In fast-changing Dubai, once-isolated village to be razed

By ISABEL DEBRE
Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The bulldozers have come for one of the last bastions of “old” Dubai, an eclectic collection of homes built in the late 1970s for European port workers when the exuberance of today’s Dubai was unthinkable. Jebel Ali Village, the neighborhood near Dubai’s major port, is a relic of another time and increasingly rare refuge for its expat residents. Even as Dubai has transformed around them, they still amble along quiet roads and play Christmas bingo with neighbors. Now the state-owned property developer Nakheel plans to make the rustic place a gleaming, upscale gated community. Residents are devastated. For many, the village is a living timeline of Dubai’s recent past.