Dubai World Central: Dubai’s new pearl

Ayeda Husain / 21 November 2014

DWC is the first city in the world to be exclusively designed around an airport 

DWC, being developed by Dubai Aviation City Corporation, will host eight districts — residential, logistics, aviation, commercial, humanitarian, exhibition, golf and the airport, itself. — Supplied photos

Dubai has come a long way from being a sleepy little fishing village on the shores of the Arabian Gulf that once saw wooden dhows slowly floating down the Creek, carrying cargo.
Today there is nothing slow or sleepy about Dubai.
When once crossing the Creek, in itself, was a long and arduous journey, today Dubai’s infrastructure, ranked number three in the world, is set to cross all international standards as the city builds the world’s first purpose-built aerotropolis.
Almost the size of the city of Stockholm, Dubai World Central will not just be the largest airport-city in the world, it will also play host to the largest airport in the world when completed, Al Maktoum International Airport.
“DWC is a lot more than just the keeper of the world’s largest airport,” explains Rashed Bu Qara’a, COO of Dubai Aviation City Corporation (DACC).
“It is a new economic paradigm. What we are doing is more than just redesigning travel; we are creating a self-contained economic power.”
The first city in the world to be exclusively designed around an airport, DWC, being developed by Dubai Aviation City Corporation, will host eight districts — residential, logistics, aviation, commercial, humanitarian, exhibition, golf and the airport, itself.
Each district has been designed to meet the needs of those who will live and work within this new urban development around the airport. The Residential District will offer living facilities for those living in the vicinity, catering to their everyday needs including schooling and medical care.
The business and specialised districts, including Logistics and Aviation, will provide state-of-the-art infrastructure in terms of facilities and transport connectivity as well as business-friendly regulations and processes that will enable local, regional and global companies to manage and grow their businesses.
The Humanitarian District will be used as a base for emergency response organisations such as the UN and IHC. And the Exhibition District, among many other uses, will serve as the venue for Expo 2020.
DWC, in many ways, represents the future of where we live and where we work. It abolishes the idea of long commutes to get to work as well as the notion that an airport city must consist of cramped buildings forced to fit around a pre-existing airport. The realities of the global marketplace have changed too much to accommodate such outdated trends.
Without a doubt, the aerotropolis is to the 21^st century what the port was to the 16^th, 17^th and 18^thcenturies — an essential building block that determines how competitive a nation is within an increasingly global market.
Recently ranked as the seventh most influential city in the world by a study carried out by Forbes Magazine, Dubai is already on its way of helping the UAE achieve its National Vision to become one of the top ranked countries in the world to live in by 2021, the Golden Jubilee of the Union.
Leading the way with the highest air connectivity rating in the world at 93 per cent, Dubai has paved the way for DWC to take a sophisticated infrastructure and build a whole economy around it in a way that no other aerotropolis, to date, has been able to do.
Existing aerotropoli in the world today include Amsterdam Zuidas; Las Colinas, Texas and New Songdo, South Korea’s International Business District. Others include those around Amsterdam, Schiphol Airport; Washington’s, Dulles Airport and Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport.
What makes DWC different — an airport city, rather than a city airport — however, is the fact that it did not grow spontaneously around an airport; it was designed around an airport but as a spacious, well-planned, independent, thriving metropolis, with a pulse of its own.
“We are not talking about a congested afterthought of a city,” says Bu Qara’a. “We are talking about a sprawling, futuristic city designed to meet the needs of a global marketplace.”
And with a state of the art airport in the centre surrounded by businesses, trade facilities, customised transportation links, residential offerings and the home to Expo2020, DWC is, in every way, the city of the future.
With a total area of 145 square kilometres, DWC is already home to logistics companies such as Aramex, Kuehne & Nagel and Panalpina, which benefit from its strategic position.
Connected to the Jebel Ali seaport, the sixth largest container terminal in the world, DWC is part of a carefully designed logistics corridor that allows goods to flow through the seaport, to the aerotropolis and out through the airport. Globally, DWC can only benefit from Dubai’s reputation as a leading hub of global transportation and a gateway between East and West.
With the expansion of businesses internationally, competitive success today has shifted from survival of the fittest to survival of the fastest. Providing high quality goods at competitive prices is no longer the only benchmark for success — speed and agility have taken center stage.
It is DWC’s ability to offer its logistical corridor as a means of rapid delivery for the competitive marketplace with air commerce as its logistical backbone that gives it the cutting edge for today’s market.

An expansive airport, a planned city, a shipping facility and a business hub, DWC has what it takes to become a model aerotropolis. A place where distant travelers and locals can conduct business, exchange knowledge, shop, eat, sleep and be entertained without going more than 15 minutes away from the airport, DWC is not just a new city — it is a new destination.