Shopaholics of the world are in for a super-sized fix as the city that is the home of 21st century superlatives adds not just one, nay two “shopping-est” to its list of epithets. Dubai, having construction already underway on the world’s largest shopping mall, has just made a move to one-up itself in matters retail. In early May, a state-owned development company announced it will start building the “world’s largest shopping area.” It is to be a stretch of retail with shops upon malls upon hotels in a continuous commercial carnival called Bawadi –— offering, in total, 3.7 million square meters of retail space. The Bawadi development was, until the retail announcement, a 10-kilometer road lined with 51 hotel projects located within the huge Dubailand development that covers a total of 278 square kilometers (equal to about a quarter of the size of Greater London or over five times the
