Quote:
Originally Posted by MolsonExport
the strategy worked out extremely well for Dubai. It may be a gamble (certainly far from being a sure thing) for Jeddah, but time will tell. Obviously it takes more than having the world's tallest building to make a city great, but symbols are important too.
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I think this is highly debatable.
Yes, Dubai is much better known than before (because no other city in world history built so much extreme architecture in so little time) but I don't think the Burj Khalifa is particularly well known, outside of skyscraper geeks. People just know that Dubai has built a crapload of aggressively tall, architecturally unique towers, among other things. I don't think too many people could identify a picture of Burj Khalifa, or would recognize it by name.
And there's almost no chance of the same thing happening in any Saudi city, given the gigantic cultural/legal differences between the UAE and Saudi. You could never replicate something like Burj Khalifa, as much of its uses are illegal and morally out of the question in the Saudi framework. Can't have social mixing, music, alcohol, movies, unaccompanied women, etc. Can't even have non-Muslims in parts of Saudi. And Saudi actively discourages international tourism as they don't want societal tensions.
I would guess that the Kingdom Tower, assuming completion as planned, would be a highly prominent national attraction, but wouldn't have much global recognition, and wouldn't have many international visitors, unless there's some radical change in Saudi society.