RIP old video, hello new video. This time without any potential copyright claims.

Let's be real and simple here. If your billion dollar house, hasn't even been planned with a sewage system, it's just a glorified tent.

Moment of silent who lost their life for building skyscrapers. My uncle lost his life and he made 120$ a month. Working 12 hours a day. 6 days a week.

My ex was kidnapped in Dubai by an Uber driver and drove out into the desert where they waited for another car to show up. When the other car got there, she realized if she was going to get in with that person she would never be seen again, so instead made a run for it. She made it back to Dubai and told the cops, who didnt believe her, saying "this doesnt happen in Dubai". Crazy shit.

Hello. As a person who went to school in dubai, this is all 100% accurate. To give you the picture.... schools would often host these charity events. Basically they made kids buy toothbrushes to gift to construction workers. Toothbrushes. All the kids thought this was completely normal until they got to the age where they had a conscience. The workers have so little, they are gifted TOOTHBRUSHES by schools. They don't even have the money to buy toothbrushes. This was a problem with the school cleaners as well. There would be a day at the end of the school year to donate money to the cleaners... this money went to a big-ish lunch for them. They get paid so little, they aren't allowed to question, get angry, show any sign of emotion other than happiness, and the best the school can give them is a big lunch.

It feels like Dubai is just some guy's first attempt at playing Cities: Skylines after watching a few videos on UKposts and immediately using the Unlock All mod rather than learning about city development whatsoever

Dubai is a perfect literal metaphor of pure materialism without context, culture and value.

Dubai is a great case study of what would happen if you gave unlimited resources to someone who doesn't know what city planning is and told them to plan a city

I always said that Dubai is a HUGE caricature of all the worst in our society

Dubai is the perfect example that you can't buy taste, a soul and culture.

dubai is like when you stumble beyond the game map borders into an unfinished shell of a city

Dude don't apologize for this getting dark... it was brilliant how you ended this. Your criticisms are legitimate. Don't apologize to make weak people more comfortable with something that should be disturbing them. This video is amazing and insightful and my only criticism is that you felt the need to apologize when you were so right.

100%, lived and worked in Dubai and other major centres throughout the Middle East for 10 years. It's all the same and everything that you've highlighted in your documentary is completely accurate. Ruling families seeing which can upstage the other the most, most luxurious, tallest building, most outlandish architecture, most opulent palace, it's outrageous. And you hit the nail on the head with your coverage of 'modern day slavery'. Coming to this part of the world makes one feel complicit in all the wrong doing towards the migrant worker population and the daily human rights violations that occur, that they endure by coming here. Promised better lives only to be treated like slaves; human trafficking that isn't covered in the news.

As someone who loves to travel, Dubai never really appealed to me. It feels like everything is made of "plastic". The city has no character at all and too superficial.

I never understood why “modern” has to automatically mean ugly glass and steel crap. I think mixing old beautiful buildings with modern looks so much better.

I'm from Africa and everybody wants to go to Dubai on vacation. To me it always seems to be a parody city. If I want middle east culture I go to Egypt or Jordan. If I want to be blown away by bling bling capitalism Las Vegas seems to be the place. But my fellow countrymen just love Dubai for some reason.

An old friend of mine lives In Dubai, he had an opportunity to live in Berlin, a not-perfect city but a comparatively much better place ethically. When he moved there first he did when he visited back home was complain about the "quality of cleaner" in Berlin is not up to par compared to Dubai. Number one I work in retail am working class and definitely don't have enough for a cleaner, so he's already lost me. But what made it even worse is how he went on to say "The cleaners in Dubai have more of a passion for the work, the one in Berlin always for more money if she worked overtime, found her to be quite a drag". I stopped wanting to be friends with him after this point.. He moved back to Dubai recently from Berlin and said "Berlin has too much culture, it's distracting me from my work"... I think Dubai is also corrosive to the souls of people who live there. It chips away at people's concepts of fairness and justice, leaving only a facade of opulence. I would love nothing more than to see the exploited workers why mince words the people in slavery rise up and take the city they made for themselves.

As someone who grew up in Dubai for the first 15 years of my life. I will tell you, everything about this video is extremely accurate. Dubai is just a show but if you actually live there you realise the bad, evil and the horrible thing about this city.

