Desert Paradises: Surveying the Landscapes of Dubai's Urban Model explores how designed landscapes can play a vital role in constructing a city's global image and legitimizing its socio-political hierarchy. Using the case study of Dubai, Bolleter explores how Dubai's rulers employ a paradisiacal image of greening the desert, in part, as a tool for political legitimization.

Bolleter also evaluates the designed landscapes of Dubai against the principles of the United Nations and the International Federation of Landscape Architects and argues that what is happening in Dubai represents a significant discrepancy between theory and practice.

This book offers a new perspective on landscape design that has until now been unexplored. It would be beneficial to academics and students of geography, landscape architecture, urban design and urban planning – particularly those with an interest in Dubai or the many cities in the region that are experiencing Dubaiification.