property house dubai

welcome to tdc. this is our mini-documentaryon the most ambitious, fascinating infrastructure megaprojects of the near future. the rulers of the united arab emirates haveinsane amounts of money to spend. thanks to everyone’s thirst for oil, they’ve beenon a construction spree unlike any the world has ever seen for such a small country, investingin one ambitious infrastructure project after another. at one point, 24 percent of all theworld’s construction cranes we in dubai. unfortunately, that was before the 2008-2009global financial meltdown, which led to much of the investment in the city drying up fasterthan the water on somebody who just got out of the pool at the burj khalifa. but the governmentinsists that many of these projects have simply

been delayed, and are putting their moneywhere their mouth is with the recent approval of a $32 billion expansion of dubai’s almaktoum international airport that will break ground by the end of 2014. when complete,it’ll suddenly have the capacity to become the busiest airport in the world in both totalpassengers - at 220 million a year - and total cargo of 12 million annual tonnes of goodsthat can move through it--that’s almost 3 times more than what takes off from therunways of the world’s current leader, hong kong’s international airport. it’s terminalswill able to hold 100 of the massive new airbus a380’s that are over 2/3ds of a footballfield long and cost $300 million a pop. the uae’s emirates airline already owns moreof those planes than anyone else in the world.

it’s the largest airline in the middle eastand will eventually move into the al maktoum airport to help jump start activity. the government’splan is for the airfield to be the heartbeat of a city within the larger city of dubaicalled world central, which the uae thinks will be home to 900,000 residents in the nearfuture. the airport also hopes to be the central hub for the emerging middle east, north african,and south asian economic bloc known as menasa. but time will tell whether the shaikh’svision for dubai actually becomes a reality, or fades like some vicious mirage. this is songdo international business district,the world’s most futuristic urban area. it’s being built 40 miles southwest of thesecond-most populated city in the world, seoul,

south korea. the $40 billion project is alongthe waterfront in the city of incheon and is embracing two key concepts that urban plannersare in love with: the first is aerotropolis, which means the airport is integrated intothe urban center instead of banishing it far outside of the city. this allows for shortertrips to and from the place that’s going to get you out of town--this’ll be an emergingpattern in 21st century planning as air travel continues to become accessible to more andmore people in our increasingly interconnected world. songdo is brilliantly directly connectedto the airport via the 7-mile long incheon bridge so you’ve just got a straight shotthat gets you there in like 10 minutes that’s also got these incredible views and is thefirst thing visitors see coming into the city.

the other key theme is ubiquitous city, whichis a uniquely korean concept where every device, component, service is linked to an informationalnetwork through wireless computing technology, allowing for greater coordination and a moreefficient and synchronized city than has ever been possible before. an example of this issongdo’s trash system, which won’t rely on garbage trucks, because a network of tubeswill suck in the garbage straight from the can and through a system of pipes, transportit efficiently to treatment facilities. songdo’s so dedicated to being a model for sustainabilitythat it has set aside 40% of its land area to be outdoor spaces like parks and it’llbecome the first city in the world outside of the united states to achieve leed certification,which is the highest energy consumption and

waste standards possible with currently availabletechnology. as a tip-of-the-hat to other great cities, songdo will also incorporate replicasof new york’s central park and venice’s historic canals. overall, construction iscurrently half done. it already has 67,000 people living there studying and working atits many schools, including the foreign campuses of four american universities, but it’sstruggled to attract korean businesses as the government is refusing to give tax incentivesfor relocation, because that would create an unfair playing field favoring songdo overother cities in the country. still, if it stays squarely focused on the future, songdo’sa long-term investment that’s likely to pay off.

