Thank goodness the Dubai area is geologically stable, because its regional politics and economics certainly aren't.
Pretty soon some 12,000 people will be living and working in the Burj Dubai, a soaring 818m needle of glass, concrete and steel that overshadows the diminished real estate on the desert floor that is Dubai.
At least that's what the owners of the world's tallest building hope as they officially open the centrepiece of the 202ha development this week. The project is one of superlatives. Not least that it will house the world's highest mosque nearly 160 storeys above ground. It cost $1.5 billion to build, according to Dubai’s state-owned developer, Emaar. It's a building without peer, although a number of other super-structures are being constructed elsewhere on the globe and in nearby Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It's also a testament to the day the world stopped viewing Dubai as the Neverland of economic prosperity, effectively deserting the Las Vegas of the Arabian desert.
