted.
New York, Tokyo, Paris and London have regularly been looked at
as the apogee of the so-called world city hierarchy (Hall, 1966).
Thanks to their economic, cultural, religious and political functions,
these urban settlements have positioned themselves as obligatory
passage points (Callon, 1986) in the networks of social relations
across the globe. Cities, long before theorists such as Patrick

* Address: School of Regulation, Justice and Diplomacy, Hedley Bull Centre,

Australian National University, 2601 ACT, Australia. Tel.: +61 261250913; fax: +61
261257985.
E-mail address: michele.acuto@anu.edu.au
0264-2751/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cities.2010.01.003

Geddes, Lewis Mumford or Peter Hall described this competition

for urban status, have always rivaled for primacy in many different
geographical scales with varying degrees of entrepreneurship.
Dubai is not immune from such endeavor (see Fig. 1).
I here want to explore the contemporary evolution of the Emirate,
illustrating how a centralized and hyper-entrepreneurial approach
has characterized Dubais attempt to ascend in this hierarchy and
establish itself as the image of the 21st century global city. Contrary
to much of the eulogistic take that often features in city rankings, an
analysis of this venture through the citys contemporary urban
revolution unveils the problematic social effects of Dubais quest
for symbolic power that technique of worldmaking that confers
inuence by mediating peoples understanding of the world. The
compulsive sprawl of icons and vertical cities associated with this
practice might set the Emirate on a perilous course with disastrous
social consequences. This essay is an attempt to analyze these
developments from a perspective that privileges social, rather than
the much discussed nancial and environmental sustainability. It
starts by enquiring into the rationale of symbolism, and by observing
Dubais entrepreneurial evolution, considering how the city has attempted to master this soft power and apply it through its urban order. A few years ago Mike Davis (2007) gave a distinctively pessimist
outlook onto this Mecca of conspicuous consumption while outlining the Sheikdoms social polarization; 3 years later the situation
might indeed have worsened, as the city has put even more emphasis on the risky practice of symbolic power.

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273

Fig. 1. The Burj Khalifa (formerly Burj Dubai) tallest building in the world, symbol-to-be of Dubais attempt to rise to world city status.

Technologies of symbolic power

Symbolic power is the capacity to control the social production
of distinction by mediating other forms of power such as economics and religion through human technology. According to Pierre
Bourdieu, who originally theorized it, the inuence of symbolism
rests upon constituting the given by stating it (1989, p. 14), thus
mediating social experiences and imposing socially accepted
meanings which in turn affect the actions of others. Directly connected with a foucauldian understanding of power as inherent
quality of social interactions, this form of inuence is an invisible
power which can be exercised only with the complicity of those
who do not want to know that they are subject to it or even that
they themselves exercise it (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 164). Humans
can master the technology of symbolic power by understanding
the processes and dynamics that underpin the social worlds symbolic systems (Bourdieu, 1985, p. 724). These latter are the intertwined dispositions of symbols language, image and built space

that form the core of human interaction: they allow for difference,
and consequently for the coexistence and continual creation of
individual as well as group identities. Mastering symbolic power,
in this sense, means pursuing distinction (Bourdieu, 1985, p.
730) and voluntarily producing separations and social worlds that
affect others identities and freedom for action.
Symbolic power is thus exerted by socializing others into a certain representation of the environment we live in, therefore getting
them to act accordingly. Symbolism is essentially a power of definition (Anderson, 1987) by which individuals or groups gain a social advantage on their subjects thanks to the construction in
the minds of the latter of some accepted imaginative geographies
(Gregory, 1994). Typically, it can be exerted by either communicative or physical means, though hybrid forms abound in the age of
the IT. For example, a group sitting in lecture theatre can be
coerced into exiting the room through its windows if the speakers
rhetoric is so compelling that it convinces the audience these are
the only viable ways out. However, a similar result can also be

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M. Acuto / Cities 27 (2010) 272284

achieved by our cold-blooded orator through more material means

such as a set of green exit signs on the windows, or even by
erecting a wall in front of the theatres only door. Distinction is
so produced thanks to the speaker symbolic capital, a potential
constituted by mediating other forms of power such as the speakers oratory and social status in the rst instance, or economic and
material capabilities in the second example.
In our case, the symbolic power nested in the city is equally
twofold. As Australian architect William Mitchell noted in Placing
Words, the urban is nowadays the context through which social
relations unravel. The spaces and places of twenty-rst century
cities wrote the author provide contexts for communication,
serving not only to shelter and protect their inhabitants, but also
to ground and sustain meaningful interaction among them
(2005, p. 3). Symbolic interactions pervade the urban in all its layers, not just as physical denitions of the world around us but also
as communicative actions that become dynamically superimposed
to the material structures of the city, as well as immaterial virtual
worlds of networked interactions that ow through the citys infrastructures. The city has many symbolic voices: street signs, intertwined public spaces, gated entrances, transport systems,
entertainment hubs, markets and so on, all contribute to the denition of the spatialization (Lefebvre, 1991) of the city. All of
these coexist in a plurality of competing, complementary and
overlapping symbolic and spatial orders (King, 2004, p. 3) that denes the socio-spatial texture of the urban.
These contemporaneous city worlds (Massey et al., 1999)
intersect to dene a complex social milieu the urban that is
increasingly home to the majority of humanity (Burdett and Sudjic,
2008). It is not just one of them that affects individuals in the city,
but the spatial relationship among them, which creates a particular
symbolic system characteristic of that locality. Symbolic power, in
these contexts, is as the means to communicate and exert inuence
across levels and its ownership is a crucial social issue. As we walk
through the streets, the city presents us a world of images, material
constructs and social interactions which dene the range of
choices available to its users. It constrains (or enables) our mobility, and constitutes a multi-structured mise-en-scne of built
(doors, walls, bridges) as well as inscribed (signs, sounds, grafti)
forms of social coordination and communication (Mitchell, 2005,
p. 8). The spatial organization of the city inuences not only the
possibilities for movement, but also the consciousnesses and social
practices of those who interact with the urban environment, be
they inhabitants, aliens or transient guests (Sassen, 1999).
Global cities are often the pinnacle of this intricate relationship:
they are not solely media where this power is nested in the relationship between the city and its local community. They are rst
and foremost hubs that project symbolism towards much wider
audiences, which in turn dene their identity. Global cities are
the synthesis of global and local processes due to their positioning
at the crucial intersection of manifold worldwide networks,
becoming quite simply the strategic sites of globalization. Yet, they
are not solely passive agents in the social processes that underpin
this phenomenon: they are equally active in that they are constituted by vibrant communities that exert command and control
functions on those very same processes. The problem is, however,
that with world city status come world-class questions.