nicaragua is about to embark on what may bethe boldest and riskiest megaproject in the history of the world. one that will changeit forever. it’s going to build the biggest canal in the world . the $50 billion nicaraguagrand canal will cut the country in half to connect the atlantic ocean with the pacific,running through the biggest lake in central america. at 173-miles-long, it’ll dwarfthe 120 mile-long suez canal in egypt and directly compete with the panama canal 250miles to the south, through which more than 15,000 ships already pass each year. but inthe coming years, many more ships full of goods and raw materials are going to try andpass back and forth from the pacific to the atlantic to connect europe, brazil and theeastern coast of the united states, with china

and the rest of asia. the story of how little six-million-man nicaragua,the second-poorest country in the western hemisphere, is able to afford such an expensiveproject is a fascinating case study of globalization, and how capitalism is increasingly drivinggeopolitical decision-making. in june of last year, nicaraguan president daniel ortega’ssandanista party also controlled parliament and - without any real debate - gave a 50-year,no-bid contract to chinese telecommunications magnate wang jing to build and manage theproposed canal. and, it just so happens that, also last year, according to a report in thela times, wang hosted a number of nicaraguan officials and businessmen on a trip to china,where the powerful and connected wang supposedly

flaunted his extreme wealth and was accompaniedat all times by chinese military officers and other high-ranking governmental officials.so, it’s tough to believe him when he insists that the chinese government is not financiallybacking the project, especially when we already know that china is using state financed companiesto buy more and more assets in the west. the opportunity to own the world’s most valuableshipping lane seems too tempting for the chinese government to pass up. the supposedly democratic government of nicaraguais using a page out of china’s playbook, by refusing to release any of the studiesabout the impacts of the canal until december 2014, the same month construction will begin.that’s because there is a loooong list of

environmental and humanitarian concerns. theproject will tear through countless ecosystems and communities, and rip into the source ofmuch of the country’s fresh water, lake nicaragua. the residents whose land is onthe canal route have received no word on what the government plans to do for them in termsof compensation and relocation. but, as easy as it is to criticize the waythe project is being handled, it’s also fairly hypocritical of me, as an american,to mount a very convincing argument against the plan. afterall, about a hundred yearsago, us president theodore roosevelt basically took control of panama and pushed throughthe canal there, a project that’s benefitted america time and time again, and has madepanama economically better off in the long

run. but we’re not living in 1914... now is the time of social media-fueled revolution,where images and video fly around the world instantly, empowering even the poorest localsto use the power of the global community to rally support for their cause and exert politicalpressure in unpredictable ways. so, what i’m saying is that it may have been easy for presidentortega see all that money flying around and secretly, singlehandedly approve a massivelydisruptive project like this, but when those bulldozers start tearing apart the countryside- and people’s homes - there’s probably going to be hell to pay for not consultingthe voters at all. this could be shaping up to be another one of those important momentsof struggle in world history between the powerful

have’s and the have nots. on the one hand, you have the limitless fundingof the chinese who want that flag-in-the-dirt, statement-making moment for their countryof staking a claim in the americas. we know the canal would benefit corporations in thewest through the shipping and trade benefits i outlined earlier. and with constructionset to begin in nicaragua next month - there doesn’t seem to be any stopping it fromstarting. but on the other hand, this thing is goingto take six years at a minimum to finish, and if we’ve learned anything from recenthistory, it’s that a lot can happen in six weeks or six months, let alone six years.

on a person-to-person basis, the united arabemirates has the biggest ecological footprint in the world thanks to its prolific oil productionand the massive construction boom that’s been going on there for the last decade. soit’s surprising to learn that the uae is home to masdar--the world’s first zero-carbon,zero-waste city. to meet this ambitious goal, it’s powered only by renewable energy, likea 54-acre 88,000 panel solar farm beyond the cities’ walls. that’s right, i said walls.the designers studied ancient cities to learn the most effective planning methods to reduceenergy consumption. one of the key things are walls that helps to keep the high, hotdesert winds away from its inhabitants. they also raised the entire foundation of the sitea few feet above the surrounding land to keep

