Dubai feeling the strain of explosive growth as real-estate prices soar and roads are choked with vehicles

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Skyscraper-studded Dubai has been on a hot streak for the last five years — and some residents are starting to feel burned.

The city-state has seen record-breaking real estate transactions and as more and more people come to live there, and its state-owned airline Emirates is booking record earnings. But all that growth comes with strains for the city’s population.

Traffic feels worse than ever on Dubai’s roads. The price of housing continues to spike even with new real estate projects being announced almost daily. Caught in the middle are both its Emirati citizens and the vast population of foreigners who power its economy — sparking rare public expressions of concern.

“Dubai is on steroids but affordability risks are increasing,” warned Hasnain Malik in a starkly titled report he wrote for the global data firm Tellimer, where he’s a managing director.

Skyrocketing housing prices

Under Dubai’s current plans, the city aims to have 5.8 million residents by 2040, adding more than half its current estimated population in just 15 years. Since 1980, its population has already soared from around 255,000 to around 3.8 million.

Real estate lit the fire in Dubai’s growth in 2002, when the desert sheikdom began allowing foreigners to own property. After sharp falls during both the 2008-2009 financial crisis and Dubai’s brief coronavirus lockdown, prices have been soaring.

Today, average prices per square foot are at all-time highs, according to Property Monitor. Rental prices increased as much as 20% in key neighborhoods last year, with further rises likely this year, with some residents moving to communities further out in the desert, the real estate firm Engel & Völkers said.

Jammed roads

Even before the boom, some people who worked in Dubai chose to live in the neighboring emirate of Sharjah, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the city’s downtown, or further away. Some 1 million commuters from other emirates jam the 12-lane Sheikh Zayed Road that runs through the center of the city and other highways every day, as studies suggest that as many as four out of five employees drive to work alone.

That traffic has only intensified with Dubai’s new arrivals.

While the rest of the world saw as much as a 4% increase in the number of registered vehicles in the last two years, the city’s Road and Transportation Authority says there’s been a 10% increase in the number of vehicles.

So many vehicles have been registered that the city has had to make license plates longer.

And while the city keeps building new flyovers and other road improvements, more cars are coming from more directions than ever before.

“Dubai is very attractive, more and more people are coming,” said Thomas Edelmann, the founder and managing director of RoadSafetyUAE, which advocates about traffic issues. “I think it’s easier to get people quickly to come to Dubai and to convince them about Dubai, then to build a new intersection or a new highway.”

Boom concerns also raised by Emiratis

Congestion has got so bad that it’s driving even prominent Emiratis to break their customary silence on public affairs.

Habib Al Mulla, a prominent Emirati lawyer, wrote on the social platform X in December that while authorities were working on congestion, the problem demanded “a set of immediate and long-term mechanisms.” He followed up by publishing an opinion piece twice mentioning “congestion” as being among “pressing issues” for global cities like Dubai.

While phrased in mild language, Al Mulla’s comments represented rare public criticism in the United Arab Emirates, where speech is tightly controlled by criminal law and social norms favor raising issues at a “majlis” — a semiprivate setting convened by a traditional ruler.

“The concentration of wealth and opportunities created in global cities may cause income inequality that pushes out lower-income residents,” Al Mulla warned in the English-language Khaleej Times newspaper on Jan. 15.

“The problem becomes acute when the wealth and opportunities remain inaccessible to segments of the national population who witness the city’s allure being seized by outsiders. This may carry significant social risks, if not mitigated.”

Then there’s demographic concerns as the Emirati share of the population dwindles. While the number of citizens isn’t public, a back-of-the-envelope, informal calculation shared for years by experts suggests Emirati citizens represent around 10% of the country’s overall population of more than 9 million people, a number that’s likely falling as foreigners rush in.

In December, sermon scripts issued for the Dec. 13 Friday’s prayers directly touched on the duty of having more children.

“Increasing offspring is both a religious obligation and a national responsibility, as it contributes to the protection and sustainability of nations,” the sermon read, according to a transcript issued by the federal government’s General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowments.

A search for high-tech solutions

For Dubai’s autocratic government, overseen by ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, possible solutions to the grinding traffic have ranged from the practical to the fanciful. The government in recent months has repeatedly encouraged companies to allow more remote work options, including in a report released in November that also suggested staggered and flexible working hours.

Adding as many as five remote workdays a month, along with the other steps, “can reduce morning peak travel time across Dubai by 30%,” the study stated.

Dubai’s road toll system, known as Salik, has added gates to charge drivers more and will institute surge pricing at the end of the month. Dubai’s Metro, which boasts the world’s longest self-driving rail line, will also grow beyond its broadly north-south routes in a nearly $5 billion expansion.

Then there’s the flying taxi project. Since 2017, Dubai has been announcing plans for airborne cabs in the city. A first “vertiport” is being built by Dubai International Airport with the aim of offering the service from next year.

Dubai also plans 3,300 kilometers (2,050 miles) of new pedestrian paths, although during Dubai’s summer months pedestrians have to contend with high humidity and heat of around 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

“In the coming years, residents of Dubai will be able to move around by walking, cycling, its extensive network of roads and bridges, the Metro and its new lines, water taxis, or flying taxis on specific air routes,” Sheikh Mohammed said on X in December.

But for now, Dubai keeps attracting more people and more cars — and the traffic jams only get longer.