When people think of Dubai, the first things that usually come to mind are the tallest, the largest or even the smallest. Yet nestled between the superlatives and the pre-fabricated wind towers that remind the city of its humble beginnings, is a street that time forgot.

The cabbage-patched street runs right through the heart of Jumeira 1 and is lined with villas that were once the homes of Dubai’s middle-class families. They now lie abandoned, silently awaiting their rebirth as something more ostentatious. Perhaps another shopping mall.