ABSTRACT
Dubai’s 2009 economic kneecapping brought the emirates their first taste of unwelcome publicity. Of course, Dubai’s faltering real-estate economy was not unlike the housing collapse witnessed elsewhere in the world. It may seem exceptional, but only because of the tawdry development scale and its affluent neighbour in Abu Dhabi, its cash-rich cousin offering handy emancipation in exchange for naming rights of Dubai’s newest prized possession, the world’s first half-mile-tall skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa.
