Inside District 2020: The city you’ve never heard of

A mysterious new city is being built in the United Arab Emirates and while it looks like a pipe dream, it’s based on a 170-year old legacy.

How do you create a brand new city?

A place that will attract 25 million visitors within six months. A hub for the world’s greatest innovation and technological feats. A home to representatives from 192 countries around the world. And eventually, home to a million residents.

It sounds like the world’s greatest pipe dream – but these are the ideas all coming to life right now, for what’s dubbed the world’s greatest show.

From October this year, Dubai hosts Expo2020 for six months, the New Zealand Herald reports.

Authorities from Expo2020 are in New Zealand and Australia this week helping build up the hype and contracting ticket resellers.

One of the ‘districts’ for the Expo2020 World Expo in Dubai.

It will be the largest world fair in history, with 192 countries confirming their participation, including New Zealand. Each country will be set up under one of three themes – Sustainability, Mobility or Opportunity.

Over the course of the six month Expo, 25 million people are expected to visit, of which 70 per cent are predicted to be from outside the UAE.

When Dubai was announced as host back in 2013, it was a historic moment for the United Arab Emirates, as it is the first time the Expo is being hosted by an Arab nation.

There are high expectations for the event, which has been around since 1851. Previous world fairs such as France’s 1889 Exposition Universelle left us with the Eiffel Tower, still as iconic more than a century on.

The dome for Expo2020 has dual projector screens and is big enough to park two jumbo jets inside.

And there’s usually an innovative new product revealed that will inevitably change the face of the future; past events saw the debut of the television, X-ray machines, the ice-cream cone and even the first mobile phone.

There’s little doubt as to whether the wealthy Arab nation can host such a celebration of brilliance. When Expo2020 opens, the main dome at the centre of the space, Al Wasl Plaza, will be big enough to park to A380 jumbo jets in the dome. But once the tourists are gone, what will be left?

THE KNOWLEDGE CITY

A 40-minute drive from Dubai, District 2020 is the purpose-built location for Expo2020, which will be later be reconfigured as part of the masterplanned city Dubai South, a smart, sustainable city aiming to eventually become home to a million residents and 400,000 job opportunities.

District 2020 promises to be full of innovative and immersive experiences, futuristic thinking and problem solving, and of course Dubai’s trademark razzle dazzle. The Expo site itself is about the size of 400 cricket pitches.

After the exhibition, the site will be decommissioned, with some areas to be dismantled. But much of the concept will remain as it transforms from a visitor experience to a home, with residential and commercial opportunities.

From 2022, it will effectively be like a new city.

The accommodation for those working during Expo2020 is to become residential lodging. Eighty per cent of the infrastructure will remain, while rest areas, parks and green spaces will all be created to help support residential growth.

The Sustainability Hub will become the Children’s Science Centre and the Mobility Hub will become corporate offices.

If any nation is capable of achieving such architectural feats, it’s Dubai; home to Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building (until Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Tower knocks it off its perch), Palm Islands, the biggest man-made islands in the world, and Burj Al Arab, the world’s first 7-star hotel.

Dubai’s capital expenditure into the event is $10.1 billion. Over its six months duration, Expo2020 is expected to increase GDP by 1.5 per cent, according to an independent report by Ernst & Young.

Expo2020 authorities believe it’s a masterclass in terms of how to do a mega event.

Director of Destination Marketing Sumanthi Ramanathan, describes it as the Olympics of culture, innovation and technology.

Dubai was announced as the host for the 2020 World Expo in 2013.

Thousands of trees are also to be planted, and food waste from the event will be turned into fertiliser. “It’s a celebration of human brilliance,” she says. “Our aim is to deliver the world’s most sustainable Expo ever.”

Australia’s pavilion explores the topic of mobility under the theme “Blue Sky Dreaming”. It’s an immersive experience tracking 60,000 years of Australian innovation.

New Zealand, which announced its decision to partake in April 2017, is spending $50.9 million to build a pavilion at the site, under the theme “Care for People and Place”.

THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW BEGAN AT A WORLD EXPO

Disneyland

Three Walt Disney attractions, including the tiny amusement ride It’s a Small World, began as exhibitions at New York’s 1964 world fair.

Dinosaurs

Well, the dinosaurs were already a thing, but the concept that giant extinct animals roamed the earth was not widely known until an exhibition of “life sized” sculptures were created for the 1852 Crystal Palace world fair in London.

Melbourne’s Carlton Gardens

The World Heritage-listed Melbourne Royal Exhibition Building and Melbourne Museum were built as the first world’s fair in the southern hemisphere.

Melbourne hosted a World’s fair in 1880 — the first in the southern hemisphere.

The Paris Skyline

Gustave Eiffel’s famous tower is perhaps the most recognisable legacy of the world expo. However, seven successive world fairs in the French capital have given it a number of famous sights such as the Grand Palais and the Pettit Palais.

The Olympics

The second Summer Olympic Games was held as part of the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. After the success of the Athens games in 1896, much of what we recognise as the international sports event today was invented as a side show for the World’s Fair.

This article originally appeared on the New Zealand Herald and was reproduced with permission