And the oil that fed

Behold more ruins of the economic crisis: Dubai, on the edge.

construction has ceased on half the unfinished towers that stretch out into the desert. Eighty per cent of the population of Dubai are passing migrants who are there, like gold-diggers of old, only for the cash. The cash is going and so are they, leaving expensive cars in the street and at the airport, many fleeing possible imprisonment for debt.

The article begins by evoking Ozymandias, but contains a more contemporary reference point for doomful ruins:

Consider, meanwhile, the city of Detroit. Here was another that rose on the shore of an inland sea...

(thanks to Jesse Walker)

Comments

[Steve B]

"The Doom That Came To Detroit".

[Ed Webb]

Dubai is/was out at the bleeding edge of early 21st century global capitalism, so the chickens come home to roost there in particularly large numbers and are rapidly burying the place in guano.

[Bryan Alexander]

Nicely Ech-Pi-El'd, @Steve B.

Is it on the leading edge for the Middle East petrostates, @Ed Webb?

[Ed Webb]

Bryan, yes indeed, in this respect - Dubai is/was the region's Singapore, all about the entrepot trade, a node in the global nexus of flows of goods, services, labor. It has been trying to diversify from a purely petro-derived economy into other sectors, mainly services, mainly niche - 7 star hotel, Islamic banking, etc. Apart from construction, though, no-one actually makes anything there or does anything concrete - the last few pearl fishers excepted. It's all virtual economy stuff. And now the furriners are fleeing (those who can) and the glitzy-buildings-to-be project from the desert stands like so many monuments to the global capitalism that was. Look on my works, ye mighty...