Dubai and the Master Plans

For the outside onlooker Dubai is the city that arose miraculously from the desert sands, developing from a little spot on the map into a sparkling metropolis in the mere span of roughly 60 years. Today the city of Dubai has roughly 3 million inhabitants.
It is not quite as simple though and I was astonished when in April the new Dubai Master Plan 2040 for urban development was announced to the public, since I had never heard anything about it.  This led me to dig a bit and I was surprised to find that this was already the seventh Master plan all in all. 

But first a bit of history, since the outside world often likes to overlook that Dubai did not only come into existence with the building of the Burj Khalifa and the Palm Jumeirah and the onslaught of influencers who seemingly can not get enough glitzy shots in front of even glitzier interiors. 

Dubais history goes back to at least the 1820s when the now sparkling city really only was a mud hut town. But obviously it fast became important as a mercantile city in the region and started growing already then, soon being of interest for the British to keep the trade in the region under control. By 1920 the sheikhs signed a contract, declaring that upon oil discovery, concessions would only be extended to British entities. This happened in 1966 and the British sought cheap labour from India and Pakistan, adding to the diversity of an already astonishingly diverse city population. The British then left the power over to the sheikhs by the end of the 60s due to anti-colonial movements, rather keeping a positive relationship with the emirates and thereby not risking the profitable exploitation of oil. This enabled the foundation of the United Arab Emirates in 1971. So in short, this is a story of economical success, first of being an important trading town and refuge for many immigrants from Persia and Afghanistan, among others, and then due to the discovery of oil that the Europeans were so keen on exploiting.
I recommend reading the concise summary in the OpEds from Dubaization. 

These developments lead however to the idea of developing the town with the help of Master plans. The first of its kind was presented 1960 and developed by John Harris on the initiative of Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum (John Harris - Dubai's Master Planner 1960s-70s). The goal of the plan was to establish an infrastructure of roads but also facilities like schools and hospitals. On a positive not it did not aim to obliterate the historical districts of Shindagha, Bur Dubai, Al Faheidi and Deira but rather expanded the city with new areas, designated to specific uses like industry, commerce and residential quaters. Still today there is indeed a constant thrive visible in the city to keep a connection to its history and heritage alive and present. But the plan soon proofed to be insufficient as it could not keep up with the actual growth of population. New plans followed and especially in the The Dubai Structural Plan also incorporated concepts for green corridors, connections to the water, and other sustainable features (The failure of the Master Plan). Again, the city grew faster than anticipated, making the plan in parts obsolete. This also lets Dubai still be a socially highly segregated city despite at least in theory aiming to become more integrated. 

The Master Plan 2020 was presented in 2011 and addressed part of the challenges for a modern city. It aimed to improve walkability and possibilities for cycling as well as putting greater emphasize on public transport. The Dubai Metro is constantly being build out, Dubai Marina features a convenient tram system and is graced with a paved walk way, the bus system is actually also quite convenient. Still, one cannot overlook the smaller and bigger misses in the planing of these facilities and the constant priorisation of cars. Having lived here for six months I do have a certain sympathy for the preference of cars. There is indeed nothing more convenient in 40 to 50 degree Celcius heat than going from your ac'd home to your ac'd car to then deboarding it elegantly and unsweaty at your equally ac'd destination point.
But at the same time - coming from Stockholm, were the interconnection of different transport systems as well as the equal accessibility for both cars, walkers and cyclist (though there is much left to do for cyclists) to the city is quite good, Dubai undoubtfully has flaws and is very car-centric. The distances to the Metro stations are enorm and so far they are not conveniently connected to bus lines or other means of public transport. While I adore the long, air conditioned skywalks to and from the stations and the ever clean and convenient trains by themselves one is still missing that last hint of convenience and time-effectiveness when getting to and from the stations.  
Also: climate change and the need for modified urban spaces!!! 

Now the Master Plan 2040 promises to solve all this and even more. It promises the improvement of resource utilisation, to provide sustainable and flexible means of transportation, and enhance environmental sustainability. What excited me the most was the ambitious goal to let nature reserves and rural natural areas constitute 60 per cent of the emirate’s total area and that the length of public beaches will increase by 400 per cent. Again, coming from Sweden where nature is accesibel to everybody by the Right of Public Access (Allemansrätten, at least so far), accesiblity to natural environments indepentendly from your income status are a basic human right in my opinion. So I really hope that the Emirate of Dubai will be able to fullfil its ambitious goals and does not once again get outpaced by the exponential growth of its population. 

Falling of the horse...

 ... and getting back on again. 

Since we arrived in Dubai I had the luxury of reducing my work load significantly. This gave me finally the time and space to look a bit after myself, mainly by slowly starting to work-out again. The last 7, 8 years (ugh) I was only able to every now and then squeeze in two or three weeks of regular training until the next wave of workload, family activities or some sort of stress was putting me off it again. 
And while I always enjoyed a rather slim frame, I am not going to ly to you: muscle loss above the age of 35 is real! 

Now, for me, when I want to keep my shape, it is not at all about weight. I ditched looking at the scales nearly twenty years ago and pretty much rely on my body feeling. Having gone through some very light weight shifts and four pregnancies during my life, I know quite precisely how much I weigh just by looking at the mirror. But what normally gives me more of a headache is when I loose my muscle toning. And I am not talking about very visible muscle toning, just a normal, healthy balance between muscle and fat. Besides this,  it is mostly about staying fit. Fit in the sense that I want to be able to do the bicycle tour with my kids, go on that hike, be able to climb up on something or put in a spontaneous sprint whenever needed without dying after a mere fraction of the activity because of lack of force, endurance or flexibility. In short, I want to be a physically functional person and the older you get the more effort it takes to keep these abilities. 

