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Dubai's New Metro a Surprise Social Leveler

Rigid stratification breaks down underground, to delight of some

By Harry Kimball, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 20, 2009 11:24 AM CDT

(Newser) – It may or may not alleviate massive traffic jams of Mercedes and Hummers, but Dubai's new metro system is definitely loosening up the Emirate's rigidly stratified society. “No velvet rope or electrified security gate to keep out the masses,” Tom Hundley writes. “Privileged Emiratis suddenly find themselves in the unfamiliar position of competing for rush-hour seats with their Filipina housemaids.” Shocking, he notes, because Dubai is very cosmopolitan—only 17% are Emiratis—but nationalities rarely mix.

On the metro, there’s Gold Class, for upper-crust Emiratis, and a car for women and children. But the spirit of mass transit has conspired against segregation. “Most locals seem happy enough to mix it up with the rest of us,” Hundley writes on Global Post, and he witnessed two teen girls who “wouldn’t budge” when shooed into the women’s compartment. Even the ad campaign—“My City. My Metro.”—has a distinctly egalitarian ring to it. “If that notion takes root,” Hundley writes, “Dubai will have gained something far more valuable than a shiny new train set.”

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The Dubai metro. (AP Photo)

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I have also seen unexpected acts of chivalry: a man offers his seat to a young mother, for example. It is a normal courtesy on the London Tube or the Paris Metro perhaps, but here...the ordinary rituals of civility are not yet second nature. - Tom Hundley

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Dubai's New Metro a Surprise Social Leveler