its 1833 establishment by Sheik Maktoum bin Bati. Despite having

suffered an acute epidemic of smallpox in its original settlement
the Bur Dubai rst, and a devastating re in its marketplace
Deira afterwards, the city has undergone a rapid evolution from
its pre-industrial conurbation to a post-industrial centre in little
more than 50 years (Pacione, 2005) (see Fig. 2).
Contemporary Dubai, solidly in the hands of its founders family, the al Maktoum dynasty, is the product of a super-fast urbanism (Bagaeen, 2007, p. 174) that embodies its greatest
comparative advantage with the rest of the region: the ability to
diversify and rapidly reinvent its function to external needs. Its
pearl-based commerce of the Nineteenth century was rapidly replaced by trade with South Asia in the early 1900s, and boosted
by the discovery and burgeoning of the oil industry in 1966. However, the Emirate did not stop at the black gold. In 1971, the sheikdom formed a union by joining forces with Abu Dhabi and
presenting an intricate Islam-inspired constitution to the other ve
former states of the Trucian Oman which, lost their British tutelage, gathered in the present-day United Arab Emirates. Shortly
afterwards, Dubai engaged in planned expansion of its banking
sector and its Jebel Ali port, also developing a lucrative trade relationship with Iran during the First Gulf War with Iraq in 1980
1988. Incentives to attract international capital have included a
strong policy of low taxation (if not free zones such as Jebel Ali),
unproblematic business barriers and the branding of the city as
stable enclave within the political turmoil of the Middle East. Then,
since the 1990s, the Emirate has sought to diversify its economic
activities in order to reduce its dependence on declining oil reserves (which account today to only 5.1% of the GDP), and seek
the status of developed economy by 2010 a result that, arguably,
has now been attained.1 Tourist-oriented development began to appear scattered across the sprawling urban landscape, illustrating the
changing priorities of the citys governance and its attempt to attract
not solely capitalist elites but also high-income customers by establishing itself as an exclusive leisure destination (Elsheshtawy, 2004,
p. 180). Dubai soon grew to become the worlds top immigration hub
(Benton-Short et al., 2005), as its rulers sought to make of this condition a brand of the Middle-Eastern metropolis.2
The sheikdom has happily embraced globalization (Hirst,
2001) and grounded its entrepreneurialism in an open-door economic liberalism that has often been in tacit contrast with many
regional neighbours. The governing elite, headed today by one of
the descendents of the ruling family, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid
al Maktoum Dubais ruler and the UAE Prime Minister has held
solid control over the expansion and diversication of the Emirates activities. Its hybrid form of government, indissolubly intertwined with the familys patrimonial network, is essentially little
more than an extended system of patronage (Davidson, 2008, p.
158) where public and private melt together without clear-cut
boundaries. The Sheik himself is the founder and current major
shareholder (99.67%) of Dubai Holding, the state-led company that
manages twenty sectoral developers ranging from real estate to
entertainment.
In February 2007, with compounded annual growth rates of 13%
conrming the remarkable economic performance of the 1990s,
Sheik Mohammed laid out the Dubai Strategic Plan 2015 with
the inspiring as much as bumptious title: Dubai. . . where
the future begins (DSP, 2007). Yet, the future proved rockier than
predicted in the document as the global nancial crisis hit later

Entrepreneurial Dubai
Staring down to a trafc-clogged Sheik Zayed Road from the
40th level of the Shangri-La hotel, it is almost impossible to conceptualize, for a foreign observer, that Dubai was nothing but a
cramped village of shermen until the mid-Nineteenth century.
Yet, this minute Middle-eastern Emirate has come a long way since

1
According to the latest World Bank gures the UAE constitute a high-income
economy, with Dubai and Abu Dhabi solidly leading the seven sheikdoms. See the
latest 2009 WB Country Groups projections at www.web.worldbank.org (Accessed 25
July 2009).
2
See for instance Emirate rebrands itself as a global melting pot. Financial Times,
12 July 2005 and Marshal (2005).

M. Acuto / Cities 27 (2010) 272284

275

Fig. 2. Sheik Zayed road a strip of burgeoning skyscrapers that constitutes the spine of Dubai.

that year, spiking on worldwide markets in September 2008. Despite the diversication strategy, the effects of widening recessions
and stock market crashes have signicantly impacted Dubai.
Although the ruler has promptly dismissed the possibility of jettisoning the 2015 plan, strategic revisions are underway, as the sinking demand for real estate and low oil prices have for the rst
time forced a reality check upon the ambitions of the Emirate
and a necessary rapprochement with its oil-rich neighbour Abu
Dhabi. Many foreigners have quite literally ed Dubai as market
prices precipitated to an historical low (Worth, 2009).
Obviously the many works-in-progress have risen more than a
few eyebrows: how sustainable is this reach for primacy in so
many elds? What are the social costs of these mega-developments? Undeniably, when the global nancial crisis hit the UAE
in late-2008, countless migrant workers where sacked or sent to
unpaid vacation or saw their working visas revoked as sites reduced their personnel.3 To date, at least half of the UAEs construction projects have been put on hold or even cancelled.4
Yet, it seems like Dubais rulers approach withstands almost
unchanged.5 The city still seeks to become a global mobility hub

3
See for instance Crisis leaves Dubai migrant workers out in the cold. AgenceFrance Presse 15 February 2009; and Lila Allen, The dark side of the Dubai dream,
published by BBC News on 6 April 2009.
4
These amount for ca. $582bn of works. Cf. Paul Lewis Dubais six-year building
boom grinds to halt as nancial crisis takes hold. The Guardian, 13 February 2009.
5
Answering to questions on the crisis in a town-hall e-session on the 1st July 2009,
the ruler and UAE Prime Minister has stressed that, whilst some revisions might be
underway, the DSP 2015 will not modied as the vision of that document cannot be
altered. My vision is open towards the future, with no limits whatsoever, whereas
strategies and plans designed to enact this vision are always adjustable to the
circumstances. Timelines are the only issue under discussion. A full text of the townhall is available at www.uaepm.ae/en/media/e-sessions/Public-e-Session-en010609.html. (Accessed 2 August 2009).

