FEATURE: Man-made island not attracting Maldivians

A girl swings at a playground in Hulhumale, Maldives, on Jan. 11. PHOTO: AP

Running out of space in its crowded capital, this republic of 1,200 islands thought it had a can't-miss solution: Build another island.

Planners weren't discouraged when people started eating the freshly planted palm saplings, or called the new island an ugly misfit among the picture-perfect beaches of their Indian Ocean archipelago. One day, they told themselves, the new island called Hulhumale would have it all: leafy streets, an artificial beach, a marina for megayachts, a luxury hotel and an entertainment strip.

Flash-forward a decade. Standing amid the empty, wind-swept expanse of crushed coral lots, the man charged with creating the island, Mahjoob Shujau, observes: "We all have hopes, we all have dreams."

And, as the 39-year-old bureaucrat knows all too well, there's also reality.

"We built it, but the people, they are not coming," he says.

Considered sleepy even by the standards of this relatively slow-paced nation, Hulhumale has attracted only about 5,000 people -- plus a few donated cows -- since the first houses went up in 2003. That's far fewer than the 150,000 planners say could fit into the 188-hectare island.

But the story of Hulhumale is no mere tale of thwarted government dreams; it's a snapshot of a society in flux: a once poor and traditional society struggling to cope with an influx of tourism dollars and urbanization -- challenges such as overcrowding and unemployment not heard of here just 20 years ago.

Most of the Maldives' 360,000 people are scattered among some 200 islands, often fewer than 1,000 to an island with little to do apart from fishing.

The young and ambitious head for Male -- the little country's big city, which can be crossed on foot in about 30 minutes beach-to-beach. Its pastel apartment blocks, modern mosques, office towers and late-night alcohol-free cafes give Male the feel of a Muslim Miami Beach. The few who can afford sports cars cruise the streets but traffic rarely moves past 30kph. One reason to stay out late is there's often no room at home.

The capital's population has nearly doubled to more than 100,000 in the past decade, making it one of the world's most crowded cities. Space is so scarce that the yearly rent on a two-bedroom apartment is often more than triple the average per capita income of US$2,700.

Ibrahim Ali, a 26-year-old store clerk who moved here from a remote atoll six years ago, shares a room with eight other young men. They sleep in shifts. Ali is precisely the kind of person officials thought would move to Hulhumale, where rents are about 30 percent cheaper and there's plenty of space.

So why not move?

"It's too dead over there, man! There's nothing to do," he says.

But the island does have its fans. Ramiz Mustafa, 40, bought a three-bedroom apartment in Hulhumale four years ago.

Sure, the island is "ugly," he says. But "it is a good investment, the best in the Maldives" because it's been built high enough to withstand rising seas, he says.

But if the worst-case global warming scenarios come true, Hulhumale, too, could find itself under water by the end of the century.