I say of Dubai that it is a live Sim City game played by His Highness Sheik Mohammed. I used to be fascinated by this game when I was a teenager. 

Dubai is really like that: imagine the deserts, the Arabian Gulf and some camels here and there. This is your land. Now you have money, coming from the oil resources (another game I loved was Richesses du Monde – Wealth of the World). And you can invest it in the country. 

So you first set up some high rises, a haven (Jebel Ali), an airport, some hotels. You then have cheap labor come from neighboring countries, create occasions for tourists to come like the shopping festival and Jumeirah Beach white sand resorts, and finally bridge the gap between the Far East and the West by creating Media City, Internet City, and a soon to be Financial Marketplace (DIMF). 

I mean it must be amazing to see Dubai from the air, see the sand of the west, a growing layer of developed land and the water to the east.

This is Dubai, create the supply, the demand will follow and forget about economic rules.