Second Quarter | 2023

The Dubai of 2008 was high beta, buoyed by global booms and significantly damaged by collapses. The Dubai of 2023 is not that fragile. This Think Piece is a personal one, drawing on fifteen years of living in the city to set out how the trade-offs of choosing Dubai over a western city have shrunk. Restaurants, schools, healthcare, government services, legal reform and housing have all improved, and in some areas now match or exceed western cities, while the same one-bedroom apartment rents for less now than in 2008. Cities are about labour markets, and the shrinking trade-offs are strengthening Dubai's. We believe Dubai is increasingly long volatility: a city that benefits from global economic and political uncertainty rather than suffering from it. One of us moved to Dubai in 2008 intending to stay a year, and is still here.