After a dreamy desert oasis

There are recent reports that Indians are fleeing the city-state in the thousands, apparently leaving their luxury cars—with keys in the ignition—strewn about the airport’s parking garage.

Long heralded as a financial oasis, Dubai has been called the exceptional Gulf powerhouse, harnessing the fruits of capitalism to pursue wondrous construction and generate unheard of wealth for its inhabitants. Compared with rent-seeking oil-rich states such as Saudi Arabia, it has certainly seemed enlightened.

But economic recession has changed all of that. With the bust of Dubai’s construction boom and strict debtor’s laws, Indians—and other immigrants—are fleeing what was once a desert paradise. Dubai, it seems, has become an Asian Iceland: A land of opportunity has collapsed almost overnight.

And now, its inhabitants are fleeing this desert wasteland for greener pastures.

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