Page 286 - UAE Truncal States

A City Stole - Example Dubai

only one year in construction, the bridge was opened to traffic in May
1963, rising twenty-five feet above mean tide level, thus allowing
vessels to pass beneath to the still undeveloped banks of the inner
creek.
Both these communications projects, the airport and the bridge,
showed clearly that in Dubai infrastructure planning was hardly
ever just a response to the immediate needs of the community: it was
clearly linked to ambitious ideas about the future development of
Dubai. Much of this development seemed to foreign experts to be
over-optimistic at the time of conception but in the event the
economic situation changed very rapidly during the time it took to
implement the projects; the influx of foreign companies, the growth
of imports and of turnover realised by businessmen more than
justified this daring optimism.

Land management
The economic growth, however, including some large projects,
brought in its wake many administrative problems which were
tackled by the establishment of new institutions. One of these
problems was land management, the resolution of which was
fundamental to the further development of the State.
Outside the built-up areas, most land belonged to the Ruler, who
could, therefore, to some extent control the price of land by res­
ponding to a growing demand for building land by supplying, that is
selling, this virgin land outside the town. The greatest demand was
for land along the shore of the creek on which merchants constructed
houses close to where local craft were unloaded and also loaded with
goods for re-export. The creek was deepened by dredging, which
proved to be not a costly convenience but was turned to good
advantage because the spoil was deposited in a low-lying area
nearby to create new building land. The sale of this land paid for the
cost of dredging. The value of reclaimed land became an integral part
in the assessment of all marine projects; no amount of dredging work
seemed too large when the cost of that work was already debited
against the expected commercial value of the new building sites. The
Ruler personally became the owner of such reclaimed land. Since he
also often personally guaranteed loans raised for certain projects, the
money he would eventually realise from selling the land was taken
into consideration when negotiating such loans.42
The need for land management inside the built-up areas was

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