Is this true - that the Palm Island in Dubai never got completed or finished until now due to being hit by the 2008 global financial crisis? https://youtube.com/shorts/xS8Ktc7D3NU?si=XXh0GJ5jCukV3ss9

**Verdict: The claim is only half-true.** • Palm Jumeirah—the iconic palm-shaped island photographed around the world—was largely completed, populated and open to tourists well before the 2008 crash and has been expanding ever since. • Two sister projects, Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Deira (now “Dubai Islands”), were indeed put on ice by the global financial crisis and therefore remain unfinished, although both were relaunched recently. --- ### What actually happened | Island | Pre-crisis progress | Impact of the 2008 crisis | Where things stand today | |--------|--------------------|---------------------------|--------------------------| | **Palm Jumeirah** | • Land reclamation finished 2006 • First villas handed over 2006 • Atlantis The Palm resort opened Sept 2008 | Construction on many individual hotel plots slowed, but the overall island was already functional, so work resumed in 2010–12 | Home to 80 000+ residents and 30-plus hotels/resorts; only a few parcels remain to be built | | **Palm Jebel Ali** | Reclamation about 50 % complete, sales underway | Project mothballed in 2009; investors offered swaps/refunds | Relaunched in 2023 with a new master-plan that envisages 80+ hotels and 110 km of coastline; first villas re-sold in 2024 | | **Palm Deira → “Dubai Islands”** | Reclamation of an even larger “palm” started 2004 | Halted and later scaled down dramatically | Rebranded “Dubai Islands” in 2022; mixed-use plots and a handful of beachfront resorts now under construction | ### Why the YouTube short feels confusing 1. **One name, three very different projects.** Casual viewers often lump the three islands together as “the Palm,” so pauses on Jebel Ali and Deira are mistaken for failure of Jumeirah itself. 2. **Timing matters.** By the time global credit markets froze in late-2008, Palm Jumeirah was already selling homes and hosting visitors, whereas the other two palms still needed heavy capital outlays. 3. **Nakheel’s debt restructuring.** Palm developer Nakheel was taken over by Dubai World in late-2009, renegotiating ~$25 bn in liabilities. Priorities shifted to finishing income-producing assets first—hence the long hiatus on the bigger, riskier islands . ### Take-away for investors & the curious traveller • If you fly into Dubai today you **can stay, live or invest** on Palm Jumeirah without worrying that it is “unfinished.” • Palm Jebel Ali and Dubai Islands are effectively **second-generation mega-projects**: they illustrate how Dubai dusted itself off after the crisis and is once again betting on high-end tourism and luxury real estate, but completion is still years away. So, enjoy your next brunch on Palm Jumeirah with confidence—just remember that the two larger palms are still a work-in-progress, a legacy of the 2008 financial storm rather than proof that the first Palm ever failed.