Will the Masdar Experiment Impact Fujairah and the Rest of the UAE?

Showcasing Masdar
The television stations are giving ample coverage to the UAE’s Masdar development as last week people began moving into the city to be part of this environmental development.

Moving Into Masdar
Masdar tourists are visiting the initial three acre block and Masdar scholars are poised to study the state of the art technology at the new Masdar Institute.

Masdar Technology
It is heartening to learn how Masdar designers are updating the traditional Arabian wind towers to cool the city, establishing solar panels, creating water treatment plants and banning oil-fuelled cars. But looking from across the UAE there is a yearning for at least some of this technology to be introduced outside the Masdar walls.

The more ‘Masdar World’ develops, the more it is being described as a gated-community that is set apart from ordinary life in the Emirates.

Nicolai Ouroussoff in his New York Times article, ‘In Arabian Desert, a Sustainable City Rises’ (25 September 2010) describes Masdar as “a self-sufficient society…outside the reach of most of the world’s citizens.”

Masdar Applied
Ultimately the impact of the Masdar model will be gauged by how well its lessons and technology are caught and implemented across the country to emirates like Fujairah.

It’s a challenge to create a model city on a small stretch of sand but it’s a greater task to apply the principles of sustainability and environmental excellence to the communities that already sprawl across the Emirates.

Geoff Pound

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Image: The Masdar Institute, September 2010 (Photo Courtesy of Brian’s Blog)