When you think of the city of Dubai and the United Arab Emirates, the first thing to come to mind is oil and natural gas! On the outskirts of Dubai, lies a small but similarly suave community looking at a new way of doing things - away from the world being heavily dependent on crude. It is no small irony that the world's most brazen exemplar of fossil-fueled excess is also home to a cutting-edge example of more thoughtful modern-day living. The planned Dubai Sustainable City project is a reminder that between the towering skyscrapers and petrol-hungry super-sport cars, there is plenty of environmental awareness to be found.
So what does it take to build a sustainable community from the ground up? Anyone involved in the project will quickly tell you that there is much more to it than sticking solar panels on the roof and sorting trash from recyclables. At the very heart of it all is SEE Nexus - a company named after what its CEO describes as essential pillars of sustainable living - the 'S'ocial pillar that promotes health and happiness through sports, education safety and culture, the 'E'nvironment pillar through smart practices around food, waste, water, energy and mobility and the 'E'conomy pillar that creates a way of green living that is financially rewarding - a three-legged stool, knocking one leg off could make the stool fall. Social sustainability is only one of those pillars, but it might just be the most visible, at least from ground level - the 500 villas and 89 apartment complexes are laid out in a neat grid-pattern enclosed by a "buffer zone" - which contains an equestrian track running around the perimeter, along with a bike track, a running track made from recycled rubber tires and 10-m tall trees that purify air and act as a line of defense against air contaminants. Within these borders are solar-shaded communal car parks with EV chargers placed in a way that forces residents to walk though at least some of the city to reach their villas. The narrow 6-m streets modeled on the alleys of Old Dubai have no cars, traveled only by pedestrians and communal GPS-tracked electric buggies that residents operate with personalized ID cards. Put all this together and you get yourself an environment very much designed to draw people outdoors.
The Sustainable City itself starts from a plaza at one end consisting of a block of shops, restaurants, cafes and offices which serves as a sort of economic engine room with some of the revenue siphoned off to entirely cover the city's maintenance and service costs (AKA homeowners association fees in the US). The buggy ride takes one past a set of beehives, an animal sanctuary with rescued donkeys and up to one of the city's 11 bio-domes/ greenhouses. This string of large greenhouses snakes its way through the center of the city that hosts 30 different herb and vegetable species and rearing up to 1 million plants each year - they are the city's "Central Green Spine" made up of more running and cycling tracks, gyms, basketball courts, parks and an ancient Emirati irrigation system - the Falaj - that uses plants as natural filtration systems. Through the urban farming club, residents get access to a garden bed, soil and free rein to raise whatever they want - the UAE imports 80% of it's food - so, an ability to grow equally is extremely important. To that end, through a voucher-based honor system, residents get eight pots of greenhouse herbs and vegetables per month to take back to their villas. 
The 500 villas are sorted into 5 clusters - and at the center - an outdoor playground area with a traditional Arab windtower - a barjeel - which collects air at the top and pushes cooler air through the bottom to make the outdoor spaces comfortable. These villas are again topped with solar panels and are made of thick precast concrete carefully oriented to keep cooling costs to a minimum - meaning, the windows face north, away from the intense sunlight and openings that face northeast for a breezy passive cooling. The solar panels combine for a total of 6MWp and provide around 40-50% of the total energy needs - the ultimate aim of the city is to eventually become a net-zero energy entity over the next few years, generating at least as much as it consumes. The second phase of this project will see the addition of a school with green living practices weaved into the curriculum, a hospital and a huge innovation center (supposed to be the "brain of the city") to produce 140% of it's energy requirements over a 50-year lifespan. The ongoing energy costs are part of the appeal really - a local real estate website show that 3BHK houses in this community start at $750,000 - which may be worth it all considering the costs in many parts of the world. Many have described the sustainable city project as a living laboratory itself - where there have been continuous experiments with new technologies such as the the shipping container, where the French startup Agricool raises strawberries in the desert with greater efficiency than conventional farming practices and without the use of pesticides and GMOs.
You can build a sustainable city, but if the people don't got there and live sustainably, then the ultimate goal is not achieved. Also, you can't put a sustainable community in place and have it look like an alien entity if the local culture, habits and architecture are forgotten - it has to work with nature and culture and has to inspire everyone. Yes, the whole idea of building a sustainable city is still POC across the world, but this was very well made possible in one of the harshest environments on Earth. The fact that it is here is proof that building sustainably is no longer an option or a luxury, it is now a necessity! One thing is sure - many cities around the world need to start looking at this Proof of Concept from Dubai and their corresponding success to take sustainable living to new heights.
Research Material gathered from: NewAtlas
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