by mirroring much of Singapores logistic achievements in maritime and air trafc. Likewise, it aims at positioning itself as a catalyst for the locational exibility of international capitals by
establishing a set of lucrative niches (Khalaf, 2005) that, building
on the successful example of the Jebel Ali port, can place Dubai as a
focal point in a vast array of industries. Even in the wake of the
disastrous impact that the crisis had on many crucial nancial
centres, Dubai seems to have performed relatively well. Firstly, as
a recent article by Manuel Aalbers (2009, p. 39) pointed out, the
nancial crisis does not lead to the fall of Wall Street (New York)
and The City (London), but it does accelerate the trend towards a
shift in nancial centres that favours Eastern metropolises such
as Hong Kong, Shanghai and Dubai. Secondly, as a follow-up study
by GaWC demonstrated, Dubai has actually improved its comparative advantage on some of the classic command cores of the
worlds economy by resulting as a winner in the crisis, much
alike Singapore, Sydney and Beijing, against negative performances
by more traditional hubs such as Tokyo, Frankfurt and Brussels
(Derudder et al., 2009).
On the 9th September 2009, perhaps as a sign of recovery, Sheik
Mohammed participated to a pompous ceremony for the launch of
the brand new Dubai Metro, set to become longest automated metro network in the world with more than 70 km of track, bringing
about a revolution capable of solving Dubais chronic trafc problems.6 However, as BBC commentator Julia Wheeler sarcastically
noted, much of this issue might have already been solved by
the global economic crisis.7

6
Cf. Mohammed ofcially launches Dubai Metro. Available at http://
www.sheikhmohammed.co.ae (Accessed 24 October 2009).
7
Julia Wheeler, First Gulf Metro System to Open. Published by BBC News on 9
September 2009.

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M. Acuto / Cities 27 (2010) 272284

Despite the global recession, the history of the Emirate is a blatant testimony that Dubai epitomises a phenomenon labelled by
many urban theorists as the entrepreneurial city (Harvey,
1989; Hall and Hubbard, 1998; Jessop, 1997). Concerned not solely
with the management of its urban community, but rather oriented
towards wider audiences, the city has attempted to mirror the path
followed by many other world cities on the way to global signicance (see for example Olds and Yeung, 2004). Dubai has, in this
sense, perfectly embodied all three typical characteristics that
Bob Jessop (1997) postulated as core features of entrepreneurial
cities. It has rigorously pursued innovative strategies, which are
reexive of a purposeful aim: that of achieving a global city status
comparable to London and Tokyo. Likewise, it has sustained this
venture with a constantly entrepreneurial narrative targeted at
global elites in an effort to brand Dubai as the archetype of success.
If, as Jessop has recently pointed out, the presence of innovation
with an explicit purpose distinguishes the real entrepreneurs from
those that happen for whatever reason(s) to perform well economically (Jessop and Sum, 2000, p. 2289), the Emirate is a paragon of the former. Symbolic power is certainly not left to the
textbooks, but carefully applied and sought after in order to seduce
a global audience. Indeed, Dubais goal is to carry the day in the
race for excellence its ruler devoted himself to (al Maktoum,
2006).

Global city euphoria

Mohammed Alabbar, chairman of Emaar one of Dubais three
real estate titans has a recurring expression to describe the rationale beyond his constructions: we aim he says with compelling
assertiveness to create a global landmark.8 He, just like Sultan
Ahmed bin Sulayem of Nakheel Properties and Mohammed al Gergawi of Dubai Holding, has to carry out the epic implementation of
Sheik al Maktoums vision. The Emirates planners have all been entrusted with the task of building where not creating anew upon a
sandy tabula rasa an instantly recognizable image of Dubai that
testies the ascendance of the sheikdom, while also feeding its compulsion to set standards on a worldwide scale.
Alabbars statement is not abandoned to rhetoric. As the city has
quickly grown in both regional importance and urban extension,
Dubai embarked in a frantic quest for hyperbole (Davis, 2007,
p. 54) that has symbolized its attempt to ascend to the Olympus
of global cities. Function is not the primary concern in a land of
endless anonymous horizons and (once) seemingly bottomless
nancial availability. Form is the key focus of todays architecture
in Dubai, whose fundamental criterion is globality.
Lacking a strongly preconceived historical image, the Emirate
allows for an easier construction of a global city faade. However,
while this historical vacuum can offer much space for place promotion (Bradley et al., 2002), it can also hinder the formation of
a convincing brand of what Dubai is an identity which to date remains relatively weak. In order to solve this distinctiveness puzzle,
the governing elite has put much emphasis on the creation of landmarks and world-class structures capable of controlling and dominating architectonically the development of a unique urban
identity (Eben Saleh, 2001, p. 328). By doing so, the Emirate has
embarked in an almost unprecedented with the exception of
Las Vegas, perhaps attempt to create a set of predetermined
experiences to be consumed by foreigners (Zukin, 1997). In this
context, monumental developments and high-tech public spaces
are supposed to rise as cornerstones of the citys symbolic system
by creating an instantly-recognizable skyline, with a boosterismridden architecture concerned with making nowhere suddenly

in somewhere (Sudjic, 1996). Dubai, in this sense, has been deeply

seduced by the so-called Bilbao effect and the potential of wowarchitecture of dening a citys image in the eyes of foreign audiences (Rybczynski, 2002). It has learnt that, in the present society
of spectacle (Debord, 1994), audiences can be captivated through
a procient usage of symbolism.
Nonetheless, the Emirati xation with the iconic is not simply a
whim of its multi-billionaire leaders, as many Western commentators have wrongly argued. Iconicity is, in Dubai, a crucial pillar of
the entrepreneurial narrative that asserts the Sheikdoms vibrant
presence in world affairs. It is a testimony to the citys dynamism
and a proof of its commitment to progress. Likewise, iconicity is
also often intertwined with a search for innovation and competitiveness that is to be reected in unparalleled constructions. Dubai
is trying to be, in the worlds of Alabbar, New York in the making.9
Rather than a caprice, the impressing eccentricities of the hopeful
global city are a vivid sign of its urban entrepreneurialism.
To become symbolic capital with global inuence, however, Dubais architectural icons need to adhere to those widespread stereotypes that represent modernization and power. As the theory
of symbolic power tells us, symbolic objects are signicant only
if recognized as such: they depend, as Emile Durkheim (1984)
underlined before Bourdieu, on logical conformism between
individuals who agree upon the meaning of a symbol. In order to
create an icon that has signicance (and consequently inuence)
over a widespread audience, one has to relate to the symbolic systems shared or understood by as many as possible in such audience
the dominant culture. Dubai needs to locate itself prominently
within the imaginative geographies (Gregory, 1994) of the audiences it tries to reach, not just putting itself on the map as an exotic
location, but rather speaking the language of a globalization it tries
to master.
Skyscrapers are obviously the most common example of this,
but there are other features that reify progress today: mobility
hubs such as ultra-modern airports or international trade centers
occupy much of the global imaginary of what 21st century globalization is. They are the signs of modernity (King, 2004) and some
of todays most obvious candidates for housing globalized ows,
whether metaphorical or material (McNeill, 2005, p. 43). Similarly, rst-class hotels and shopping malls denote vitality of business and tourist industries, as much as environmentally viable
mass-developments are the latest in world-class engineering and
urbanism. In this context, the ability of the Emirate is in its mirroring and enhancing of dominant symbols of modernity. Being modern is, in current world city-speak, maintaining a globalized
entrepreneurial edge that is reected in prominent urban restructuring mostly geared towards efciency and sustainability as
well as in the vitality of one citys transformative and advanced
producer services economy. This does not imply that Dubai needs
to change the understanding of what a modern metropolis is, but
rather that it has to conform, and excel, in such globalizing approach. As a government planning ofcial suggested to me whilst
visiting the endless halls in the Mall of the Emirates: Dubai does
not reinvent, it does better and bigger.10 In this sense, the icons
that are sprawling around Dubai are not ends in themselves: symbolic power is a transgured form of other types of power, be they
economic, religious or political. Icons are Dubais means for global
reach. Sheik al Maktoum underlined this himself in a recent interview: We are not growing in order to be a model for its highest
building in the world, best airports, and most luxurious hotels, and
the largest seaport and man-made islands: the Dubai model is

