Born in the desert and soon became an inexhaustible crossroads of the global grand tour, Dubai has evoked in more than one commentator the image of a new Babylon, referring generally to the multiplicity of nationalities that populate it and to the increasingly surprising performances of its urban image and its lifestyles.
The contribution illustrates the development of shopping centers as new centralities, taking particular inspiration from the case of Rome, where the phenomenon has strongly characterized the settlement development in the last fifteen years. The new Master Plan, approved in 2008, has in fact provided many centralities according to a policy of polycentrism and the redevelopment of the suburbs. In reality, these centralities have been mainly reduced to large shopping malls with attached residential areas.
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