That's not even going into their de facto slavery with foreign construction workers, environmental damage, and sexism.
I'm 6 ft 6 and I have a blonde wife who's just a bit smaller. Even though we behaved very polite and dressed like locals it was like we had a big target on our backs and were looked upon with resentment everywhere we went.
I will not mention the countries we visited but it was pretty much the same everywhere.
They're working on it. The situation has improved. There's a long way to go, but there's progress. Give it a 100 more years.
> dressed like locals
Please don't do that. It just looks weird when foreigners do it. Just wear what you would normally wear in your western country. (Although, a bikini is probably not a good idea).
> were looked upon with resentment everywhere we went.
I've lived in USA for a while. Although people were generally very friendly, I have definitely been looked at with resentment from America for no good reason.
Then the sand will consume it.
I predict it will be a fascinating ghost city, almost like a bizarro-pyramids/sphinx/etc.
So they've diversified into other businesses. It's now a hub of business activities that have nothing to do with oil.
Global warming — yes that's a problem, but Dubai won't be the only place affected by it.
War — what makes you think there'll be a war? Whatever it is, it's just speculation at this point. As long as a certain war-o-phile country doesn't decide to flatten it.
decay — huh?! What decay?!
> Then the sand will consume it.
Sandman!
Dubai is so recently and explosively settled, you may not understand what I mean by decay. Cities evolve, change, decay, and hopefully renew. Dubai is a product of aggressive investment/subsidy by the royalty, directly or not. Parts of the city will decline. Aspects of the city will decline. Decay is inevitable, it's entropy. Cities are like life: they must actively renew themselves or they fade.
Dubai also is basically a modern slave labor state. How long will that persist? It seems untenable in the long term. Either the slave labor will leave or dry up, or rebel.
Dubai is attached to the oil age. It's excesses, abuses, etc are forgiven by the world elite because of the flow of oil money. That is going to end. Demand is going to PLUMMET worldwide as EVs displace first consumer transport, then local goods delivery, then long haul ground transport. Somewhere in the middle of "consumer transport" and "local goods delivery" the demand will drop by such a large and extended amount that the price won't really be profitable anymore.
Diversification is obviously the aim, and while this isn't authoritative, I've seen this in action with the bizarre satellite/branch universities Saudi Arabia paid various western universities to set up. Just because you throw money at it doesn't mean it sticks. Those universities couldn't find the people that would do the work of academia beyond the usual bullshit of rubber stamp diplomas that universities currently make sausage with.
The sand will consume it. Dubai has to actively keep sand dunes away. If that stops, and what if a section of a city decays and isn't work keeping the dunes away? Yes, the sand will "consume" it.
The oil kings are attempting the "pivot". They are fat, lazy, and unmotivated.