Masdar “eco-city” is getting its first 500 homes

Masdar is taking decisive steps to build Masdar City’s first private homes. Adding to existing and planned educational, retail and business facilities just outside of Abu Dhabi, the 500 new house promise to be “super sustainable” and ready within the next two years. During our last tour of Masdar City, a fellow American journalist said she respected Masdar’s efforts to build a highly sustainable community, but criticized the fact that there are never any people there.

Despite the Masdar Institute buildings, the state-of-the-art Incubator Building, a small solar field, cutting edge research, not to mention Masdar’s various global renewable energy breakthroughs, many visitors to Masdar have insinuated that the initiative is somehow flawed because there aren’t very many people there now.

There are other complaints, including the relative inaccessibility of Masdar City from Abu Dhabi, the capital, where the action is taking place.

But every new initiative takes time, especially starting from scratch as Masdar has done, so it comes as no surprise that the group smartly developed a certain amount of infrastructure before bringing in hordes of residents. Now they’re ready and we’re very excited to see the outcome.

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Masdar “eco-city” is getting its first 500 homes – finally!