masdar cooler and spaced the buildings muchcloser together to keep the streets and walkways narrow, and mostly in the shade. these techniques- combined with 130-foot wind towers that suck air from above and convert it into acool breeze blowing on the street - mean masdar is a comfortable 70 degrees fahrenheit whenjust a few meters away, the thermostat rises well above 100. plus, there’s no drivingin the city and any car that enters is parked at the outskirts. a system of driverless electricvehicles then ferry people from place to place underground, and a light rail system is alsoavailable above ground, which means there’s no need for streets. and in a move that cutsboth water and electricity consumption more than half, there are no light switches orwater taps--everything is controlled by movement

sensors. this unprecedented level of environmentalconsciousness has won it hard-earned endorsements from environmental conservation groups likegreenpeace and the world wildlife fund. the german engineering giant siemens has locatedits middle east headquarters there, as has the international renewable energy agency.the masdar institute for science and technology - a small postgraduate university that wasfounded through a collaboration with mit - occupies one of masdar’s first completed buildingsand is already producing great work and first-class researchers. so the city undeniably has asolid foundation, but it’s got a lot to do still if it’s going to meet its ambitiousgoal of housing 50,000 residents and hosting offices for 60,000 more commuters. the city’sco-founder admits that masdar is “a fraction

of what it was supposed to be back in 2006when we announced it. at the beginning of the project, nobody really anticipated howdifficult it is to build a city." this underscores the point many urban planners around the worldhave made: that we should be focused on making our existing cities more sustainable insteadof building brand new ones. but even if masdar only teaches us one or two major things aboutwhat’s possible when it comes to sustainable urban design - and it does seem like it’salready done that - then it’ll have been worth it, even if it takes much longer toachieve its overall vision, or if it ultimately fails. because let’s be honest, the uaewas going to spend that $20 billion in oil revenue on something, so it’s better foreveryone that its going to an important experiment

like masdar rather than another row of goldand marble crusted hotel skyscrapers or an electricity-sucking indoor snow park. this is the future--maglev trains. japan’sall aboard. they’re spending a staggering $85 billion over the next 30 years to connectthe island’s three largest cities: tokyo to nagoya to osaka. that’s over three hundredmiles that you’ll be able to cover in about 67 minutes by racing through the countrysideat over 300 miles per hour. maglev technology uses powerful magnetic charges to move railcars that float several inches above a concrete guideway, rather than riding on steel wheels.this frictionless system allows for a smoother ride at significantly higher speeds than traditionalhigh speed rail. in contrast, california’s

planned high speed rail system that’ll eventuallyconnect san francisco, los angeles, and san diego, will only be able to travel at topspeeds of 220 mph, but its estimated overall cost is ten billion dollars less than thejapanese system and will cover a distance two and a half times as long. the chinesecity of shanghai has had a short maglev line in operation since 2004, but the japaneseline is the world’s first intercity link to gain public approval. the project’s calledchuo shinkansen - or as the japanese refer to it, rinia mota ka - and is a culminationof 40 years of japanese maglev development that began with an unlikely partnership betweenjapan airlines and japanese national railways. what’s really impressive about this projectis that jr central - the company that’s

building the line - will finance the projectwithout public money, thanks largely to the success of the bullet train it’s run fromtokyo to osaka since the mid 1960’s. the company’s also pushing hard to constructa maglev line between the american capital city of washington dc and new york, whichwould showcase the technology to the american market and the rest of the western world.the japanese government has even offered to fully finance the 40 mile first leg of theus project from baltimore to dc, a proposal prime minister shinzo abe directly pitchedto president barack obama during a meeting last year. but critics of maglev say the costsoutweigh the benefits. opponents have raised questions about the sheer monetary cost ofthe project, its environmental impact, and