"Smooth brain dictator plus construction equals dumb shit" pops into my head every so often.

the "sand mafia" is a real problem: there are whole beaches disappearing because so much sand gets sucked up from the sea floor. (to install equilibrium again the sand from the shore moves naturally to the sea) it is mostly used for concrete but also for insane projects like this. sand is often considered one of the most valuable resources on earth. as mentioned in the video, the sand from the desert (aeolian sediment, shaped by air) cannot be used because of a different texture, making it less "sticky"

When I went to Morocco I asked my local travel guide as well as a fellow traveler (who works for a travel agency and has been around the world) about Dubai and Qatar and whether it's worth going. They more or less said exactly the same thing. "No. They have no history. Just skyscrapers." They recommended that I should go to Oman or Jordan instead.

my family over in the philippines is extremely poor and theyre all farmers and/or former human trafficking victims. my aunt met someone from dubai who promised that her family would be rich if she came and worked for him and she fell victim to it. we didnt hear from her for YEARS until the entire family worked as hard as they could to get her back because my mom found out about what happens to immigrant workers in dubai. when she finally came back to the philippines, my aunt told everyone that she was a hotel maid and described it as slavery because all the money she made would be taken right back.

2:10 I respect those engineers. They risked their lives in order to serve the people they were designing the metro system for. That's a great level of civic service.

the poop trucks part gets me every time LMAO

Lived and worked in the UAE for a year in 1999. I could tell so many horrible stories, mostly about the locals. Watching the abuse you mentioned was what wore me down. All you people who "just love the UAE" obviously lived isolated and privileged lives. Think of the city as levels. I had to "scratch the surface" and was led to the bottom levels, spending a year advocating for one of their immigrant victims. A Muslim from a Muslim country who was, like most of their Muslim immigrant 'brothers', treated worse than I can describe. Worse than you can imagine. It took me five years time...and a lot more time money and energy...to get this innocent young quadriplegic rehabed and repatriated back home. It was an absolute battle the entire way. It wasn't consistent with my philosophy , but I had to, for the first time in my life, realize that human beings can actually be...evil. Yeah tourists and expats, pray you never have to 'scratch the surface' and experience the Dark Ages Hell that is the true heart of this abomination of a country. And all their oil rich Gulf neighbors are pretty much the same.

Dubai: pursues "modernity" Also Dubai: didn't build a sewage system for a billion dollar building Edit: Fookin hell, I just made fun of an ironic event and you guys just created an argument here lol

i LOVE the idea of future humans finding those dumb man-made islands underwater and just thinking "what the fuck"

Regarding migrant workers it is not just a Dubai problem but rather a common problem with Middle Eastern countries. As a fellow Muslim it embarss myself to be associated to Arabs who think they are a cut above others because of their wealth.

"With foresight, they built it in secret." Sounds like my job. 😂 Where everyone waits until the boss is on vacation to plan things quick and properly.

"They hated him, for he spoke the truth"

Dubai just feels like a Sim City game with infinite cash. RIP comment

The term "expat" always makes me eye roll, especially coming from the US where pretty much every foreigner, regardless of means, is called an immigrant. Yet, overseas, Americans live in "expat communities". I liked your cheeky definition of the difference!

when you turn on cheats in cities skyline and start building without actually knowing anything

Moment of silence for the 9 and a half million views that the original had. January 2023 Edit: Nvm it’s back lol

Ouch. I actually thought of the copyright implications of that clip when I saw the first version, because that same company was quoting me hundreds of euros to license a few seconds of a video of 1960s Amsterdam. 😬 Now, let's get this version to 9 million views. Let's goooooooo!

I always wanted to visit UAE because of all the buzz around it. I've been there few months ago and... I call it 'glittering void': everything is luxurious, showy, sparkling but in the essence, it's soulless and empty... I'm glad that it's not only my impression.

As an arab (not from the gulf): the worst arabic people I’ve met have mostly been from the UAE and KSA. The unwarranted pride and the utter lack of humility is kinda funny

As a former Dubai “expat”, I couldn’t agree more with everything that you’ve mentioned. I lived close to Dubai airport because I worked for Emirates airline and from my place to Burj Kalifa, there were around 25 km. The distances are huge and if you do not own a car, it’s almost impossible to go anywhere without spending crazy amounts on taxi/uber. The infrastructure is entirely developed for cars, which on the long run it’s only damaging the enviroment. There is a metro, but it’s only a straight line that doesn’t cover all areas...the buses are taking way too long and they have wierd routes...I never understood why they build such a huge city with so many “dead” areas where you have to drive for so long...just to get on a random building in the midle of the desert ... Regarding the workers whose blood Dubai was built on, that is unfortunately also true. I remember going out in the summer where the temperature can even be 55°C and instantly feeling like fainting..my whole body was sweating in 5 seconds and I would feel like I’m suffocating because of the humidy and the heavy air...but at the same time I would see so many people working on consturctions, they were up on those huge buildings in the middle of that unbearable heat working continuously...even in the middle of the pandemic..they were still there...it’s a sad reality...a fake city with fake everything built by the poor so random people can flex on their gucci bags and luxury cars...

