Saturday, January 16, 2010
Dubai trying to get some respect back
This is a good article on cnbc.com which talks about the U.N. possibly relocating to Dubai. After reading this one has to wonder, what are the implications of this to the U.S.? Dubai sure has a lot of empty real estate in those new towers but will New York allow this to happen? I was not aware that New Yorkers were looking down upon the U.N.. I suppose it is a privilege to have it in this country and I hope the global organization stays here.
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7 comments:
The city of New York hates the UN because of traffic tickets, traffic snarls, unpaid bills at hotels and bars, etc. The UN provides lots of business to the city in many ways and I wonder if there is any study that shows the economic benefit of having the UN in NY or Switzerland versus, Washington DC, London, Paris, Brussels, etc.
This is an interesting move by Dubai to try and fill real estate left open due to the global recession. Bringing in an organization as big as the UN would surely fill many of the empty offices. From an economic view, New York and Dubai are both tourist cities, bring in a great deal of money from foreign visitors. This is why it would not be outrageous to move an international organization to Dubai, since many foreign citizens frequent the area. Politically, it would be a hard sell. The United States helped to form the UN and still wields a large amount of power in the organization. In addition, the cost of the move would probably be quite large and might disrupt the operations of the UN for some time.
I would have to agree with Kevin on that New Yorkers need to realize how much benefit they are actually getting from having UN Headquarters in the city. It is interesting to compare it with the similar issue Brussels has been dealing with because of NATO Headquarters, however, they seem to comprehend that economic benefits outweigh all the moral negativity associated with the organization.
Good comment there Chris. It is hard to make sense of Dubai seriously thinking the UN would consider moving to Dubai. NY is arguably one the most important cities in world being an economic and social leader. UN can be synonomous with NY. The move would cost vast sums of money and UN operations would be on hold for some time as well
The possibility of moving the UN headquarters to Dubai doesn't seem to be in the best interest of the global organization. Like Kevin mentioned, the UN creates a lot of business NY in ways that counter the amount of parking tickets, etc. Additionally, the money that would need to be spent in order for the UN headquarters to relocate to Dubai would require spending money that could be put to better use in many of the UN's already underfunded organizations.
More than that, Dubai isn't the biggest city of the world's most powerful country, both in terms of economic and military power. Even its neighbors aren't all that powerful - Saudi Arabia may have oil but its army is tiny, Oman, Yemen, Iran - this is not where the UN wants its Headquarters.
Undoubtedly,the chances of the UN headquarters moving to Dubai is very low for both political and economic reasons. Clearly, Dubai is unable to rival the US in terms of political and economic significance in the world. Furthermore, its recent near economic meltdown does not add to its credibility.
As a side note, an article in Newsweek in 1995 noted that the estimated cost of unpaid parking tickets by UN diplomats in 1994 was $10 million. This is thus to put in perspective the economic loss as well as inconvenience faced by the city of New York.
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