Additionally to all that I am hopeless when it comes to putting myself first. The curse of a traditional upbringing, so to speak. I will put everyone and everything in front of my needs in the hope to then have the "freedom" (read: time) to do something for myself. It is no surprise that it does not work like that, sometimes some things have to give. 

After a successful start with quite regular "training" - which could consist of a sharp, long walk (I despise jogging, sorry, always did), some weight lifting, some light yoga and some short HIIT-workouts at home, I managed to step up my game for nearly a months with the help of an online plattform that I discovered, specifically targeted on women. The workouts are pretty tough and a challenge but also very effective and I was doing great progress for three weeks. And then it happened again! Despite  having a lesser workload, lesser extracurriculum activities to take care of for the kids (since they are mostly incorporated in school) and in general a more relaxed life, I felt stressed out, had some hormonal roller-coaster going on, bad sleep and - stopped training for a good 10 days.
The last 3 of these 10 days I managed to put my schedule in such a way that - despite wanting to start again - it was literally impossible because I had planed times so badly for meals and activities. Talk about messing up for oneself. Nagging in the back of my mind was the fear that all the work I had put in so far would be in vain and I had to start over - again. It needs a good level of fitness to keep the results for a longer time without working out in my age and I am not there yet. Actually, I will have to put in a year of constant training to be able to put in a longer pause without loosing any of my gains. 

But yesterday I managed, I rolled out the yoga mat, put my dumbbells and my laptop in front of me, a big water bottle close by and started again. I did an express core workout of roughly 20 minutes, added some leg and gluts and arms and then I was done. And yes, I felt the pause of those 10 days but still the feeling of having gotten over all those hinders being back at it again: priceless. 

Vegan Versus Plant-Based

 This one has been going around in my head for a while now, especially since I recently dived into information and advices from different nutritionists and dieticians. One nutritionist caught my attention since she put so much effort on emphasizing PLANT-BASED over VEGAN, complaining that many of her clients were former vegans with major nutritional deficits and/or intestinal problems due to not eating enough fresh produce and the right balance of nutrients needed. 

This made me think about two things: my own use of the word "vegan" and it's true meaning. I would like to start with the true meaning. 

It should be commonly known that "Veganism" not only refers to a diet - because, ultimately, veganism is a certain diet - but that it extends to a whole lifestyle. A person who is vegan is in the classical sense somebody who avoids all animal products. This does not only encompass food and drinks but also clothing, cleaning products, health and beauty products, any sort of tools, appliances, utensils, in short: everything. A person with a vegan lifestyle is in the majority of cases heavily motivated by animal welfare and does not want to harm or utilize animals in any way. Also, classical vegans are in my experience very aware and conscious about the need for wholesomely cooked food, utilizing fresh produce over convenient/processed foods or even anything canned.
And this was were I got irritated about above mentioned nutritionist until I understood that during the last ten, twenty years being "vegan" has become such a trend, that people might dive into it without knowing or giving themselves the time to learn exactly what to do and how to do it. 

"Plant-based" referes in general to people who prefere eating fresh produce, plants, non-animalistic foods over the normal carnivore diet. This includes everything from people eating fish, beef and poultry to a lesser extend but quite regularly to people who might only eat seafood OR beef OR poultry once in a while but clearly in lesser amounts and intervalls than in the "average western diet". It also means to avoid processed foods as much as possible, cooking from scratch with a wide variety of produce. 

Now, with all the hype around meat replacement products, many people obviously do believe that they can continue eating as they are used to and simply replace animal products with some soy- or other plant-based replacement. I am sorry to break it to you but that is not how it works (of course). Doing that will mean that you deplete yourself of necessary nutrients really fast because it is very likely that your diet will lack diversity. I am now 1,5 years into my vegan diet and I am still learning about new foods and how I can heighten the intake of useful nutrients by varying our diet as much as possible with different grains, plants, pulses, mushrooms, and so on. It is highly interesting to me and at the moment I am a bit obsessed with the usage of silken tofu that can not only mimic a good scrambled egg but also works wonderfully as a base for sauces or -  cake frostings! Or the different mushrooms that give certain meals the chewy kind of texture and the umami-taste that one normally strives after when longing for a nice piece of meat while I am also looking into foods for gut-health and balancing blood-sugar levels and so on and so on...  

Lastly that made me reflect on my own usage of the word "vegan". 

I normally say that I am vegan which is sloppy.
I am on a vegan diet and although  I do strive to terminate all animal products I do still own (and buy) leather goods, for example. Why? Well, frankly, I do not see the point in replacing leather goods with non-biodegradable, mineral oil-based plastics because that is what many "vegan leathers" are made of. There are more plant-based vegan leathers coming onto the market, like cactus- and corn-leather. But one has to be carful that they are in the end also bio-degradable otherwise I am just continuing the vicious cycle (well, actually it is not a cycle, more a one-way street) of raw-material extraction and waste.
So, in correct terms I would need to say that I am on a plant-based diet instead, albeit one that excludes all animal products. Exceptions are made for my family: my husband sometimes craves the odd bite of seafood when eating out (like once every three months, if at all), my oldest daughter and two oldest sons will choose dishes with meat when at the restaurant, one of the sons has a metabolism in overdrive and is a picky-eater so if I only can make him eat a certain dish with adding some pieces of meat to it to make it more appealing, I will. My youngest though eats no animal-products at all (not only at home, so to speak) and thriving. This approach works for us.
Most importantly, I try to skip as much convenient, processed food as possible and the longer I am following this path, the easier it gets. It is a constant process of learning, understanding and then implementing. And it is extending to other things, having me brought to wanting to reduce drastically our use of plastic, chemicals and so on. The last think I kicked out of our household? Liquid hand-soaps. But that is another story.