Wed. Jul 3rd, 2024
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Less than a month before it is set to host the World Cup final, Lusail City is oddly quiet.

Wide empty streets, idle lobbies and construction cranes are everywhere in the sleek district 20 kilometres north of the capital, Doha, built to accommodate World Cup fans and hundreds of thousands of the host nation’s residents.

a crane in the foreground, the curve of the crescent tower against the skyline in the background
The crescent-shaped skyscraper is designed to look like the curved swords on Qatar’s national emblem.(AP: Pavel Golovkin)

But with football’s biggest event underway, the empty futuristic city is raising questions about how much use the infrastructure Qatar built for the event will get, after more than a million soccer fans leave the small Gulf nation.

Elias Garcia, a 50-year-old business owner from San Francisco, visited Lusail City from Doha with a friend on a day when there wasn’t a game in the city’s bowl-shaped, golden stadium.

an aerial view of the Place Vendome mall, right, and Lusail plaza towers
The Place Vendome mall, right, and Lusail plaza towers.(AP: Pavel Golovkin)

“We came to check it out but there’s not much here,” Mr Garcia said, looking up at a huge crescent-shaped skyscraper designed to look like the curved swords on Qatar’s national emblem.

Across the street, a building site was concealed by a low fence illustrated with desert scenes.

“Everything looks like it’s under construction,” Mr Garcia added.

“It’s just empty lots with little walls they put up to make you think it’s up and running.”

Driving north from Doha, Lusail City’s glittering skyline and marina are hard to miss.

Pastel-coloured towers which look like crates stacked on each other rise from the desert.

A municipal worker is the only person visible on the street in downtown Lusail
Reaching its goal of housing 400,000 people in Lusail City could be tough in a country where only 300,000 people are citizens.(AP: Pavel Golovkin)

Wide avenues give way to zigzagging buildings, glass domes and clusters of neoclassical housing blocks.

It’s unclear if anyone lives in them.

Most are advertised as luxury hotels, apartments or commercial office space.

Cranes hang above many buildings.

A woman feeds birds in a street cafe under white umbrellas
A woman feeds birds in a street cafe at Lusail Marina Corniche.(AP: Pavel Golovkin)

Plans for Lusail City had been around since 2005 but construction was fast-tracked after Qatar won the rights to host the World Cup five years later.

Backed by Qatar’s $US450 billion ($666.8 billion) sovereign wealth fund, the city was designed to be compact and pedestrian friendly and is connected by Doha’s new metro and a light rail.

Fahad Al Jahamri, who manages projects at Qatari Diar, the real estate company behind the city that’s backed by Qatar’s Investment Authority, has called Lusail City a self-contained “extension of Doha”.

A view of the Lusail plaza towers in Lusail downtown
A view of the Lusail plaza towers.(AP: Pavel Golovkin)

Officials have also said the city is part of broader plans that the natural gas-rich Qatar has to build its knowledge economy — an admission of the type of white-collar professionals the country hopes to attract to the city long-term.

But reaching its goal of housing 400,000 people in Lusail City could be tough in a country where only 300,000 people are citizens, and many of the 2.9 million residents are poor migrants who live in camps, not luxury towers.

Even during the World Cup, Lusail City is noticeably quieter than Doha, itself the site of jaw-dropping amounts of construction over the past decade, in preparation for the event.

A construction cite is seen in front of a building with a Germany's goalkeeper Manuel Neuer's portrait
A construction site overseen by Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer’s portrait.(AP: Pavel Golovkin)

At the Place Vendome, a luxury mall named for the grand Parisian square, many stores are not yet open.

A few tourists snapped pictures of Lusail City’s skyline on a recent afternoon from the mall while cashiers talked among themselves.

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