City Of Change

Its rulers have painted its future like a fantastical Matisse, despite the city’s complex self-image. but amid obscene expenditure and western media incredulity, Abu Dhabi’s contribution to society might be greater than is being perceived

- Megha Shah

Abu Dhabi is not like Dubai.” I’ve heard this phrase often, brandished like a slogan, in the two days I’ve spent in the UAE capital. It’s one that’s almost always administered with some shade of hauteur. Sitting in one of the two living rooms of a seven-room suite at the Emirates Palace Hotel, the second most expensive hotel in the world (the most expensive at the time of building; nothing here is aimed for second best), I hear it again from the manager. Before I can point out the obvious similarities of unbridled luxury, vision and use of gold (including the toothbrush in my bathroom) based on my current surroundings, he enquires if I’ve had a chance to sample the Soviet art they’re temporarily exhibiting: mid-century artists depicting the chaos of Russia’s war-ridden years and rare turn-of-the-century sculptures from the private collection of a Russian billionaire. “There,” he means to say. “The difference.”

Within the UAE, competition for prestige is fierce. Until the Fifties, before oil was discovered, Abu Dhabi was a fishing village. In about 60 years – also the life span of the hotel’s operations manager, Ramji, who’s been showing me around – both cities have risen into planned metropolises. Abu Dhabi sits on far greater reserves of fossil fuels, but has long been in the shadow of its more glamorous neighbour, having chosen to distance itself from Dubai’s more frivolous and brash ways. But the oil isn’t going to last forever. And so the need to diversify the economy, with greater tourism, has begun fuelling policy – with a very different positioning and an approach that means to avoid the pitfalls of Dubai’s boom-and-bust growth.