Fast-growing Dubai overrun with cranes

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

The frantic growth is the fruit of oil-rich investors plowing record profits into luxury real estate in this liberal and cosmopolitan city. Dubai now groans under some $200 billion in projects that are either under way or slated to begin shortly, said Colin Foreman, a Gulf construction expert with Middle East Economic Digest.

Binder believes there are between 1,100 and 1,200 tower cranes in the Emirates, mainly in Dubai, which is roughly 5 to 10 percent of the world's active tower cranes -- one of three varieties used in construction. Dubai harbors many thousands more mobile cranes and crawler cranes -- those on wheels or tracks.

Impressive growth.