Dubai provides answers to the expo legacy conundrum

▶ Expo 2020 will inspire visitors and provide a lasting legacy for the city and the country

When the Expo 2017 site closed yesterday in Astana, the baton was firmly passed to Dubai, the host city for the next world’s fair, Expo 2020. As The National reported, Expo 2017 was Kazhakstan’s opportunity to promote itself to the international community, albeit through what the Bureau International des Expositions refers to as a “specialised expo” rather than the more global affair that will open its doors in Dubai in three years’ time.

Two questions tend to get asked about any expo. The first is: why, more than 160 years since the first event was staged in London, do they still matter? The second is: how can any city, be it Shanghai, Milan or Dubai, ensure the exhibition site does not become an unused facility after the event ends?

Dubai has emphatically answered both questions. Expo matters because of the promise it provides to inspire visitors. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has talked about the profound impact the staging of the 1962 Expo in Seattle, his home town, had upon him when he was growing up. If the 2020 event can spur even a few young minds to greater enquiry and achievement, it will have fulfilled its purpose.

At Cityscape Global this week, further details of the legacy element of Expo 2020 will be unveiled. From the outset, Dubai has been focused on putting on a great show and ensuring the long-term future of the site. The event will deliver transport links that will be visible markers of legacy, but it is the softer indicators that are, arguably, even more interesting.

Once the World’s Fair moves on from Dubai, it will leave behind District 2020, an urban planning vision of sustainably built commercial and residential space. More than that, the exhibition is intended to stimulate SME growth. If Cityscape has always been an event where this country’s dream factory pumps out some of the more eye-catching building proposals around, District 2020 appears grounded in the commercial reality of creating a more prosperous future for the city and the country.