I was born in Dubai and honestly I was really confused as to why my parents moved to New Zealand when I was 10. There were no taxes to pay and the idea of moving from a mega city to a cosy suburb was a perplexing move. But growing up and hearing awful stories from my parents when working under a state-owned construction company made me think otherwise. My parents were smart enough to get the fuck outta there

100% accurate. I grew up there and yet i couldn't help but always be disappointed at how fake and pretentious it was. The weather was unbearably hot, and the culture....what culture?! Oh and did i mention the extremely restrictive laws on anyone who wasn't Muslim?? (not that they weren't restricted but they had it a lot better!) Take some of the worst qualities of human beings, add a lot of money and oversized buildings and there you have Dubai!

his last point about "slavery" is absolutely true. I used quotation marks as its not slavery in the sense people think of. I lived in Bahrain for a year and they have the same practice there with foreign workers, from the same 3 countries. Saw it first hand, hordes of them bused in everyday in their blue jumpsuits and reflective vests. Learn first hand from locals how the scheme worked.

As Dolly Parton once said: "It costs a lot of money to look this cheap." 😂

It's funny I often hear that some recently-made wealthy individual announces they're moving to Dubai, and it's almost a 90% chance that a couple months later they're in trouble with international law for massive fraud and other crimes.

Hi, I shall say I love your videos :) but there's a tiny error at 5:06 when you said : "They can't use it because the grains [of the desert's sand] are too big." In fact this is the contrary, the grains of sand from the desert are too small and smooth and construction companies need big grains with bumps to make concrete. I hope you'll keep doing videos like this one :)

I visited dubai with my family years ago before i learned about what was going on there. When talking to our bus driver he talked about how he had lived there like 30 years, his kids were born there, and none of them would be or could ever be citizens. he was still legally from pakistan i believe. it just felt so profoundly depressing. he tried to keep it light, but we all wanted to hear him and his life and his opinions on it. and he was probably objectively doing well compared to lots of workers but there was also something deeply dystopian when he said if he lost his job and didn't get another one right away his whole family would have to leave to a place they'd never been. the things i appreciated most about that trip were actually getting driven out of dubai to visit cultural centers. the tower was neat from my perspective as a teenager, I liked going high up, but the experience was sort of like visiting a combination mall and tourist trap. like 'if we're here i want to see it' but not something that needed to exist. I'm not convinced my brain could tell the height difference between that and any American skyscraper, tall is tall past a point.

Dubai feel like what happens when your playing a City Sim and you just throw all the expensive shit randomly in one place.

I lived in UAE for 14 months. I then went back years later for a 7-day vacation. The problem with UAE is that it killed its culture for the sake of tourism. What I mean is that if you go there, you won't really feel anything. It lacks soul. When I visited Turkey and Serbia, I actually felt something. I experienced their actual cultures, and it was great. It's true that the UAE if full of a bunch of nice hotels, houses, and apartments. The problem is that the demand is low due to an overage of supply. The UAE built far more than what was ever needed. The good thing about it is that you can rent or purchase a place over there for less than a similar place in the United States. Another problem with UAE is RACISM! I am a black American man. I experienced so much racism there, that it's not even funny. The people from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), and other countries like that had it worse. It's true that their passports were confiscated. They would then be forced to work like slaves and live like they were cattle. A lot of them are even given curfews. The people from those countries would beg me on a daily basis to help them escape the UAE. Another problem it that the crime rate is artificially deflated. Overall, the crime rate in that country is low, but it's not as low at they portray it to be. For example, when I visited Dubai back in 2018, someone stole my suitcase from the airport. When I tried to open up an investigation with Dnata, I was told that my suitcase never actually reached the country and that it was still in Canada. I spent an entire week in Dubai without any of my property. When I finally flew back to Canada, the worker at the airport actually provided evidence that my suitcase did in fact reach Dubai the same time I did. That means that Dnata lied about everything. Since Dnata didn't consider my case as a theft, that means that it did not factor into their crime. There are other problems there that I won't even get into. I'd much rather go back to Turkey or Serbia than visit the UAE again.

"tasteless parody of everything wrong with modern humanity" SO TRUE - but I see this as the norm in every day life these days!

I used to roll my eyes every time someone said to me "Oh I'd love to go to Dubai." Some of this I knew some I didn't, giving me more justification to hate this festering shithole in the desert. Thanks for such a great video on the topic. Hopefully one day everyone will know the truth

using a traditional (ish) design for Dubai's architecture would have been more suitable for the hot Dubai climate. The local architecture uses passive cooling.