9
8

See the BBC 2 series Dubai Dreams, episode 3: Alabbar (December 2005).

10

See the BBC 2 series Dubai Dreams, episode 3: Alabbar (December 2005).
Interview with Senior Ofcial from the Dubai Municipality, 7 July 2009.

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277

Fig. 3. The Address Downtown Burj Khalifa one of two twin exclusive hotels in the heart of the metropolis.

beyond that.11 Symbolic developments are the means to narrate

and unfold the citys urban entrepreneurialism on a global scale in
the language of the dominant culture. The Dubai model is about
reaching primacy in this latter (see Fig. 3).
The best example of this symbolic capital is the construction of
the spectacular Burj Dubai: the tallest building in the world.12

11
Media e-Session with the Prime Minister al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai, 18 April
2009. Available at www.uaepm.ae/en/media/e-sessions (Accessed 29 July 2009).
12
The Burj, inaugurated on the 4th January 2010, has been ofcially re-named Burj
Khalifa in honor of the President of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa
bin Zayed al Nahyan, in an unexpected act of submission by Sheik Mohammed to its
wealthy neighbor. Yet, Burj Dubai remains the most common brand of the building
in the media, popular imagination and even ofcial presentations such as that of the
inauguration, which showcases the story of the skyscraper to endless queues of
visitors seeking a ticket for the panoramic terrace at the 124th oor. I have chose to
maintain the Burj Dubai denomination for consistency with the popular usage, and
to avoid anachronisms.

Soared into the Emirates cityscape in little more than 4 years at the
impressing pace of one oor every 3 days, with a record height of
828 meters, the spire was already a dominant presence in the urban
fabric before completion. This high-rise, whose nal elevation was
jealously kept secret by the rm that designed it the American
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill until its grand opening on the 4th
of January 2010, is reminiscent of The Mile High Illinois envisaged
by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1956 for Chicago and never realized.13 It
embodies that classic human fascination with towers, symbols of
power and dominance that have occupied the urban imaginary for
centuries (Huxtable, 1984; van Leeuwen, 1992; Markus, 1993). As
the constructions evolved, this skyscraper has attracted interests
from all around the world, with investors of all nationalities rushing
to secure a spot in the new Emirati icon during a two-night frenzy in
13
The rm itself, along with the developer (Emaar) have repeatedly stretched the
comparison. Curiously, Wrights project was never seen as nancially viable.

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M. Acuto / Cities 27 (2010) 272284

2007 when ofce and habitable spaces reached exorbitant prices between three and four thousand US dollars per square foot.14
The high-rise symbolizes Dubais quest for uniqueness and primacy in the world city hierarchy. In this race, it also shows concerted effort of all the key players of the Emirate: Sheik, local
government, major stakeholders and transnational capitalist elites.
To these latter Emaar its constructor has targeted the marketing of the Burj, which will offer a multifunctional hub pinpointed
on its Armani Hotel & Residence that will house 160 suites and
144 cutting-edge apartments. Moreover, the building is just the
pinnacle of a much wider Emaar development know as Downtown Burj Dubai that spreads over 500-odd acres of Dubais
CBD, alongside Sheik Zayed Road with an estimated US$ 40 billion
capital investment.15 Of course, the development does not stop to
the Burj Dubai in terms of world-class standards: the site houses,
immediately below the tower, the worlds largest shopping centre,
the already operating Dubai Mall, circled by a boulevard that in Emaars vision should rival with the Champs-lyses in width, length and
prestige. Adorned with a Guinness-record aquarium and an ice hockey rink three times thicker than those in the National Hockey League,
the Mall boosts the Emirati fascination with water spectacles. As the
progressively dazzled shopper makes his way through the Mall towards the Burj Dubai, the top-ranking boutiques leave the center
stage to another urban champion occupying much of the adjacent
30-acres lake the Dubai Fountain. Designed to replicate and, needless to say, amplify Las Vegass Bellagio Fountain, this gigantic water
spectacle is supposed to spray an average 22,000 gallons of water at
150 meters in height at any given moment, with multiple cycles of
color-shape combinations.16
This iconic Downtown enterprise is reminiscent of a similar
project: the Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) and its Petronas Twin
Towers building development. Set to become the tallest edice of
the world at the end of the 1990s, the story of the KLCC has a very
similar narrative to that of the Burj. As explained by Tim Bunnell:
the building is seen to both image Malaysia as a world-class
national player (and Kuala Lumpur as a world city) as well as
to promote new ways of seeing among citizens (1999, p. 1).
In this sense, both cases demonstrate how the iconic high-rises
are more than simply consequences of urban speculation which
is often indicated as the original reason for skyscraper development (van Leeuwen, 1992). Petronas Towers, just like the Burj Dubai, cannot be understood merely as a function of land values
(Bunnell, 1999, p. 4) and has to be appreciated beyond its aesthetic
value in its social role (Sklair, 2006). The symbolic function of the
iconic skyscraper in the contemporary metropolis is to dene the
presence of the city on a world stage, while also constituting or
re-constituting the identity of the locals through a preponderant
symbol. As Ada Louise Huxtable prosaically put it: the tall building probes our collective psyche as it probes the sky (1984, p. 11).
The icon becomes a powerful dening element for the local identity, becoming a representative image of what the urban communities in Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, New York, London and the like are. In
this sense, it is not surprising that leaders have sought these developments as pinnacles of their visions. Indeed, as KLCC represented
PM Mahathir Mohammad aspirations for Malaysia, the Burj
14
As indicated by Emaar Chairman Mohammed Alabbar at the Council on Tall
Buildings and Urban Habitat earlier last year. Cf. Burj Dubai ofces to top US$4,000
p e r s q f t . Z a w y a . 5 M a r c h 2 0 0 8 . w w w . z a w y a . c o m / s t o r y . c f m / s i d zawya20080305042540 (Accessed 20 July 2009). Even the Burj Dubai, however, has
been impacted by the real estate crisis, with prices dropping substantially.
15
See for example the special issue Burj Dubai in Arabian Business 11 (1), January
49, 2010.
16
The fountain is designed by the Los Angeles-based WET Design, who originally
developed the Bellagio project.

