‘Nobody walks in LA’, as that old Missing Persons song goes, and the same could be said about Dubai. At least, until the summer of 2008, when The Walk at JBR opened. The city’s first outdoor shopping and dining promenade was built to meet the needs of the 20,000 people living in the Jumeirah Beach Residence development, a cluster of 40 yellow towers wedged between the beach and Dubai Marina. But right from the start, The Walk’s attractive mix of over 300 largely family-friendly restaurants, cafes, shops, supermarkets and boutiques has also drawn scores of tourists and residents from other neighbourhoods. They come to stroll down the 1.7km stretch, watch the world on parade from a pavement cafe or to browse for knick-knacks at the Covent Garden Market. On Thursday and Friday nights, traffic slows to a crawl, letting you get a good look at all those shiny Ferraris, Maseratis and other fancy cars ploughing along here.