Dubai isn't a very good example. If anything, it just serves as a example of the ignorance of the comments you were reading. By the time Reddit came into exist

Dubai isn't a very good example. If anything, it just serves as a example of the ignorance of the comments you were reading. By the time Reddit came into existence, Dubai already had an impressive skyline and had been well established as a thriving trading and business hub. It's also not in the middle of the desert. Dubai is a seaport on the Persian Gulf. Dubai was also a well-known city in the region long before the building of the skyline. The ghost cities, Myanmar's capital and the new planned Egyptian capital are examples of trying to invent a city inorganically from scratch.