embodies Sheik Mohammeds idea for Dubai. However, if Bunnell

could justly argue that Petronas Towers was also a space of contest where there was, in its initial socialization phase vis--vis
its urban community, a sense of popular problematisation
(1999, p. 18), the same might not be for our Emirati behemoth. Indeed, the Burj is used by the rulers to ascertain a local identity in
relation to a migrant population, but this does not necessarily
translate in either the assimilation of the expats, or the construction of a more multi-ethnic Arab societal basis. The citizenship
of Dubai seems to remain conned to either its original Emirati
lineage (constituting a mere 10% of the whole resident population;
see Bagaeen, 2007 and Benton-Short et al., 2005), or the transient
elite visitor/user who, paradoxically, often owns far more right
than the migrant. As noted by Leslie Sklair: the dominant forms
of architectural iconicity for the global era are increasingly driven
by those who own and control the corporate sector (2006, p. 21).
The Burj is no exception. Cutting-edge apartments, ofces and hotels within it are mainly designed and marketed towards them and
are mainly built to house globalizing ows. Even if the degree of
exclusion appears to be minimal (indeed almost anyone could enter the Dubai Mall), the form and function of the development has
a preconceived in-built user (Latour, 1992) that is hardly tailored
towards low-income inhabitants.
As case of Downtown Burj Dubai illustrates, the Emirates architectural development mirrors the precepts of entrepreneurialism
in a staggering as much as exclusionary expression of symbolic
power. It seeks to impress and set the meter of comparison at a
global scale, topping on measurements and audacity, while convening a dynamic-innovative image of the city. In this, the Burj is
not dissimilar from its predecessors Burj al Arab and Emirates
Towers. Likewise, it is self-referential: Dubai is an almost mandatory prex for most of the developments, and even if the ofcial
denomination has been changed at the last minute in a rather
unpredictable sign of submission to the Union and its oil-rich
neighbor Abu Dhabi, the phrase Burj Dubai remains the most
widespread way to refer to the behemoth used not only by the
popular media but also in several ofcial documents and in the
buildings inauguration exposition itself. More importantly, the
construction and rhetoric of the skyscraper it is reexive of a
straightforward strategy: as Sheik al Maktoum sees it, Dubai has
to be number one in the world, in everything.17 Contrary to, for
example, Fosters gherkin Swiss Re tower in London, the Burj Dubai
seeks to make this statement loudly and visually: it does not rely on
a civilized dialogue between the tower and its nearest neighbors
(Sudjic, 2005, p. 317) but rather stands out and informs the entire
skyline in order to shape the image of Dubai as a whole. The iconic
becomes, in this paradigmatic policy, a trampoline for the wider
world. It epitomizes the means by which Dubai seeks to persuade
of its progress and its participation in the international whilst also
trying to seduce the global audience through the soft power of its
symbolic capital, and the global visibility of its urban spaces (Fig. 4).

Dubais splintering cities real and imagined

In a 1997 article published on the Scientic American, William
Mitchell asked: Do we still need skyscrapers? In the age of IT and
locational exibility, the need for hyper-concentrated ofce buildings in the midst of the key cities of the globe seemed to him questionable at best. However, Mitchell warned, high-rises are not yet
dinosaurs: their symbolic value goes far beyond their function
(1997, p. 113). Contrary to Mike Daviss prediction that, after 9/
11, concrete bunkers and decentralized functions were to replace
17
Interview with Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum in the CBS documentary
Dubai Inc., rstly aired in the program 60 Minutes on 14 October 2007.

M. Acuto / Cities 27 (2010) 272284

279

Fig. 4. The seven-starred Burj Al Arab for many years the trademark of Dubais success.

that obsolete behemoth (2001, p. 44) of the skyscraper, tall

buildings continued to sprawl in developing economies such as
the UAE and China. Dubai seems to corroborate this assumption,
as its sandy plains are rapidly substituted by the glassy verticality
of its corporate centers. Here visionary architecture melts into instant urbanism (Bagaeen, 2007), in a risky business that raises
many questions.
The Burj Dubai is not the only case: as its foundations were still
being drawn on the area that now hosts the Dubai Mall, another
iconic development was being planned by the governmentowned real estate company Nakheel, author of the famed palm islands off the shores of the Emirate. Amidst controversies, and with
numerous changes in the selected site, Nakheel has set out to build
its kilometer-high Al Burj (the tower). Located now at the heart
of the Nakheel Harbour & Tower development in the Dubai Marina
north of the Jebel Ali port, the tower is supposed to create, as
Nakheels vision set out in 2004, an all-inclusive community and

destination for citizens both in Dubai as well as around the

world.18 Capable of combining a 5 star hotel, luxury residential
and serviced apartments and a myriad of business centers, the vertical city as it has been described by its designers truly is a mark
of the epoch, as it is meant to become a beacon of inspiration for
the region and the world (Mitcheson-Low and OBrien, 2009, p.
16). Needless to say, much of the same has been said in regards to
the Burj Dubai and the Burj al Arab before it, as this vertical terminology has been reverberating across the world. In London, for
example, Renzo Pianos soon-to-be erected Bridge Tower the
Shard on the Southwark is being loudly promoted as the vertical
city. Just like KLCC and the Burj, the soon-to-be-apex of The City is
analogously multifunctional in that it houses hotels, convention

18
See www.nakheelharbour.com/#/project/project_vision. (Accessed 10 August
2009).

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M. Acuto / Cities 27 (2010) 272284

Fig. 5. London Southwark, The Shards construction site.

