Dub(ai) Techno

What is going on in Dubai?
They are building a future desert-magalopolis from scratch and they have only just begun.
Every architect worth a grain of sand is submitting plans for the most outrageous, shoehorn shaped skyscrapers which will make the local Burj al Arab and the Petrona Towers in Singapore look like shabby huts within the next few years.
Artificial islands, formed like palmtress, whales and continents (which can only be recognized from the air) are currently created and New York Times reports that dutch architect Rem Koohlhaas is planning a whole city within the city, a sort of miniature Manhattan, which should work as a social experiment in urban planning.

One year ago Dubai had just under 1,4 million inhabitants (with the highest percentage of millioners) and around 6 million tourists. By 2010 they want to triple the number of visitors. But will a franchise of every western amusement park, shopping malls so big that you´ll need your whole holiday just to walk through them, and a bunch of spectacular high-rises in the desert do the trick? Will millions of fun-seekers actually enjoy themselves in an environment that practically forbids everything westerners are used to?
Lately grotesque stories of imprisoned tourists are making headlines because they were caught with miniscule amounts of canabis. Is it fun to hang out in a place which throws you in jail because they find poppyseeds on your clothing or you are in posession of some medication, which consists of forbidden ingredients? It goes without question that gays are certainly not going to book the next flight to Dubai either, because homosexuality is outlawed by the Sharia. So without casinos, sex and cheap booze, what will draw people to the persian gulf?
And how will they get there? If the idea behind this high-tech tourist-trap is the end of fossil fuel in the ulf-area, will we still be able to afford mass tourism and how will a metropolis in the desert be able to sustain itself?

Is Dubai actually going to be the last retreat for the ultra-rich, while we will be left on our dying continents? Or is the current boom in Dubai only a self fulfilling prophecy which is set in motion by uncontrolled investments? Is Dubai going to be the biggest and newest desert ruin? Will the Burj Dubai (which will be around 880 meters high when finished) be the subject of a new mythology and will its inhabitants be seen as new deities, livin in luxurious apartments half a mile above the dunes? Will they gather around the ruins of this Neo-Stonehenge?
I can hardly wait!

The renderings are taken from Designboom