1) Dubai is ripping up many of its streets for a "Metro" system - completed with first class "VIP" cars to separate the more fortunate from the rabble. It will tie together many (but not all) of the key destinations. But one will still need to walk, take a taxi, or take a slow bus (which uses the same streets everyone else does) to the Metro station.

2) There are actually 3 or 4 large, attractive parks (plus some beach parks, discussed below). They are scattered throughout Dubai and are mainly auto (or taxi) accessible, but not pedestrian accessible. They are well out of the central area.

3) One major street, Dhiyafa Street in the Satwa neighborhood of Bur Dubai, has actually been built to be very pedestrian oriented, with wide sidewalks, streetscaping, fountains in the roundabouts, etc. And with the colorful stores, sidewalk cafes and restaurants spilling out into the street, it provides a singular example of what can be done in Dubai. This is another local treasure not in the tourist books, but Dubai natives or residents will gladly take you there. It is a different type of "real" than the souks of Deira, but it is the one street in Dubai that evokes Europe.

4) For me, the saddest example of the "privatization" of Dubai has been the cutting off of much of the remaining beach from public access. Every hotel complex restricts access to its section of the beach to the public (you have to pay to enter the beach, usually an expensive $30 to $50 per day per person "beach club" package if you are not staying at the hotel. And unlike Miami Beach or even Ocean City, MD, you cannot just walk up and down the beach past all the hotels - physical walls and other barriers keep you on your property. Years ago, they'd let you on the beach at night without paying. Of course now with all the construction devouring the areas near most of the beach resorts, it is no longer such a peaceful, relaxing place. Just three public beaches remain - "Open Beach" (the only really "free" beach), located in the older Jumeira 1 neighborhood, and the beautiful Jumeirah Beach and Mamzar Beach Parks, which charge per car load. The latter are both not in the heart of the urban area, but they are at least *there*. For how long, who knows?

Judging by the photos, Downtown Dubai seems to be teeming with pedesrian activity. However, there also seems to be a lot of pedestrian hostile growth as well

The climate issue was indeed a major topic of conversation as a limiting factor, but that is the case in most of the cities we work in. When it comes down to it is just another fear like crime or diversity that needs to be and can be overcome to create successful public spaces. The new city is built largely around fear of weather and of public areas, the old city has many successful indoor and outdoor public spaces.

In the evenings the temperatures are comfortable and the vernacular architecture dealt with the heat well. The souks (shown above) are all covered with well ventilated roofs that keep it cool.

Pascal, thanks for the correction. One of the new developments we were asked to critic is looking to be car free (sitting on top of 80,000 parking spaces) depending on bikes and trolleys (and boats!) for getting around.

Dubai’s vision was to build the city they have and the economy has been fueled by that vision. What Dubai, NYC and other global growth oriented cities need is equally bold visions and leadership around broader visions.

The lesson here is perhaps not that Dubai is an anomaly that should be made fun of and derided (as Mike Davis does) but rather that it is a reflection of what many globally oriented cites are trying to do, just with less restraints. Watching Dubai grow at an unprecedented rate, under a definition of growth that strongly reflects dominant western values, we are seeing many of the same mistakes of as other globally oriented cities; only repercussions of this track are more clear. Hopefully, the path out for many cities also becomes more clear.

I am actually writing from Bogotá now. This city and it seems the country has many of the same issues with great contrasts, but it feels like there are very positive forces redefining itself around its people and places.

Besides being an interesting window into Dubai's place-making outlook, this provides, for me, a degree of confirmation of a theory put forth by oil man Jeffrey J. Brown of Texas, who argues the following:

1) There a short and shortening list of countries that are able to produce more oil than they consume, about 15 countries in the world that can export more than a million barrels a day. (The United Arab Emirates is ranked fifth on this list.)

2) As the money of the world flows into these countries, their economic growth will be fantastic and they will be encouraged to consume more oil with this influx of capital.

3) As oil exporters consume more oil internally, the percentage they have available for export will decrease.

4) Thus, he says, the world's pool of oil available for export will contract faster and sooner than the world's overall supply of oil, which ought to be of grave concern to oil-consuming nations dependent on imports. So, it isn't the worldwide geological peak of oil production that matters, because the peak in amount of oil available for export, if you will, is what will hit us sooner.

Here we see visual confirmation of point 2, that inflows of capital do indeed seem to be encouraging domestic consumption of oil in net exporting countries.

In many ways Dubai has it worse than the US since they "leapfrogged" past the industrial rail age straight from animal power to automobiles. I wonder if other still developing countries will leapfrog us in other ways using the internet, biking and small towns to be energy efficient, high quality of life and maintain their cultures without overdevelopment and the nasty edges of globalization.