centers, shopping areas, cafs and the like as well as globally iconic. While creating a novel hinge in the European nancial capital, it
also speaks to the world by describing a renewed and competitive
London (see Fig. 5).
The interesting aspect of these vertical cities is, however, not
the disproportionate and inhuman dimension. Rather, it is the attempt to create a city within a city an expression that has echoed in many mega-developments not just in the Emirate, as the
cases of Petronas Towers and the Shard testify.19 It is a move towards an almost independent structure that demands little external
plodding for its inhabitants. All of these developments are indicative
of a worrying trend that is particularly evident in the Emirate: as the
city seeks to market its unique melting pot of cultures and nationalities as a catalyst for global expansion, its urbanism has turned into
demand-oriented planning (Bagaeen, 2007, p. 175) that aims at
creating comfort zones for all of its wealthy expatriate and shortterm visitors. Emirati developers have thus embarked in a multitude
of visions that have fragmented the city into several coming-soon
themed areas: the Internet City with its high-tech business centers,
the Healthcare City organized in association with the Harvard Medical School, the archipelago of privately-owned islets built to represent an atlas, the Lost City inspired by ancient civilizations, these and
countless others are supposed to constitute the future urban fabric of
the city.
The latest Emirati fantasy is perhaps best embodied by the recent proposal for a masterplan for Waterfront City, a project envi-

19
On the Petronas Towers see KLCC Holdings Sdn Bhd. (ca. 1996) Kuala Lumpur City
Centre, Marketing brochure, reported in Bunnell (1999).

sioned by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaass Ofce for Metropolitan

Architecture. Before being benched and probably discarded
by the nancial crisis, the plan was meant to be realized by Nakheel next to the site of the new al Maktoum International Airport,
which is set to become the largest of its kind by 2017. The proposed 1.5 billion square foot articial island at the core of this
development will be divided in 25 identical city blocks and supposedly replicate the urban fabric of Manhattan. The hinges of this
visionary experiment are at its northwestern corner: on the coastal
side an 82-storey coiling tower named The Spiral, and on the islands side a gigantic 44-storey sphere conceived as a self-contained three-dimensional urban neighborhood (Ouroussoff,
2008). The concept of this multi-billionaire construction, which
should cover a total area twice the size of Hong Kong Island, is a
practical application of Koolhaass famous call for a new urbanism against an expanding phenomenon the generic city that,
in his words, represents the contemporary death of urbanism
and our refuge in the parasitic security of architecture (Koolhaas
and Mau, 1995, p. 970). What OMA (according to its website) is trying to achieve in Dubais Waterfront City is a synthesis of generic
(New York-style symmetrical blocks) and iconic (Sphere and
Spiral) that should inspire 21st century urbanism.20
However, Koolhaass vision, if ever realized in the current economic downturn, might easily become a hallucination. The island,
just like the Burj Dubai, Nakheel Tower and the numerous thematic
developments planned across the Emirate, can morph into a selfsufcient community with little or no connection with the rest of

20

For a more detailed explanation of the projects rationale see www.oma.eu.

M. Acuto / Cities 27 (2010) 272284

281

Fig. 6. A recurring scene of the Burjs opening exhibition: an army of almost invisible cleaners maintains the showcase immaculate at all times.

the city. As it already happened in a smaller scale with the Burj al

Arab hotel, the Waterfront might turn into a gated enclave, architecturally stupendous yet profoundly exclusionary (Ouroussoff,
2008). Customers of the hotel are already able to reach it directly
from the airport via private, anonymous, air-conditioned shuttles
that bypass the other suburbs and deposit them right in front of
the super-exclusive lobby. Non-resident visitors, on the other
hand, have to pay a 34 Dirhams tax to enter the premises, and
are constantly surveyed as they gooly move where access is
granted. A similar fate might await Koolhaass island and the kilometer-high towers. Indeed, much of the citys viability is strictly
dependant on taxis and private limousines that congest the main
streets with almost no pedestrian in sight. The chaos and heterogeneity of the few remaining suburbs that are not construction sites
or guarded malls and hotels is often fenced off from the visitors
eye. Newspapers and tourist guides regularly portray areas such
as Sabkha, Satwa and Deiras Suqs like exotic locales, places where
one can nd some sort of authentic living (Elsheshtawy, 2008, p.

984). Moreover, thanks to the Dubai Metro opened in 2009, tourists and businessmen are able to transit across the high-speed viaducts built along Sheik Zayed Road, reaching the Burj or Dubai Mall
from the airport in a matter of minutes, and virtually never exiting
anywhere else than in their comfort-proof enclave.
Certainly, Dubai testies that, as Pierre Bourdieu predicted in
Distinction more than three decades ago, social divisions are today
created by seduction and desire rather than regulation and coercion (Bourdieu, 1984; Bauman, 2008). Symbolic power has substituted at least in the Emirate brute force. However, structural
violence (Galtung, 1969) is far from absent: contrary to cases such
Pyongyang or Yangon, where urban coercion is mostly rooted in
policing practices, oppression in Dubai comes with glossy brochures and red-carpeted entrances. Rather than originating from
government actions, the increasing social (multi)polarization has
its roots in the governance partnership between the wealthy ruling
family and corporate elites. It assumes the form of exclusive clubs
and lobbies, gated seven-star hotels and jet-set malls whose access

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M. Acuto / Cities 27 (2010) 272284

is not hindered by force, but by price. In principle, everyone is welcome in the many visionary developments sprawling across the
city from the Dubai Mall to the Burj al Arab. However, this tenet
is confounded by a de facto reality: only those that are either customers or nationals of the Emirate can afford much of these structures, with countless low-income migrants virtually excluded by a
subtle system of priority entries, fees, and membership cards. Just
like Mike Davis noted a few years ago, much of Dubai is nowadays
organized on a thorough regime of modular liberties based on the
rigorous spatial segregation of economic function and ethnically
circumscribed social classes (2007, p. 62) (see Fig. 6).
The urban question facing the city today is thus that of fragmentation, which is a perverse effect of Dubais attempt to exert
symbolic inuence on a global scale. Symbolic power is exercised
here not solely to seduce worldwide audiences and persuade them
of Dubais rise to global city status, but also to create an urban fabric that can accommodate so many different visions and demands.
The spectre of splintering urbanism, as Stephen Graham (2001)
would put it, is most certainly haunting the disorienting conurbation of the Emirate. The city is slowly succumbing under a multipolarization that is, rather intentionally, creating separated worlds
that are nothing but transitory spaces (Elsheshtawy, 2008) that
make of the metropolis a paradise of personal security (Davis,
2007, p. 60) for those who can afford it. The ordinary Dubai is vanishing due to this very volatile process, which is in turn almost
completely demand-driven and highly inuenced by global economic uctuations. Even the older zones such as Al Ras in Deira
are subject to the perverse logic of symbolic power: just like in
the case of many Chinatowns in the West (Anderson, 1987), these
Suqs are being socially constructed as bounded places to be experienced and consumed in contrast with the high-income districts
of Burj Dubai and Sheik Zayed. Low-income nationals, a rarity, and
even lower-income migration workers, a signicant but silent
minority with no leverage on the governments deeds, are migrating to outer dormitory suburbs as rents rise (Westley, 2006), and
foreign expats are given the possibility almost unique in the region to own land and develop commercial areas.
There is now a fast-emerging world of premium connections
(Graham, 2001, p. 368) that is fast becoming the ordinary Dubai.
The built-in user that is presently being inscribed in the technology
of Dubais urban fabric is more and more the anonymous corporate
elitist or the opulent transient tourist, which have little to contribute to the development of a local identity. Dubai is increasingly
developed for the visitor class (Eisinger, 2000) rather than its
mostly invisible inhabitants. The Emirate, despite much ofcial
rhetoric about the original settlements legacy, is thus increasingly
based on Ferdinand Tnnies rationale of gesellschaft (society) a
group whose existence is merely functional to its members individual interests, where neither community spirit nor social bond
have much meaning (Tnnies, 1988). Dubai might soon become a
city with no inhabitants, and many users.

