In Doha we have accumulated a herd of white elephants -a not-so-rare species proliferating wherever there is lots of the green stuff. It seems that cities in the Middle East are in a race to compete with each other in their quest for skylines - the tallest, the most expensive, the most original. Dubai has the Burj - tallest building in the world (and where has that led them, may I ask?). The Palm was dredged out of the sea and can be seen from the air as you enter Dubai airspace. Not to be outdone, Doha has requisitioned The Pearl - also constructed on reclaimed land. It is beautiful, but shows no signs of finishing - construction continues as more and more ideas get transferred from the abstract to the land - "oh, let's have one of those". "Yes, and definitely one of those as well". There's no stopping them.
And then we have Heart of Doha - they have just completed the bulldozing and razing of entire city blocks - some really needed to go, but others looked newly built. Marching along in the name of progress, we have literally had a broom sweep a huge part of the city into a dust pile. And the carnage along the way - re-use, recycle - what does that mean? The human cost as well - a newspaper article in The Peninsula the other day told the story of 70 families "rendered homeless", with water and electricity disconnected all ready for the demolition to come .... except nobody informed the renters and households! Turns out that evacuation notices had been served to the owners .... who failed to pass on the bad news.
Now we are onto Lusail - an entire city to be constructed from scratch - including underground subways and train service, state-of-the-art garbage disposal and centralized air conditioning systems. The idea is to house 350,000 people there, complete with four office towers, a Boulevard that apparently is designed to emulate the Champs Elysees - only wider and longer, of course. The billboards are up everywhere, heralding the news of the new city - the models can be viewed on site ..... but two years later .... the underground pipes are being laid, but that's as far as they've got. This is the project that my husband was supposed to head up, shovel in the ground in June 2009 - except they have been twiddling thumbs, waiting expectantly and optimistically for word to come down from on high. So far..... deadly silence, leading to frustrated boredom. Who knows where it will go or when it will go? Your guess is as good as ours.
In the meantime, buildings are sprouting up - changing the Bay area every time you drive down there. It seems each Sheikh or monied individual needs to have his own personal legacy for future generations - a concrete demonstration of individual importance, wealth, and power - somewhat territorial, and somewhat like the liberal spreading of sperm to ensure that we all know just how powerful and wealthy they are. And I don't mean to go on, but I can't help it - the thought just pops into my head and won't go away - all those tall towers are ever so phallic in symbolism. I wonder whose is the largest?
On a milder note, it feels somewhat like being part of a huge Monopoly game - any minute now I expect to see little green houses and red hotels start sprouting along Park Lane or at least along Grand Hamad. Did you know that more Monopoly money is printed than real money? All those billions in the Middle East must surely feel a bit like play money - wouldn't it be nice if we turned a corner, went passed 'Go' to a machine that delivered all that fun money into our little paws?
Seriously though, it was reported in the newspaper recently that 750 million square feet of office rental space is available. What are the chances that it will all be taken up? The population is made up of about 350,000 Qataris, 950,000 unskilled labourers, etc and about 150 to 200,000 ex-pat workers - who's buying, what stampede are we expecting? The only stampede so far... white elephants.
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