The view was like something out of a science fiction movie. A veritable forest of massive cranes, spanning as far as the eye could see, each one attending to futuristic monsters of concrete and steel, rising up toward the heavens like fi ngers reaching for God. Lush greenery interspersed with sweeping glades of sand, man-made fountains and waterfalls and beaches mingling with twenty-fi rst-century roads, bridges, and tunnels. Camels on dirt paths just twenty yards from Ferraris on superhighways, Arabic men and women in traditional robes and burkas strolling past Europeans in Armani suits and the latest fashions of the Parisian runways. London was cosmopolitan; this was simply another planet altogether