A sustainable mirage?
As the hotels chauffeur escorts the pampered visitor back to the
airport, one is left to wonder what Dubai really is. The precise
shape of the ever-changing metropolis appears too slippery to be
held rmly by the foreign observer, be it an urbanist or a simple
tourist. This disorienting sense can puzzle many for its disjointed
nature. Even the seemingly evident metropolitan nature of the
Emirati conurbation becomes questionable if one scrapes deeper
beneath the glittery surface. The aspiring global city soon becomes,
as Ian Parker (2005) once put it, a mirage. The landscape changes at
a staggering pace as towers, apartment blocks and streets appear
and disappear in the twinkling of an eye, while the most wide-

spread imaginary of the city is not a postcard but a set of computer-graphic rendered and photoshopped images of what Dubai
will be, rather than what it is. Yet, in the current economic scenario,
what Dubai will be might actually never materialize. Nakheel
Tower has been put on hold by its developers, and Waterfront City
has been suspended indenitely (Stewart, 2009). Whether these visions will eventually turn into reality or not is a question of regional and global ramications, dependent on the capacity of the
Emirate to recover from the real estate hit, continue to attract global elites, and rely on Abu Dhabis capacity to promote the UAEs
recovery.
However, Dubais developments be they planned, abandoned
or in progress represent an important lesson for metropolises
worldwide, especially in the present context where the debate on
economic sustainability seems to have overtaken many of the social concerns. Despite the chronic search for novel icons that can
distinguish the sheikdom from its opponents in the world city
hierarchy, the real urban order of the Emirate a conurbation of
construction sites and soon-to-be gardens and its urban lifestyle
a quickly monotonous set of hypercomfortable and hyperexclusive spaces struggle to seduce beyond visual fascination. The
manufactured landscapes of the city certainly attract and captivate
the visitors eye, but struggle to communicate any sense of urban
cohesion and vitality of that horizon of meanings (Lefebvre,
1991, p. 222) that is often fundamental in rooting ones attachment
to places such as Paris and London. What appears to be lacking in
the Emirate is the understanding that the seduction of place
(Rykwert, 2000) in the vast majority of todays world cities is not
simply a product of symbolic power, nor only a function of a meticulously planned locality. On the contrary, it is in the complexity of
the urban order of cities such as New York that the recipe for global city-ness has to be found. What Tuan (1974) described as topophilia the love of place that develops in ourselves affective
ties with the built environment around us, is rooted in two intertwined cognitive levels: one of high abstraction and one of specic
experience. Crucially, as Tuan reminds:
at one extreme the city is a symbol or an image (captured in a
postcard or a slogan) to which one can orient oneself; at the
other it is the intimately experienced neighborhood (1974, p.
224).
Iconicity is but a part of this. Dubai is nowadays far from having
developed more than just an attractive technique that seduces and
creates temporary attachment. The Emirates emphasis on symbolic power and global reach without much care for the social
dynamics on the ground, if not with intentional splintering of its
urban structure in different gated enclaves, might have put the
sheikdom on its way to becoming the apex of the consumerist
city (Sklair, 2009) like Las Vegas of the Middle East rather than
a new Big Apple. Instead of following the much-cited path of Singapore, the Emirate is quickly turning into an immense, glittery,
Disneyzated (Bryman, 1999) and super-modern potemkin village much closer to a theme park than an amalgamated cosmopolitan hub. Moreover, these developments raise a set of critical
questions: Can symbolic power be mastered on this scale and
without any community bases? And, more importantly, what is
the consequence of this attempt? Or in other words, how socially
sustainable is Dubais symbolic power?
The logic of symbolism requires some form of power to be transgured into inuence through the symbols themselves, which
otherwise become void of meaning if on their own. As the 2009 economic crisis shows, the basis for Dubais symbolic ascendance in the
world city hierarchy might not be as solidly in the hands of the ruling family as this assumes. Dubai, due its hyper-entrepreneurialism,

