Advantages and Disadvantages of ICAD
International City Abu Dhabi (ICAD) is labour city which is designed to serve as a residence for foreign workers coming to the UAE. It was built in 2011 and accommodates workers from different parts of the world: Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka. As any project, the city displays its advantages and disadvantages.
Here, a brief discussion of them is presented. One of the advantages of the ICAD is its affordability: it is a cheaper accommodation than hotels. Another advantage is the way the ICAD is designed and built complies with all labour standards adopted by the UAE. This is what positively distinguishes the ICAD from the early day’s labour camps which often lacked basic utilities. The ICAD also allows certain privacy to workers: foreign workers may not be comfortable with the UAE culture and in the ICAD they find a suitable retreat to pursue their activities in the way they would do in their home countries. Furthermore, the ICAD offers various infrastructural advantages: medical institutions, banks, shopping malls, cultural centers and business centers. It means that the workers have all necessary services nearby: they can call for medical assistance, cash their accounts, and buy the things they need or wish and so on.
There are, however, disadvantages. There are some regulations with which the workers have to comply and these regulations are not always convenient. For instance, under the ICAD regulations the workers are not allowed to bring food from outside: they may eat only the food cooked in the ICAD canteens. Since the tastes vary, the workers may not necessary find the canteen food appealing. To avoid the canteen food, the workers go outside the city walls and eat there. This is certainly an inconvenience to them.
Another disadvantage is that the ICAD is far away from the downtown Abu Dhabi. It has two major implications. The first one is that workers need transportation to get to their workplaces. They sometimes had to wait for transport under the sun. The second one is that they may feel excluded from the Abu Dhabi life. There are also some infrastructural problems. For instance, there are no ATMs within the ICAD. Also, there are problems with water. In general, despite aforementioned disadvantages, the ICAD is a good idea. It exercises important functions. First, it provides workers with commodities they need and they have right to. Second, it allows avoiding the inconvenience that may arise when workers are too close to residential areas inhabited by …
