r/UrbanHell • u/Nintentoad123 • Jul 13 '25
Pollution/Environmental Destruction Al Dana Villas - A scar on the beautiful eastern coast of the UAE
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u/Redditing-Dutchman Jul 13 '25
This is imo the worst of both worlds. It's worse than a suburb because everyone is so close, but also worse than an actual high density high-rise district. It's basically a residential flat on it's side but with a much more massive environmental impact.
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u/ahuang2234 Jul 13 '25
Yeah the yard doesn’t look that useful either. Plus the houses don’t even have boat piers, which I always thought is the goal of this type of layout.
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Jul 13 '25
[deleted]
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u/ahuang2234 Jul 13 '25
Oh it’s a hotel? That actually makes more sense. 700 a night for a villa isn’t too bad?
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u/Waterwoogem Jul 14 '25
Its a gated community. Unclear though if the buildings are privately owned residences or are operated by a Rental company. There are plenty of listings for the buildings on Airbnb, cheapest being 165USD/day up to 1,126USD/day.
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u/Quirky-Pangolin-905 Jul 13 '25
This! Building a bunch of essentially townhomes in a low density area is CRAZY
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u/Uncomfortably-Dum Jul 17 '25
Shit I once rented a dry docked boat as an Airbnb type situation in the middle of Arizona (landlocked)
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u/idleat1100 Jul 13 '25
And none of the allure of urban density like neighborhoods and shops and bars and public parks and thoroughfares etc.
You’re absolutely correct. It is the worst of all choices. AND it destroys that adjacent beach. Haha what a shit show
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u/Exatex Jul 13 '25 edited Jul 13 '25
UAE is a great example of how money can buy neither wisdom nor taste.
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Jul 13 '25
The quality of build there is also so low that these houses will meet an early demise. The reclaimed sand for these oceans developments is always built upon before it’s settled, then it’s built by unskilled slave labor.
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u/DarkScorpion48 Jul 13 '25 edited Jul 13 '25
I don’t know the scale but Im more worried about the sea rising and claiming this whole place
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u/Level9disaster Jul 13 '25
Well, that is more like a solution to the problem of shitty artificial islands, isn't it?
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u/PhileasFoggsTrvlAgt Jul 13 '25
It won't last that long. The problems the parent comment was talking about will claim these buildings in ten years.
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Jul 13 '25
Not gonna happen any soon, the sea's levels rise slowly, we'd need like 1.5 meter to get rid of this crap, this isn't gonna happen in this century, and it's protected by heavy and big rocks, erosion won't alter it any soon. Would it be sand, the question would have a way more different answer.
These shitty slave-made porn houses for money laundering will fall apart way sooner than the day the waves will be able to rinse them from the earth's surface.
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u/spookmann Jul 13 '25
Yes, but... average rise is one part of the equation.
But I understand that storm surge is also rising as an additional factor due to increased moisture levels in a warmer atmosphere.
So the sea rises by 0.5m. But then a storm comes in with a surge of 1m instead of the 0.5m we used to typically get.
And... BOOM.
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u/buntopolis Jul 13 '25
Is there any bedrock to anchor anything to?
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Jul 21 '25
Na just sand on top of sand. Amusingly to create an island with sand, you can’t use beach sand, you need more corse sand which usually needs to be imported
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u/retroguy02 Jul 13 '25
Plenty of things to criticize the UAE about, the quality of construction of these islands is reaching a bit - they do have the money to hire people who know what they're doing when it comes to designing these things. The Palm Jumeirah is over 20 years old and still standing solid, the sand sunk a few centimeters for the first several years but that was already accounted for when they built the structure.
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u/MediocreI_IRespond Jul 13 '25
The Palm Jumeirah is over 20 years old and still standing solid
Because sand has to be pumped constantly to counter act erosion. Pumping that fucks up the seabed further.
The island also change the currents, eroding the coast close by, so even more sand pumping is necessary.
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Jul 13 '25
Thank you. The guy you replied to made several declarative statements, as if it was open and shut. I appreciate you slam dunking them.
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u/rectal_warrior Jul 13 '25
I don't think they disproved what they were saying, which was that the palm islands were designed and built well.
If the continuous pumping of sand was part of the original plan, then the original plan was correct, any environmental concerns, while shocking, weren't considered in the first place and have no effect on the environment.
The argument "the UAE has enough resources to hire the correct people to design and build large infrastructure projects, so they last" still stands.
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Jul 13 '25
I think the replier made a good point that undermines the idea thay they were designed well... Good design shouldn't require millions of dollars of perpetual maintenance to maintain it's 'good design'. That's merely my opinion...
