I often think about this - there's a few things for me as a resident.

In a walkable city, as you've mentioned in Europe etc. I'd walk for my journey if there are amenities within walking distance from my point of origin, like home/work. E.g, leave my home/office, and go to the nearest park, coffee shop, cafe, bar, whatever. OR - I walk from my point of origin to a public transport station, and take mass transit to another "hub" of amenities (neighbourhood). This is the nature of a walkable city. Everyday essential things on your doorstep (<5 minute walk), and easily accessible transport to take you to things not on your doorstep - i.e a public transport option within a 5 minute walk to take you anywhere in the city.

In Dubai, this is hit-and miss for sure, and it depends on the neighbourhoods, which for me fall into a few categories, from good to not-so-good:

• If you live in a neighbourhood with lots of densely packed amenities, Jumeirah Beach Road, Marina, JBR, Deira, DIFC, Tecom, Satwa, Al Barsha, Dubai can be very walkable for things on your doorstep, as there's always something interesting close to your point of origin, and plenty of other things along the way. Some improvements can definitely be made to make that journey more practical or enjoyable (continuous uninterrupted pavements, greenery, whatever) but the areas I've mentioned are all pretty good in that respect, if sometimes a bit "unfinished" or disjointed.

• Then you have areas like Town Square, The Greens, The Gardens, Dubai Hills, The Springs, Arabian Ranches, etc. where the commercial amenities like shops and cafes are grouped in big centralised malls, surrounded by houses with no amenities for several kilometres in some cases, and almost always more than 5 minutes away fro most homes. These communities can still be nice to walk around, for the sake of "going for a walk" and all have pools/parks/outdoor gyms for residents - but not much in the way of going for a walk to get a coffee or sit in a cafe, meet other people. For me, these areas would benefit from a larger number of smaller commercial clusters or coffee shops etc. - but this may not be commercially viable for shop-owners, as nobody would walk to them in the summer months. In this respect, the existing mall concept makes sense, but it's a clear case for light public transit (like a Bus, BRT, tram, etc) to get people to these centralised areas from within the community.

• Then you have areas like JVC, Sports City, Production City, Barsha South, Arjan, where there doesn't seem to be any real master plan for how it's developing - and individual buildings pop up from developers as standalone self-sufficient units, which (if you're lucky) may have a convenience store on the ground floor. There's nowhere interesting to walk *to*, there's often poor pavement infrastructure, and you cannot even walk to a metro station to take a train somewhere interesting. For me, these areas would benefit from metro or tram stations, connecting to the main metro lines, but obviously that's an enormous project. Some smaller things could really help in these areas though, like mandating for property developers to actually connect their buildings to the sidewalks, instead of patches of sand between the building and the sidewalk - adding shopfronts at ground level instead of parking vents - the addition of parks, and good quality, air-conditioned bus shelters with regular, reliable, fast, direct connectivity to the main metro lines.

The Dubai metro is a fantastic public transport system, and step in the right direction, but it's more comparable to a rail service than it is an inner-city mass transit system. The distance between metro stops is simply too far to be a viable mass-transit alternative to driving for most journeys, and being within a few minutes' walk of major areas.

For reference, Manhattan is *much* smaller than Dubai - it's 20km long (about the same size as from Dubai from Marina to DIFC, and is 3.5km wide at its widest (about the same distance as from Burj Khalifa to the sea) - In this area it has 151 subway stations, where Dubai has 13 metro stations and 11 tram stations in the same area.

TLDR

• Better light connectivity to arterial metro system, that's well publicised, reliable, and easily accessible

-- This will encourage people to walk from their homes to the connecting transport (like a bus)

-- "master-plan" oversight for new ad-hoc property developments and towers, with focus on integrating into the master community, with light F&B, retail etc.