I was standing on the helipad of a new, swanky highrise apartment building in the Dubai Marina with my friend Vishul in the summer of 2006. We took in the panoramic, nighttime view of skyscrapers in the making, each capped with cranes lit red and white like so many giant Transformer action figures. Vishul, who'd grown up in Dubai, turned three hundred and sixty degrees and jokingly exclaimed, “This is the future!” And, until the global economic meltdown hit in late 2008, it probably was.