DUBAI MAPPING

By Andrea Boschetti, Federico Parolotto - 1 March 2017

An extraordinary city symbolizing the Middle East’s ongoing transformation, Dubai is the capital of one of the seven emirates making up the United Arab Emirates. Although the most international metropolis of the whole region, its history is very recent, the first documented settlements going back to 1799. Even though Dubai only became a metropolis in the last 40 years, it is now the most populous city of the whole UAE, with 2,700,000 inhabitants, and the second largest for extension after Abu Dhabi. With this issue, our urban analyses will include a new map showing city-worker density during the day. This, like all the other maps, can be set against the others - especially the general population distribution map. It will provide interesting indications of a city’s current and future transformation, pointing out possible anomalies, criticalities or opportunities inherent in the way the city investigated is organized. The new set of information can be also usefully overlaid on the four other maps we always provide in our surveys, respectively presenting geographical features, provision of services/amenities, public transport, and greenery. The population map clearly shows the most densely populated areas to run on a north-south axis. The most densely populated districts are: Deira, the oldest quarter containing the characteristic Gold Souk market; Downtown Dubai, with the Burj Khalifa skyscraper and the new iconic Design District; and Dubai Marina, a district of much symbolic architecture including the Palm Jumeirah artificial island, the Marina Walk and the luxury residential area known as Emirates Hill. The new map indicating daytime city-worker density largely overlaps the general population density, showing a good match between the highest residential and city-worker densities. This goes against the preconceived idea most have of Dubai. However, while the city worker and general population maps show an unexpected level of "mixed-use"...