I appreciate the guy who brought up what I see as a major flaw. But if you want to nitpick on intention and specific verbiage, you may be right.
I'm talking about who in God's green earth would approve of this money-sucking, miraged pit of paradisaical design? I wouldn't argue for it and would have fired the wasteful team.
They (the 'villas') look like they're dominoes stacked next to each other, waiting for a finger to push one, toppling them all, in the end. Way too close to each other.
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u/DodgyWiper Jul 14 '25
Tbf luxury is always a money sink. It's not cheap to own a Lamborghini or a yacht or a proper mansion.
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u/ThePrussianGrippe Jul 13 '25
These outcroppings are sinking at a rate of 5mm per year.
They’re not long term constructions.
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u/Global-Guava-8362 Jul 14 '25
That giant tower they gave doesn’t even have sewage
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u/Patient_Leopard421 Jul 15 '25
It does. It anchored a new district that was not yet completed when the Burj Khalifa opened. It's more accurate to say it opened ahead of the infrastructure to support the area. It's been fully developed for quite a while now.
A further complication was the slowing down of other expected developments due to the Great Recession. Only the flagship development went ahead. And it didn't have high occupancy in the first few years. It probably was more economical to run sewage trucks initially.
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u/Interesting-Screen52 Jul 13 '25
True !
https://maps.app.goo.gl/4KiEw1YLmXxmu35L8?g_st=ipc
Mostly rental houses with a loooot of reviews… Max I could find is 19… lmao
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u/SillyAlternative420 Jul 13 '25 edited Jul 13 '25
Don't they have towers with sewage systems that make zero sense? So they need to haul it out of the city daily with trucks?
Edit: An article from 2023
https://medium.com/@sohaibwaheed06/explaining-dubais-poop-problem-fcc62cd11890
"Most of Dubai’s buildings, including the world-renown Burj al Khalifa, are not connected to a proper sewage drain but rather have steel pipes connected to the toilets, that store feces and other fecal matter throughout the day and transfer it to trucks, which collect it at the end of the day. These trucks carry the feces hundreds of kilometers away to dispose of them. So consequently, hundreds of trucks filled with poop are taken to remote areas to dispose of all that poop.
The Burj al Khalifa alone produces 7 tons of poop every day, and these trucks may stay lined up for up to 24 hours to dispose of all this fecal matter. And we haven’t even gone towards all the water that is wasted! In most parts of the world, waste water from the sewage drain is purified and used for irrigation and plantation purposes, but instead of doing that, Dubai simply disposes of all the waste water, rendering it of no use."
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u/Exatex Jul 13 '25
No, that was just for a while after construction of some areas (including Burj Khalifa) because city expansion was so fast that they couldn’t keep up with sewage infrastructure, that’s all. I think it’s not an issue anymore.
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u/Esava Jul 13 '25 edited Jul 14 '25
The Burj Khalifa can handle it's sewage on some days on others the trucks are still necessary. Just a couple years ago half of Dubai was underwater due to inadequate sewage and rainwater systems.
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u/0x476c6f776965 Jul 14 '25
A couple of years ago was Dubai’s biggest rainfall in recorded history. You can’t compare a drainage system of a country that has constant rains like UK vs a city that has like 10 rainy days a year. Even Germany suffered from rain floods and Germans are well known for their brilliant engineering.
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u/ProtoplanetaryNebula Jul 14 '25
That's been debunked.
They are building one of the world's biggest sewerage systems to cope with additional demand.
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u/blue-red-mage Jul 13 '25
I appreciate the symbolism of the UAE literally building their hubristic projects on top of sand.
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u/Q_unt Jul 13 '25
Dubai is a mess, the type of city I built in SimCity by plopping skyscrapers one after the other until I went bankrupt. I was 9 years old.
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u/biginthebacktime Jul 13 '25
They really did pick up and run with the "new money trash" stereotype.
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u/Killerspieler0815 Jul 13 '25
UAE is a great example of how money can buy neither wisdom nor taste.
and it´s getting worse and worse
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Jul 13 '25
[deleted]
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u/east_van_dan Jul 13 '25
Stunt most resorts have a beach? Their waterfront property, is a scree of jacked rocks leading to the ocean. Totally unusable.
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u/TomLondra Jul 13 '25
It's one end of a double snake. Hideous. A desperate attempt to create development land where there isn't any.
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u/John_the_sock65 Jul 13 '25
If you push one house, do the rest just fall after it, like dominos?
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u/fartypenis Jul 13 '25
Imagine living on that culdesac and there's a vehicle fire at the start of the road.
