Mark Meek's Ideas: Kuwait

Kuwait City, which is the only city in the small country of Kuwait, was founded in 1613. It was once just a village. But being right at the end of the Persian Gulf, it grew into a rival of Basra, about 120 km or 80 miles north, for trade. Oil was discovered in Kuwait in 1937 and made the country extremely wealthy.

Kuwait deserves credit for avoiding what is known as the "Resource Curse" or "The Paradox Of Plenty". When a country is blessed (or cursed) with natural wealth, what often happens is the ruling powers will use that wealth to keep themselves in power and the average person in the country ends up being worse off than if there was no natural wealth.

In other words, corruption begins by having something to be corrupt with. The rulers of a country without natural wealth are more dependent on the will of the people to stay in power, and the country is thus more likely to be a democracy.

Kuwait is what could be called a constitutional monarchy. The Emir has come from the Al-Sabah Dynasty from the beginning. But there is a parliament, the National Assembly, with the power to remove the Emir if necessary. The apparent heir to the throne is the Crown Prince.

The Al-Sabahs avoided the uprisings of the Arab Spring and, at the time of this writing, the Kuwaiti Dinar is the most valued currency in the world. Image from the Wikipedia article "Kuwaiti Dinar".

The following scenes begin near the central city area of Kuwait City. The first seven images are from Google Street View.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >, After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.3733509,47.9720358,3a,75y,73.26h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipO8K2esKvdMXAxfNxN-A1qQCmVCKpokFEJfBSFi!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO8K2esKvdMXAxfNxN-A1qQCmVCKpokFEJfBSFi%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya161.49982609298223-ro0-fo100!7i13088!8i6544?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTEyNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Here is more of downtown Kuwait City. The first eight images are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.3820358,47.9901489,3a,75y,351.89h,120t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNDusEfOJ1HmQLAMmLMd60rIm6r62M6PZ27ORRr!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNDusEfOJ1HmQLAMmLMd60rIm6r62M6PZ27ORRr%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi-30-ya38.89224445312499-ro0-fo100!7i5760!8i2880?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTEyNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

No city in the world had made an art out of water towers like Kuwait City has. Water towers are what provides water pressure. Water is pumped up to the tower continuously and, when you turn your tap on, the gravity is what provides the water pressure. The level of water in the tower typically lowers during the day and refills at night. If you are in a cold climate, and wonder why the water in the tower doesn't freeze, it is because of this constant moving of the water. Water towers are sometimes still called standpipes. The three images of the water towers, and one with the view from the observation deck, are from Google Street View.