This Middle East city was once hot stuff.  Indoor ski slopes, sky-high tennis courts, islands that replicated the world and wealth galore. People drove sports cars and loved luxury goods.  Sadly, as the cliché goes, what comes up, must go down. And with the economic downturn, Dubai is going down.

Foreign workers, which make up 90 percent of the city’s population are getting laid off in large numbers, and it’s not like they can get unemployment and stay there until they get a job.  Once you’re laid off, you have 30 days to find something—or leave.

“Before, so many of us were living a good life here,” Mr. