Sorry if this post seems naive... but the questions have been on my mind for a long time and I need them answered!! :)

I am awed and inspired by all of the great architecture and impressive buildings being completed in Dubai. In many of the pictures I have seen though, there seems to be such a vast amount of open land in the areas that the new skyscrapers are being build.

When I was in school I learned that skyscrapers were built because land was becoming too dense and too expensive so the cheapest way to build something large was by going up. This doesn't seem to be the case for Dubai. With all of that open land it seems like there is plenty of room to expand without reaching for the sky. So far anyway.

So why are they creating so many tall buildings? Is it to demonstrate their expanding economic power? Is it political? Is there something wrong with building in the desert that building a few spaced out tall structures is better then building many short ones? Can someone explain this?

Also, what is it like to be in a city where the buildings are so spaced out? I know what it is like, and am comfortable with, the way it feels to be in a city that is canyon like with buildings close to one another. So how does a canyon city like NY/HK compare to the feeling of being in a spaced out forest of buildings like Dubai?

^^ Dubai ain't yet finished, plus it's in a tiny emirate . . .

Well thats kind of my point. Doesn't it make more sense to fill in and THEN build up when you run out of room? That says to me that there are other reasons then necessity.

Well thats kind of my point. Doesn't it make more sense to fill in and THEN build up when you run out of room? That says to me that there are other reasons then necessity.

Well if land was cheap, yes. The fact is, Dubai is going through an economic golden era right now, and everyone - I mean everyone - wants a piece of land. So what do smart, money-grabbing landowners do? Charge leg and limb for every square inch of land. How do developers answer to that? Buy a portion of land big enough to support a skyscraper, and build up from there. That's the only way. Developers would be screwed for money if they built out as opposed to up.

Its not about land prices really, in Dubai its about attracting foreign investors through the form of landmark buildings and garnering attention to boost business and tourism within the emirate (with the benefit of very lenient planning laws in regard to the skyscraper building form). This is not constricted to skyscrapers hence we see the biggest this, that and the other appearing all over the city. I dont think it is necessarily an artifical demand but its certainly different to virtually every other urban centre i know of.

Well thats kind of my point. Doesn't it make more sense to fill in and THEN build up when you run out of room? That says to me that there are other reasons then necessity.

Yeah, I read somewhere that 75% of office and living space is empty,...