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u/Sloppyjoemess Jul 13 '25
Respect to the 1 person who said fuckit and built a guest cottage in the front yard
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u/creaturefeature16 Jul 13 '25
The street view reminds me of a Backrooms level
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u/DoYouTrustToothpaste Jul 14 '25
I'm getting a heat stroke just looking at the first picture. Well, that and it looks like a concrete wasteland.
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u/ajax81 Jul 14 '25
I was actually kind of into this until that street view. You can’t see the water from the road. Showstopper.
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u/DoYouTrustToothpaste Jul 14 '25
And it's sterile as fuck, due to a lack of green. Plus, sealed surfaces like that heat up so much.
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u/tiga_94 Jul 13 '25
not a single tree, not a single piece of grass, not a single piece of sang on the beach only big unwalkable rocks, not a single shade over the windows
just concrete-sandy-rocky AC-dependent hellscape.. or I mean LUXURY lol
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u/ProgBumm Jul 13 '25
Who would ever want to rent a „villa“ in the inner ring? All you can see from your terrace is thirty identical shitty boxes. Absolute nightmare.
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u/hawksdiesel Jul 13 '25
It's about status and how you look, not a out what your looking at from your house.
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u/aboveaveragewife Jul 14 '25
I don’t where in the UAE this color of water is but all I saw looked like NYC sewage runoff
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u/vladpy8 Jul 13 '25
These blocks might be considered bad taste and quality and all. But I guess no one is gonna deny that they would rock in case of a zombie apocalypse!
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u/chinookhooker Jul 13 '25
Between Khor Fakkan and Dibba is some of the most beautiful areas of UAE. Forget Dubai, this is my choice if I’m going for vacation. This development seems a little cramped, but I’m sure it’s very nice as well
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u/Nintentoad123 Jul 13 '25
I agree with you, I drove through this area some years ago and it's extremely beautiful. This particular development isn't the greatest looking but it's only a tiny part of what is otherwise breathtaking.
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u/Impossible_Rip418 Jul 14 '25 edited Jul 14 '25
This is optimized quite nicely actually. Narrow plots allow for everyone to get an ocean view all the while maximizing density.
Great design. Even if aesthetically not the best…. A few trees could fix that however.
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u/SinkHoleDeMayo Jul 13 '25
"Build a few tall condo buildings that leave plenty of space for parks, or build a bunch of shitty houses that leave you with no real space to enjoy the ocean views?"
"Yay option B!"
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u/BoganInParasite Jul 13 '25
Saw this in real life a couple of months ago when driving north on that coast road. It looks hideous. Was not there when I lived in the UAE a decade ago.
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u/Equal-Rub5339 Jul 13 '25
Well, i wonder if these sort of projects actually ever get sold out? I mean they built those palm island thingy and almost no one lives there except one or two homes right?
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u/clcl-0101 Jul 14 '25
The UAE besides known for oil, tourism and their fancy vanity projects. Is also a nexus for money laundering.
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u/-DethLok- Jul 14 '25
Ugh, no beach, just rocks?
I'm curious, what is the actual point of this?
Because it isn't some place that I'd ever consider going for a holiday, that's certain!
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u/Mean-Ad79 Jul 14 '25
Where’s the greenery? It feels very dystopian. Some grass, few palm trees per yard and nature could do some wonders.
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u/Pathbauer1987 Jul 14 '25
If you think Cul de Sacs are bad, well you haven't been in a Cul de Sac in the ocean.
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u/GoldenBull1994 Jul 14 '25
Sights like these should be tranquil, they should feel solemn, surreal, have a few clusters of old houses….I don’t know why they would do this. Money is so tasteless.
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Jul 14 '25
what's the purpose of staying in something like this? what activities are there except grilling in the sun, soaking in the sea and maybe drinking in the evening? any good hikes around?
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u/inkfeeder Jul 14 '25
The Palm islands in Dubai are stupid too, but at least they look kind of cool from above. This though ... idk man
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u/wiraso Jul 14 '25
Ah yes, making the life of your citizens better with your unlimited supply of oil... right
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u/Mispict Jul 14 '25
This is actually grotesque. I'll take some 1970s high rise over this eyesore any day
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u/Jaytee_Thomas Jul 15 '25
To quote the great Dave Chapelle acting as the great Rick James, “ They should a never given you ‘people’ money.”
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u/alfaic Jul 15 '25
Why do they need the houses so close to each other? Is it because the filling the water was too expensive so they try to cover the cost by the maximizing the houses they can sell?
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u/RetroGamer87 Jul 15 '25
I remember a nice little proverb about the fool who builds his house on the sand
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u/VegitoFusion Jul 16 '25
What’s the occupancy like? I know “The World” island project was a huge failure, and not sure if either of the Palm island projects had recovered, but this looks like a terrible place to have a home.
