Lamenting The Late Great Dubai

The Times of London ran a fascinating piece this morning detailing the colossal economic bust besetting the United Arab Emirates's City of Dubai.

[Link]

The piece underscores the misadventures of British investors who saw profits dry up faster than an Obama jobs plan. With the lion's share of the Dubai economy rooted in tourism and financial services, the global recession caused the City of Dubai and it's entire emitlrate to take a major hit. Today, the bulk of it's burgeoning skyline remains untenanted, making the world's tallest building, quite literally, an empty shell.

From my position, what makes the situation sad, aside from the obvious debt, poverty and latent social costs, is the ghost of what might have been.

By most accounts, Dubai was positioning itself to become a moderate oasis in an alarmingly extremist Islamic world. Specifically, its cultivation of religious tolerance was a model for other Islamic countries, and its concerted effort at attracting tourists had situated it to become a travel destination for the region, and the world.

Consider that in Dubai, there were no religious police trolling the streets as in Iran. There were no Taliban combing the hillsides as in Afghanistan. And there were certainly no faux murder trials to get back at promiscuous Americans as in Italy.

Simply put, unlike the places above, Dubai was a fairly civilized, Western-friendly place. A town where investor dollars, euros, and pounds were all welcome with equal affection.

Given the seeming dearth of such places in the Middle East, Dubai's loss may now be the world's loss too.

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