Jesse Walker on a Stillborn Urban Utopia
The city in the video seems abandoned. As a camera pans through plazas, streets, and buildings, just a handful of people are visible. Activity is promised but deferred: Across the landscape, posters declare that one enterprise or another is "Opening Soon." The place, writes Jesse Walker, is Masdar City, an $18 billion attempt to build a zero-carbon community on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi. It's empty.