The Towering Dream of Dubai

They passed Burj Al Arab, a landmark hotel taller than the Eiffel Tower whose facade is woven of glass fiber. Residents call it a seven-star resort, although its brochure claims five. Other advertisements along the street flitted past. "Live the Future," one said. "There's one language everyone understands. Gold," read another. Finally, for the Dubai Mall: "The Earth has a new center." Intermingling with the slogans were billboards for Saks Fifth Avenue, Dior, Harvey Nichols and Virgin Atlantic.

At the biggest developments, knots of workers in coveralls of matching colors waited for company buses, their vacant stares greeting the traffic of a city where occupation is often stratified by race: Asian laborers, Lebanese and Western managers, Emirati owners. A proposed subway that will begin operating in 2010 will reserve one of five cars for VIPs.

"We're here to earn money, not for happiness," Amin said. "No one comes to this country for happiness."

Most of the hundreds of thousands of low-skilled workers are from India and other South Asian countries, with strong union traditions. Episodes of unrest began last year over living conditions, low pay and hazardous workplaces. At Amin's site, two Indian painters had died a few days before, when ropes holding their platform aloft snapped. In the worst outburst, as many as 3,000 workers rioted in March at the site of Burj Dubai, wrecking cars, computers and construction equipment.

Amin's and Miah's complaints echoed others': The company seized their passports when they entered the country, their pay comes months late, complaints can lead to deportation, and they make too little to offset the $175 they pay every month for rent and food.

"The law doesn't protect us," Miah said. "The government looks after the companies, and the companies don't care about us."

They remain because coming home poor would shame them in the eyes of their families and villages, they said. They were expected to make enough to buy land and a house, take care of their families and pay for their siblings' educations. "My hopes haven't come true," Amin said. "The dream that I had is still just a dream."

"I came here, and now I'm stuck here," added Miah.

They entered Sharjah. At a traffic circle, a billboard asked, "Are your employees leaving for better pay?" Along a park, a greeting was landscaped in pink flowers: "Smile," it said, "you are in Sharjah." The men arrived home, a collection of concrete huts, some with 10 beds crammed in a room. Three more sleep on mattresses laid out on the floor. In Miah's room, a plastic garland of red flowers hung over the sole light, a fluorescent bulb. The smell of hot chilis, mixed with fish, mingled with the stench of sewage.

"This is what we have in our country," said Miah, smiling. "I never thought Dubai would be like this."

"It's worse than our country," Amin said. He grimaced. "Is it not? Sitting in dirt and eating dirt?"

A Middle East Gold Rush

For Saidi, the Lebanese economist, the reasons for Dubai's transformation from a sleepy, pearl-diving village to a modern metropolis are many. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, rich Arab states began investing in their region and Dubai, in particular. Oil prices have unleashed a spending and investment boom in the Persian Gulf on par with the 1970s. The city-state has invested in infrastructure -- only China has more cranes, and Dubai's ports can unload a ship in 24 hours, on average 12 faster than Rotterdam. There is little official corruption, less political instability, and Dubai ranks high in surveys on rule of law and regulatory quality. Money-laundering -- residents describe multimillion-dollar houses paid for in cash, sight unseen -- has come under growing scrutiny, Saidi said. Then there is the rare combination of highly skilled workers and cheap laborers, like Amin and Miah. "It's as though you could say, 'Let me take 100 million Chinese and put them in the United States,' " Saidi said.