Looking back at Dubai

After my trip to UAE last year, I had written about my experience in Dubai. I didn't like the city at all. Even apart from the heat, there are a lot of things about the place that I absolutely disliked. Like the tons of things about the city that spell out artifical in big, bold letters everywhere. I was in Dubai for just one day, spending the rest of the time in slightly better Ras-al-Khaimah, but even that one day was enough for me to realize that Dubai would be one of the last cities in the world that I would want to work and live at.

The reason I am bringing this up almost a year after the trip again is this article I came across today. Even otherwise, I have been coming across stories of how the Dubai dream has soured for a lot of expats over the last few months. And some of the stories are quite shocking. If it doesn't go down in this downturn, at least in the long run I don't think the Dubai model is sustainable. Either its debt burden, or the bigger ecological burden, would do it apart.

Of course, in the long run, nothing is sustainable, so we probably don't need to bother.