whether it is really needed. tunnels willbe blasted through some of japan’s highest mountains to build the chuo shinkansen line.but regardless of what the critics say, something had to change. when the maglev system is doneit will help alleviate the overcrowding on japan’s existing rail system and make itfeasible for commuters into tokyo to live further outside of the city than they cannow. many of the projects that we’ve profiledin our megaprojects series have a real purpose for advancing society, or at least meetingthe needs of a growing world economy. then there’s azerbaijan’s ridiculous khazarislands, a project that - despite all the progress in the world - is the perfect exampleof everything that’s still wrong with its

power structure, but more on that in a moment.the creatively named azerbaijan tower will be the world’s tallest building, about 800feet taller than the current leader, the burj khalifa, and, insanely, twice as tall as thetallest building in the western hemisphere, new york’s one world trade center. the freudianshowpiece of the $100 billion project, azerbaijan tower will rise above the capital city, baku,and will be surrounded by 55 artificial islands built in the caspian sea with land gatheredby completely destroying a nearby mountain. there will also be at least eight hotels,a formula one racetrack, a yacht club, and an airport. so basically, we’re talkingabout donald trump’s fantasy. now, it’s one thing to build an over-the-top city likedubai in the united arab emirates, which is

one of the most-developed places in the world,and a completely different thing for it to rise in azerbaijan, which has a per capitagdp that’s not even ⅕ as much as the uae. this madness is the brainchild of the billionairedeveloper ibrahim ibrahimov, who has extremely cozy ties with the corrupt government of thenewly oil rich nation of azerbaijan. just how corrupt is azerbaijan? in a 2012 reportby watchdog group transparency international that declared 2/3rds of the world’s countries“highly corrupt,” azerbaijan’s prez ilham aliyev stood out from the pack as thereport’s infamous, “person of the year,” with untold amounts of money stashed in variouslocations around the world. but back to president aliyev’s good buddy, ibrahimov, who lazilycame up with the tacky idea for the megaproject

that’s basically a copy of dubai’s islanddevelopment and mega-tower while on a flight home from, you guessed it, dubai. he arguesthat khazer islands will be home to 800,000 people, but doesn’t explain how those peoplewill afford its expensive apartments. instead of investing in the future by maybe fundinga network of world class universities - which azerbaijan isn’t even close to having - ina country that borders no ocean and produces no product that the rest of the world wants,besides oil, the government thinks its a good idea to build this. i doubt many of the ninemillion people of azerbaijan think it’s a very good idea. in fact, in a possible signof things to come, last year, azerbaijanis in a city across the country, got so fed upwith the corrupt regime, they rioted for two

entire days. but look, the capital is doingsome things right, baku made lonely planet’s top ten ranking of the best nightlife spotsin the world. i just wonder how much they paid to get on the list. no list of megaprojects would be completewithout including the largest-ever science project. the international thermonuclear experimentalreactor (or, iter) is a collaboration between china, the european union, india, japan, russia,south korea, and the united states that is under construction in southern france whereresearchers will attempt to see if they can, essentially, recreate the power of the sunand harness it in a steel bottle. gas will be heated to over 150 million degrees in amassive steel frame using giant magnets that

will force some atoms together. in this experimentalreactor, the hope is to produce 10 times more energy than what is used to initiate the reaction,or the equivalent of 500 megawatts of power for 1,000 seconds. although electricity won’tbe generated at the iter facility, a fusion power plant would use the heat generated todrive turbines and produce power. unlike nuclear fission, which are what all nuclear powerplants are today, fusion reactors should be completely safe, with no risk of a producinga runaway chain reaction and no dangerous long-living radioactive waste. the fact thatnations who are competing in nearly every area of geopolitics and economics are comingtogether to collaborate on a $50 billion project is a sign that the science is incredibly promisingand the potential benefits to humanity are

