Then: Safety Built on Community and Presence In the early decades of Dubai’s existence as a modern settlement, the safety and security of the city rested not on technology, not on surveillance systems, and not on sophisticated law enforcement infrastructure, but on something far older and in many ways far more powerful – the tight-knit […]

Then: Summer in Dubai Was a Season to Escape For most of Dubai’s history, summer was not a season to be celebrated – it was a season to be endured, and if at all possible, escaped. The months of June, July, August, and September brought temperatures that regularly exceeded forty-five degrees Celsius, humidity levels that […]

Then: A City That Ran Entirely on Cash Not long ago, cash was the undisputed language of commerce in Dubai. Whether you were buying spices in the old souk, paying your landlord three months of rent in a single envelope stuffed with notes, settling a restaurant bill, or purchasing gold jewellery worth tens of thousands […]