You think Dubai looks rich and opulent... take a look at its next door neighbour, Abu Dhabi, and you'll be blinded by all the glitter! I was there a few months ago, I had afternoon tea at the Emirates Palace hotel amongst the local rich and famous... whilst Dubai is projected into a future of tourism, real estate and trading, Abu Dhabi relies aboundance of natural resorses, which result in a kind of wealth and opulence much related to local and traditional values.
Here's an extract from Fortune Magazine:
Welcome to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates and the richest city in the world. The emirate's 420,000 citizens, who sit on one-tenth of the planet's oil and have almost $1 trillion invested abroad, are worth about $17 million apiece. (A million foreign workers don't share in the wealth.) Yet most people couldn't find Abu Dhabi on a map.
On the surface, what's happening in Abu Dhabi mirrors Dubai. But what's driving growth here is different. Dubai is a story of survival - how one small city running out of oil saved itself with a mixture of tourism, commercialism, and pizzazz. Abu Dhabi doesn't need to do anything. It has the oil reserves and the financial cushion to sit back and watch the Dubai experiment. But the leaders of a new generation want more. And they want it on their terms, with all the splendor and none of the crassness that has afflicted Dubai.
photos by Benjamin Lowy
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