The title I chose for this blog entry probably isn't the best for what I intend to talk about. We have discussed poverty against wealth in cities and how they work with and against one another. However these concepts apply mainly to western society, particularly the United States.
In other places this type of contrast is far greater. One great example of this would be Dubai. Dubai is a place loaded with oil money. However oil supplies in Dubai are limited so a little over a decade ago, city planners and the government decided to invest their oil money in massive city development to continue the growth and economic development after the oil runs out.
This rapid development requires a very large workforce however, and Dubai and the UAE have received a great deal of criticism in recent years about how they acquire this workforce. It is mainly comprised of migrant workers from countries such as Bangladesh and India. These migrant workers are brought over thinking they can earn a decent living to send home to their families. The reality however is far from ideal. The workers live in camps, far detached from the glamourous city that we see in pictures. They work 12 hour shifts, 6 days a week, and are paid nowhere near what they were promised. Furthermore the living conditions of the camps are generally substandard. The government has rules against this but is not very strict about enforcing them.
This is an extreme contrast against the way people live in the city, which is practically built from gold. As far as I know Dubai is the only place in the world which builds islands in the shape of palms, and continues to build resort after resort after resort. It also has some of the most expensive property in the world, for which the value only continues to rise. Granted there are exceptions to everything, but it is difficult to imagine this type of extreme contrast of wealth, living conditions, etc. Reading this particular article, one would almost believe a homeless resident of an american subway station has it better off than these migrant workers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7985361.stm
