Before the 1990s, Dubai was basically a village for fishing and pearl diving. That had discovered oil recently. But by the late 1990s and the early 2000s, the leaders in Dubai wanted to diversify their economy. To move beyond the dependence on oil. They wanted to make Dubai an international tourism hub. To grab international attention and to bring foreign investment, they had to do something to surprise the world.
Burj Khalifa is so tall that if you watch the sunset from the ground, and then take the lift to its top, you can watch the sunset again. It cost $1.5 billion to build this. With more than 12,000 workers, with more than 100 distinct nationalities and spend 22 million man-hours. But obviously, the purpose of building it turned out to be quite successful.
Today, not only has Dubai become an international hub for tourism, but also an economic hub. A large number of companies want to have their office in Dubai. People were to live in Dubai. Want to buy property there. And the downtown area where this Burj Khalifa was built property prices have skyrocketed so much that this $1.5 billion was easily recovered.
The question arises, what is so special about the Burj Khalifa that makes it so difficult to beat it? And if someone tries to build a taller building, realistically, how tall can we build?