profoundly game-changing. that’s why countriesthat represent half of the world’s population and account for 2/3ds of the global economyare participating: because solving fusion would mean prosperity for all, the closestthing to limitless energy we can fathom. this month, after the completion of the groundsupport structure which took four years to finish, the second phase of construction began:the walls of the seven-story building where the experiment will take place. but we’restill several years away from turning the thing on. the complex will make its firstattempt to produce plasma in a fusion reaction in 2020, with regular operations beginningin 2027, 11 years behind schedule and over 40 years after the program was first initiatedin 1985. but no matter how long, or how many

tries it takes to get it right, the prospect,the hope of living in a world powered by this type of energy that we wouldn’t need tofight over, or pump out of the ground, that we wouldn’t need to burn, that wouldn’tharm our precious planet, that’s probably one of the most optimistic, hopeful ideasi’ve ever heard, and it’s definitely one worth waiting for. china is about halfway done building the largestexpressway system in the world, and it’s done so at a feverish pace over the last 25years to keep up with the rise of the automobile as the country - and the world - has shiftedaway from a rail-based transportation system. the first expressway within the national trunkhighway system, as it’s called, opened in

1988 and today, just 26 years later, the systemis over 65,000 miles long. in the ten years since 2004, the network has tripled in length.each year, china’s now building new expressways equivalent in length to the distance of goingcoast-to-coast and back in the united states. the chinese system exceeded the total lengthof the us interstate highway system back in 2011. this crazy expansion has happened becausethe chinese have embraced the car at a staggering pace. this next mind-blowing fact pretty muchsums up this entire video: as the country’s middle class boomed and tens of millions ofpeople suddenly could afford to buy cars, in the 20 years from 1985 to 2005, the numberof passenger vehicles in china increased from 19,000 to 62 million cars on the road, that’sa mind-blowing increase of 323,000%. and that

62 million number is more than tripling to200 million by 2020. that’s why we’ve seen those stories that i thought were a jokethe first time i read them, of traffic jams around beijing stretching over 60 miles andlasting for 11 days. so this project is sorely needed simply for the country to function.when it’s finished, it will have cut total travel times between cities throughout thecountry, by half, on average. overall the total cost of building the entire system is$240 billion dollars, that’s easily the biggest infrastructure project in human history,with $12 billion a year being invested through 2020. it’s been able to afford to do thiswithout adding a national fuel tax because 95% of the system are toll roads owned byprivate, for-profit companies. this is a problem,

as tolls are expensive at over 10 cents permile...which is more than the cost of fuel itself. but regardless of how the roads arepaid for, or whether, you drive on them in your gas or electric car, or ride in a self-drivingcar. the chinese economy and quality of life of its people will be significantly betterthanks to this ambitious project. it seems the whole country is embracing the chinesesaying, “lutong caiton,” wealth follows the extension of motorways. india faces one of the most challenging situationsin the world. it has 1.2 billion people spread over a vast country. more than 350 millionof whom will move into cities in the coming decade, which means some 500 new urban centerswill need to be built from scratch. and even

though india’s sheer size means that itseconomy ranks third in the world in purchasing power, overall, it’s relatively poor andunderdeveloped. it’s also young. the average indian is just 27 years old, compared to theaverage american, who’s a decade older. this means that most of the population isabout to hit their prime working years—these are all people who need jobs to be creatednow. that’s why the government is embarking on the largest infrastructure project in indianhistory: the $90 billion delhi mumbai industrial corridor, whose backbone will be a 920 milelong dedicated freight corridor, basically a set of multiple rail lines that will existsolely to move goods from the factories where they are produced to the sea and airportswhere they can be exported to market. it’s

designed to cut the logistical costs of manufacturinggoods to make india the cheapest place in the world for a company to build its stuffand - in turn - triple the amount of merchandise it exports from 2010 levels by 2017. japanis the major partner behind the project because the japanese economy is based on a technologyindustry that needs to build its products at the most competitive rates in the world.the overall effort will include a 4,000 mw power plant, and at least three brand newseaports and six airports. and all along the route, 24 new cities will spring up with eachaiming to be superior to any existing indian city in terms of the quality of infrastructure,planning, management, and services offered. with natural resources scarce - and climatechange a concern of any good urban planner