As someone who spent my childhood in the UAE, I agree. It’s a vapid place smothered with the appearance of luxury while brushing aside the borderline slavery and poverty they exploited, and still exploit, to maintain their “perfect” and “ideal” image. I wouldn’t even feel completely comfortable typing something like this if I hadn’t already moved to the US, they have no such thing a freedom of speech and I was already at risk and advised against criticisms I made about the country while I was in high school.

Hello Adam, really appreciate your commentary on these bizarre engineering projects. Mentioning topics such as car dependency/ sewerage systems/ ordinary and unrepresented people is highly commendable and the sarcasm appreciated. Keep up the good work🤩

_"It's this strange mixture of Futurama and Evil Los Angeles."_ What a perfect way to describe Dubai xD Kudos, Adam. You hit the nail on the head hard enough to break the hammer itself.

Dubai isn’t a joke because jokes are funny. It’s just a cruel and disappointing waste.

For me Dubai has always felt like the ruling billionaires after travelling the world just replicated all their personal favourite things from all over the world in a bigger, glitzier, shinier format. See a nice skyscraper in NYC or Singapore ? Build a bigger, taller , shinier version. Enjoyed that Alps ski resort? Build a huge indoor one in the desert. Loved Miami or Malibu? Build loads of fancy glass & steel beachfront hotels with infinity pools. Love London restaurants ? Just open identikit versions of all your favourite ones. Everything in Dubai seems to be based on something in some western metropolis, resort or pacific beach paradise - Nothing really feels organic. No real original thought or true imagination .

Dubai is an underdeveloped country that became wealthy not through the sweat of its brow or the intellectual capital of its people but rather because it is fortunate enough to sit atop a rich deposit of petroleum and natural gas. As a result it suffers from the ugliest brand of unbridled capitalism and the iniquity characteristic of the nouveau riche to squander their wealth in vanity projects.

If Dubai ever got destroyed, I wouldnt even be mad

One thing Adam didn't even mention is how the entire city is one massive surveillance state. Everything and everyone everywhere is watched 24/7.

Dubai was entirely designed to say "look at how fucking rich we are." It's entire purpose is to say fuck you to environmentalists and sea creatures alike. It will be fantastic, however, when it all comes crashing down within our lifetimes.

Very few people have the mind to make videos like this, thank you sir!

What looks clean on the surface is very dirty underneath. I was there, and my experience was not of a tourist nature. Do not go. Ever.

Shame the orginal got taken down it had over a million views

When I was in the Marines a friend of mine was offered a job as security in Dubai. He made $250,000 a year. But he said a prison lined in gold is still a prison. Also if you ran afoul of anyone important you can count on having your life turned upside down. He said a former German special forces guy that worked with him was set up with booze and women and then was arrested the next day. His crime was talking to the wrong woman

My freshman world history teacher showed us the original version of this video and I loved it, it became one of my favorite videos and looking back as a college sophomore, it was really the launching point of me learning more about urbanization and becoming very anti-car centric cities/anti-suburb/anti-whatever the fuck you can call what places like Dubai and any city in the US that has a stroad are doing. It feels wrong to call it urbanization because I like urbanization when it's done correctly, but like you said, Dubai is taking every worst practice and slamming them all together, it's crazy. I really like the part about the modern day slavery that takes place, the only other thing I've seen recently that talks about that issue is John Oliver's episodes about it that came out around the time of the world cup. I'm glad you reuploaded this and I'm glad it popped up on my recommended so I could watch it again :]

Well done. History never talks about the real heroes who gave their lives for the leader who was not always present.

It’s like an IQ test for me when someone says that they love Dubai - I immediately know that we can’t be friends

As a Romanian citizen i laughed my a$$ off when you started talking about Romania outta nowhere lmfaoooo

Thank you for this detailed information. I am stunned that the "civilized world" does not stop this use of slave labor.

GREAT VIDEO! I had heard about some of this stuff but had NO idea! My mom - RIP - was an Urban Geography expert who lectured and your grasp about the crucial need for solid public transpo alone is impressive!

Im a arab who lived in UAE for 13 weeks working as a civil engineer, and i think you are been too kind to them. If you know the s##t i know you would lose your mind. Ps i was deported from Abu Dhabi back to the UK for asking to many questions about health and safety regarding my staff. Was told the are disposable by the project manager. Nothing in this video is a lie.

"You had all that money and you just rebuilt the worst parts of America?" "Yes."

