Dubai City. Exploring the model pitfalls and perspectives. Shaping space and society for high-speed urban development.

In the last decade, Dubai has certainly proved to be one of the most dynamic ‘emerging cities’ of all time. Behind record figures, however, the process was fuelled by a very precise territorial development logic. Territory, space and society were conceived from a quite unique perspective, so as to catalyse and sustain the rapid establishment of the city worldwide. ‘Section’, ‘thematise’ and consequently also ‘segregate’, seem to have been the key methods adopted. The purpose of this article is to examine the mechanisms and consequences of this sort of territorial planning, thus aiming at a better understanding of the pitfalls and challenges that this process entails. In particular, the theory put forward for the context examined suggests that the mechanisms generating urban segregation have been completely reversed from a mere ‘ex post’ result to a powerful ‘ex-ante’ development tool.