- the use of technology has been stressedto make sure this boom will be as clean and sustainable as possible. roads are also amajor part of the plan with thousands of miles of expressways planned to ease congestion.the project is a priority of prime minister narendra modi, who entered office in 2014after leading his bjp party to a dominating win in the 2014 election, giving him a mandateto enact his vision for making india a global manufacturing superpower. it seems the indiansare attempting to follow a similar blueprint for success the chinese put into action overthe last 40 years. with a population nearly as big, indians are rightly asking, why notus? if you were playing sim city, you’d wantto go about building your metropolis the same

way the saudi’s have with king abdullaheconomic city. and just like other great leaders of men, you’d probably name it after yourselftoo, which is exactly what king abdullah did. you’d also focus on job-creating infrastructureand a dream university to attract the best and brightest. saudi arabia is the world’sdominant oil producer, and is a country that knows how to play the game. while its flashierneighbors like abu dhabi and dubai get all the publicity for their megaprojects, thekingdom is embarking on a far more ambitious project that’s focused squarely on creatingthe most cohesive, well-planned city in the arab world. the $100 billion enterprise onthe coast of the red sea is about an hour’s drive north of jeddah, the second-largestcity in saudi arabia, and plans to expand

into an area about the size of washingtondc. that location is no coincidence, says fahd al rasheed, the man who’s in chargeof growing king abdullah economic city - which we’re going to shorten to just its initials,kaec - “you’re talking about 24 percent of global trade going through the red sea,and this is a trend that’s never been addressed by a red sea port.” that’s why kaec’sport is going to be massive, with an annual capacity of over ten million shipping containers,which would make it one of the busiest ports in the world. so cargo is kaec’s first majortransportation hub. the second is haramain station, one of four stops on saudi arabia’splanned high speed rail network that will connect the new megacity to jeddah, makkah,and madinah. this will bring thousands of

visitors to kaec right from it’s inception,with officials hoping that some will naturally take jobs and stay there, fueling its expansion.at first, the whole plan struggled to gain much traction with investors, “but,” saysal rasheed, “then we reoriented ourselves towards building that demand, creating thatsupport and it’s completely shifted. now we have captive demand — all our apartmentsare full and we have waiting lists for hundreds of people, literally.”part of that shift focused on kaec’s industrial valley which is centered on a large petrochemicalplant and has more than 70 companies lining up to set up bases there.and then there’s the cornerstone of any thriving city: a great university. enter,king abdullah university of science and technology

- which began instruction in 2009 with a staggering$20 billion endowment, making it the third best-funded university in the world behindharvard and yale. this capital injection has allowed it to lift off like a rocket in itsfirst five years. it’s recruited some of the best talent from over 60 countries aroundthe world--scientists who’ve carried the school to an eye-opening 99.9% research recordscore. the research teams at king tech are advancing many important fields like solarcell technology and cancer therapy. it teaches in english and is the first mixed-gender universityin the kingdom. plus, with just 1200 postgraduates on an 8,900 acre campus, there’s plentyof room to expand in every direction. with forty percent of saudi arabia’s citizensunder 15 years old, the plan is for the megacity

- by itself - to create upwards of a millionjobs for all of those young people to grow into.in the end, it may be true that saudi arabia would be a bone-dry desert wasteland withoutit’s exploitation of the vast fields of black gold underneath it, but at least - inthe twilight of his life - king abdullah is doing all he can to set his people - and therest of the world - on a slightly better path than the one they were on when he took overjust nine years ago in 2005. and if that’s his legacy, he deserves to have a city namedafter him. thanks for watching. i hope you enjoyed thisvideo, and if you did, you’ll love our video profiling 10 promising renewable energy sourcesof the future or our mini-doc on robotic armies

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