Such a great video. Your tone is perfect. Intellectual and objective... but not afraid to drop an F bomb for emphasis on absurdity. Love it!

I had no idea Dubai felched. I'm taking it off my bucket list.

You had my support at "burying sea coral". Destroying the environment for a tourist attraction is fucking ridiculous.

I am an Indian and I feel people here are blinded by the money in Dubai and miss the part that it's built on blood of our fellow people

thank you for making this vid. so many don't know this everybody talks so good about the country and the people.

Amazing video thank you for putting in this work and sharing for us! Even reposting with edits. Amazing. What an eye opener

As a Romanian, i busted out laughing to find out there is somewhere out there dumber than us 🤣

damn yea never thought of how uninspired the city of dubai is. An ancient arabic city with giant white/tan stone houses building and bridges would've been incredibly unique and would've had people in awe, truly admiring arabic culture and architecture. But nah, instead you get bejing/shanghai pt 2 with american suburbs and shopping centers.

"Smooth brain dictators + construction = dumbshit" was a sentence I didn't know i needed to hear 😂

I cant remember the last time i watched something so informative yet funny. Thank you for your work :)

I changed my comment so the replies don't make any sense now.

I once travelled to dubai with my mum and stayed for some days. The sole impression I got of it was, emptiness. Just no soul to find anywhere. The only people walking the streets were tourists and it was like no citizens who actually lived there could be found anywhere. I can only surmise that they don't let the people live close to the tourist areas and hide them away somewhere. It was an absolutely soulless experience. No life in the streets

This is such wonderful work. Concise and professional and entertaining. Awesome!!!

Thank you for educating me and showing me how blind i was. This goes to show media covers up alot of truth and glorifies "beauty" without recognizing suffering.

About building the palm islands in the land instead of destroying a coral reef, Kuwait actually did this and it really is just as impressive as the one in Dubai.

Never visiting Dubai. The real joke is the western people saying that they are done slavery, yet still visit Dubai. As an architect-student I really like the Burj Khalifa for it’s accomplishment. But really it is made of blood.

Modern Dubai looks like "my first drawing" The buildings look so cartoony and silly just all lined up like that.

It seems like a place for people without a soul

I will not get tired of the equation "smooth-brained dictator + construction = dumb shit"

I lived in Abu Dhabi for 16 years and I can confirm literally all of this, especially the modern slavery aspect. Referred to as labour camps but absolutely just Slums on the outskirts. It's so twisted and broken. Countries with that much money should not have people li

My dad went some time ago and said that it was the most fake city he's ever seen. And workers were outside at 40°c+

I'd like to see another video like this, even though it took a dark turn, but that's me. This type of info is important to be heard *shrug* and you did a good job making the beginning a good entry, the jokes were the thing that got me to laugh enough, preparing me for the real ending you had there

Sounds like an excuse to watch again

I love how the Burj Khalifa’s poem was interrupted by the poop trucks, I won’t get tired of that one for sure

I never undrstood Dubai's concept to recreate itself and your video has reinforced that thought albeit you have added more fuel to the fire. Thank you for your time. Cheers from OZ. ps: I love the concept which you put forward for what Dubai could have been

I always got this impression from Dubai but it's good to see it all laid out here in detail as to what exactly is wrong with the whole conceit of the city.

Hey, those artificial islands were a fantastic ideas. Several Dutch engineering firms made billions of euros on those projects. And now Dubai will have to continue paying billions a year to keep those islands afloat. Great success!

I can only imagine, if the billions spent on skyscrapers would have been partially devoted to building walkable small towns of traditional Moroccan, and other wonderful Arabic architectural designs out of stone, plain and carved, with beautiful carved wood interiors that truly celebrate human artistic achievements and that it would be a great delight to wander amongst the towns and feel like one's soul was greatly enhanced by the experience. Instead we are confronted with brutal glass and steel.

I thought this video was joke by itself. Later I realized how much it makes sense. But I wasn't ready for the end. The part 4 mentioning all about the expats from 3rd world country is so true. These huge buildings and structures are standing in the blood of those people. And yet there are tons more living life worse then that they would have lived in their country. And recently I've faced same cases. As I am also planing to move to Dubai just to feed my family and for my future. They do exact things mentioned in the video. They charge around 2000-3000$ even more from some. And many just pay them by getting loans etc. In the end they end up working for little to no wage or salary at all. Untill maybe some employing companies like Transguard or etc which seems to pay in time or serve the employees as offered or etc. But what about those who end up dying. Living like dead. These are never brought up in front page of the media as those shiny glittering rich life and buildings of Dubai is shown. This must be brought to the authorities and governments especially of the victims to help them out of this.