The pandemic has led to smart money snapping up increasingly luxurious dwellings with investors throughout the globe swooping in and generating eye-popping headlines of mouth-watering property sale prices. While these comparisons seem valid superficially, Dubai’s new 2040 Urban Plan suggests a radical path, one that emphasizes the base of wealth creation at the core of its city development.

The envisaged doubling of population implicitly acknowledges the undersupply of housing at the mid-end, contrary to the narrative that has been spun thus far. Through a combination of increasingly varied and vibrant communities such as JVC (which has already emerged as the most popular spot for rentals in 2021) and innovative ownership measures such as fractional ownership, the model drives home the message that creativity, arts and commerce are symbiotic for Dubai’s development model. And that none of these variables can truly flourish without a base foundation of wealth creation drivers that fundamentally emanate from the mid-income housing market.

The increased offerings in the capital markets signal the way for wealth generation to be diversified into genuine channels that underpin the economy’s foundation (rather than the distractions of new alternatives like crypto), which will lead to demand for real estate up the value chain. The focus on increased community space as well as town centres in the post-Covid setup (the world’s equivalent of the great fire of 1835) harnesses new found meaning for immigrants looking to relocate to safer pastures. 

This vision - breathtaking in scope - underlines a deviation from the development of other world centres. Dubai’s plans acknowledge the shortage of mid-income housing and inculcate the incentives in place that makes its development an eventuality.

Dubai’s urban plan takes the concept of community and land mark parks even further. Baked into its ethos is the heart of the common man and the aspirations to be part of the city’s growth and wealth creation. Today, Manhattan is unrecognizable without Central Park. Dubai, for all its gilded glory such as the Palm and Burj Khalifa, is similarly unrecognizable without its mid-income spaces - JVC, Emirates Living, Dubai Silicon Oasis and Sports City - and a clarion call that has been seared into its very fabric.