Why it looks like this

The old city is at Dubai Creek: Deira on one side, Bur Dubai on the other, wind-tower houses and souks facing each other across the water where dhows still moor. That was essentially all of Dubai until oil and trade money arrived in the 1960s.

Then the city chose a direction and ran: development poured southwest along Sheikh Zayed Road toward Abu Dhabi, creating a linear city of towers tens of kilometres long, one block deep in places. Offshore, the Palm Jumeirah and other artificial islands added entirely new street patterns drawn in sand.