M. Acuto / Cities 27 (2010) 272284

is a consumer-driven bazaar that risks creating a voodoo city

where a ctional faade masks increasing social inequality (Harvey,
1988). If the worldwide demand for state-of-the-art hotels and elite
leisure resorts continues to fall, if the sustainability of the Sheiks
diversication strategy is disproved by the real estate bubble burst,
if the viability of the Emirate as a logistic hub becomes questionable,
the city might vanish as quickly as it appeared. Nakheel Tower and
the sci- Sphere on the corner of Waterfront City might remain paper dreams and the Burj Dubai turn into an empty skeleton symbols indeed, but just of a memento to the visionary audacity of
those who conceived a global city of non-places (Aug, 1995). Dubai is in fact the result of an almost endemic search for supermodernity (Ibid) the belief that humankind can control all the
facets of social experience and overcome every environmental limitation with the application of technology. However, this approach
has two key social downsides: it creates homologous spaces, which
reiterate similar power structures, and it grants benets only to
those that can access such technologies. In this sense, Dubais case,
when analyzed in both its urban entrepreneurship and its urban revolution, corroborates much of David Harveys (2008) critical argument: urbanization in the Emirate has certainly played a crucial
role in the absorption of capital surpluses [. . .] but at the price of burgeoning processes of creative destruction that have dispossessed
the masses of any right to the city whatsoever. Dubai epitomizes
in some sense to an extreme the critical questions surrounding
the contemporary debate on the right to the city (Marcuse, 2009;
Brenner et al., 2009). For whom is the Emirate being built? What
are the effects of this quest for hyperbole on the citys inhabitants
that are often concealed to the eye of the venerated visitor?
The splintering trend that Dubai has taken on reminds of another architectural case famous amongst social scientists: that of
Robert Mosess Long Island parkway bridges in New York. The
master urbanist of the Great Apple implemented for decades, between the 1920s and the 1970s, a systematic logic aimed at building bridges, overpasses and arcs that would impede the transit of
buses on these parkways. Yet the reasons for this cookie-cutter
approach were far from technical (Caro, 1975). Allowing for cars,
characteristic of the middle and upper classes of the time, and not
for public transport, the means of the lower-income strata, the
symbolic power embedded in his monumental structures of concrete and steel embod[ied] a systematic social inequality, a way of
engineering relationships among people (Winner, 1989, p. 23).
Mosess bridges have dened New Yorks topological arrangement
of power relations for almost a century, far beyond their initial
purpose. In this sense, technology, as Langdon Winner (Ibid) reminds us, is not just an instrument of power and politics: it also
has power and politics. Once completed, the Burj Dubai and
Waterfront City will exert symbolic inuence on those that will
transit and inhabit them whether their creators will want it or
not.
This analogy brings about a nal consideration about the art of
symbolic power that often slips the minds of Dubais planners.
There is, as Latour (1992) would put it, a mindless power in artifacts that outlasts human control. We can construct technological
assemblages that have particular built-in users, and we can apply
specic devices for specic functional purposes, but the will inevitably acquire social feature and thus consequences of their
own as they become embedded in the symbolic systems of our
societies. Symbolism, in other words, requires social interaction,
but this latter is not always controllable. The mastery of symbolic
power, the pursuit of difference, is not just about being capable of
creating symbols (or, in Dubai-speak, icons). It is also, if not
chiey, about being able to manage and direct such powers of definition towards the intended divisions, and sustaining them
through the ever-changing complex of socialization processes
underpinning daily urban relations.

283

Indeed, a critical western observer might be reminded of a famous 1975 novel by James Ballard High-rise when confronted
with technological visions such as Burj Dubai and Waterfront City.
In Ballards narrative, a revolutionary London Docklands skyscraper is both protagonist and mise-en-scne for a macabre story
of social degrade and urban decay. Built as a self-sufcient vertical
city (Ballard, 1975, p. 9) for bourgeois occupants that are systematically stratied according to oor and class, the high-rise offers
all the necessary super-modern amenities. Yet, shortly after the
last of the thousand suites is occupied, the inhabitants of the tower
start to exhibit increasingly barbaric behaviors whilst infrastructures quickly break down one after the other. In 3 months, professionals are turned into scavengers and prides, as each and every
social norm collapses within the walls of the skyscraper. At last,
as the opening line narrates, the central character Robert Laing is
pictured banqueting on its dog considering the events that brought
about such degeneration. As Ballard himself notes, careful planning
and architectural mastery did not prevent the apocalypse; quite
the contrary, the symbolic power projected through the edice
contributed to the collapse of social order. People felt less and less
compelled to leave the structure as articial divisions (between inside and outside as well as among tiers of the inside) became social
divisions. The secret logic of the high-rise (Ballard, 1975, p. 136),
that of dividing and fencing from the indiscrete eye, allowed for
deviance and psychosis. Overall, the lesson of High-rise is a crucial
one: symbolism requires interaction between technology and society, but the social dynamics unfolding among these elements are
not always predictable, let alone governable. The pursuit of distinction can, on the contrary, have particularly perverse effects as technology takes up a life of its own and individuals respond in
countless ways to the power of denition.
Apocalyptic parallels with Ballards vision notwithstanding, the
case of Dubais splintering urban order brings up many controversies. It shows that paying too much attention to the symbols and
not to the human interaction that underpin them can set urbanism
on a perilous course, which can spin out of control if the basis of
symbolism either economic or social diverge from the expected. The Emirates attempt to dene its identity while simultaneously projecting it globally (the nal object of its symbolic
seduction) is highly dependent on the availability of speculative
capitals. Likewise, it is greatly contingent on Dubais capacity to seduce international elites and re-shape global mobility networks.
Abu Dhabi, in comparison, has put far more emphasis on explicitly
servicing global elites by relying on its own nancing as derived
from both vast oil resources and energy trading, in order to refrain
from Dubais mistakes (Kerr, 2009). Dubai, instead, continues to
pursue a strategy of grandeur rooted in mobility, tourism and advanced producer services, which is mostly pinpointed on nancial
and real estate investment. All of this, whilst racing for primacy in
all sectors, and managing local social dynamics. Whether this is (at
least economically) sustainable in the long run it remains a dicey
question. Yet, the Dubai model is already spreading across the Gulf,
and beyond: Qatar, for instance, has just recently laid down the
masterplans for Lusail City, another visionary oasis built from
nothing to compete as a global city.
The venture of becoming a strategic site of globalization is a
costly activity that needs sustainable long-term plans and careful,
as well as constant, balancing of global and local processes. Seeking
global city status is a risky business, one that Dubai has embraced
wholeheartedly with ambitions far greater than many other
metropolises. The question here is not just an economic one: the
city has yet to prove that it is capable of managing the immense
technology it is putting in place. Ultimately, what the case of Dubai
teaches us is that, just like Norman Klein pointed out in the case of
spectacular urbanism of the Vatican and Las Vegas, by decoding
scripted space, we learn how power [is] brokered between the

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M. Acuto / Cities 27 (2010) 272284

classes in the form of special effects, where the super-modern revolution of such urbanism is gentle repression posing as free will
(Klein, 2004, p. 11).21 Building a city for users and not inhabitants,
alienating an invisible working class and creating an urban order
based upon modular liberties might prove to be a socially unsustainable strategy. Certainly, Dubai might have mastered the art of symbolic power and the technology of iconicity. Yet, as common sense
suggests, there is indeed a natural gap between the act of seduction
and falling in love, and even in the latter case the managing of a love
affair is hardly an exact architectural some would say science.

Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Sir Peter Hall, Peter Taylor, Yasser Elsheshtawi and an anonymous reviewer for stimulating suggestions and help at various stages of this work. Thanks also to
GaWC and Milan Polytechnic for the hospitality in the earlier parts
of this study, and to two kind friends who guided me through Dubai and whose identity needs, of course, no disclosure. A particular
mention to Doreen Massey and Leslie Sklair, sources of invaluable
inspiration, and Luigi Tomba for the continual support at the Australian National University. To all of them the usual caveat applies.

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