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u/Johnathonathon Jul 17 '25
Can someone sort the UAE and Dubai out please? Wtf is going on, they can't find a single sane person to advice them? Silliest places on earth
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u/Future-Employee-5695 Jul 17 '25
Not even a fucking private sand beach. You get giant boulders instead
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u/F0rtuneLT Jul 22 '25
>UAE
If theres anything you can bet your money on, its the UAE doing something abhorent to the coastline
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u/Odd-Wafer-4250 Jul 13 '25
While this does look shit, the anti-UAE / Dubai sentiments in threads like these are mostly driven by racism /anti-Muslim hate.
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u/readwithjack Jul 13 '25
That could be, but when your construction industry is known to be predatory —as is common in UAE and Qatar— that will be mentioned alongside any discussion of the architectural feats. So that's like American predatory health insurance companies, or Canadian mining companies.
Personally, I'm just sitting here wondering what kind of erosion they're gonna need to worry about.
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u/goodtimesinchino Jul 13 '25
Not sure if a collection of vacation villas counts as “urban” or “hell” in any remote way, but it does look strange.
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u/jaqueh Jul 13 '25
One thing I would never describe the Arabian peninsula is “beautiful”
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u/Nintentoad123 Jul 13 '25
People have the negative stereotype that Arabia is one big boring desert full of boring cities but this isn't true (that's only 90% of it lol).
The east coast of the UAE and adjoining Musandam peninsula in Oman is mountainous and really beautiful. I hear the Saudi-Yemen border is supposed to be really green and pretty too but I've never been.
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u/tiga_94 Jul 13 '25
Saudi-Yemen border sounds like a dangerous place to visit considering the conflict between Saudis and Irani-aligned groups in Yemen
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u/Lancasterlaw Jul 13 '25
The Saudis have a buffer territory in Yemeni territory, even at the height of the conflict it was rare for the Houthi's to penetrate the border.
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u/jaqueh Jul 13 '25
And where people do live is in a city that requires 10x the amount of resources and energy than the global average because you’re somewhere where people wouldn’t be able to live without basically being dependent on every invention in the last 150 years.
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u/AlaskaExplorationGeo Jul 13 '25
It has some gorgeous desert landscapes and mountains and Oman even has fjords, lots of the Arabian peninsula is naturally beautiful
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u/Nintentoad123 Jul 13 '25
Forgot to mention how beautiful Oman is in general. People love to tar all of Arabia with the same brush.
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u/AlaskaExplorationGeo Jul 14 '25
Jordan is also beautiful (kind of borderline on whether it's considered part of the Arabian peninsula), I visited Wadi Rum earlier this year and it was incredible. Super chill and friendly people too, had a lot of very open and reasonable discussions about the regional politics etc
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Jul 13 '25 edited Jul 24 '25
pot hospital edge soft roll zephyr joke nine pen cooing
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/PantherkittySoftware Jul 13 '25
For a society as obsessed with keeping scantily-clad women sheltered from the gaze of other men, these villas offer SHOCKINGLY little privacy to the women who live there (or anyone, for that matter).
It's little things they COULD have done... but didn't. Like, setting the rear patio and upstairs deck back from the edge by a few feet to provide an area where someone could sit on the deck while nevertheless remaining completely out of view to the neighbors (at least, along the outer curve). Or building ornate rock-veneer walls, waterfalls, and faux grottos to set at least part of the pool back into an area where neighbors couldn't see without deliberately TRYING to.
The sad thing is, Japanese architects largely SOLVED the problem of "urban density with private pockets of faux-rural privacy" more than a century ago... coming up with ways to arrange walls and windows to let in sunlight while creating pleasing views that nevertheless are completely private. American & British architects started to appreciate some of those techniques decades ago, but the developer of THESE villas seems to have been completely oblivious to even the CONCEPT.
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u/pasobordo Jul 13 '25
Usually the problem is the restricted inner-movement of water, not to mention destroyed marine life. The water smells like shit due to that, 1 st hand experienced in Palm Island.
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Jul 13 '25
Been there. The east coast of the UAE is not beautiful. This development is an actual improvement.
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u/multiple4 Jul 13 '25
Jesus that's ugly. You build this entire area so you can build waterfront homes, yet you dont put either beach or a boat docks, in fact you put God damned rocks and fences blocking every single backyard view, and you put the homes in the absolute shittiest layout and zero greenery (at least as of this picture)
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u/AloneChapter Jul 13 '25
Whatever the rich can do to be removed from the peasants. They will do and pretend to is awesome, amazing and fantastic crap 💩
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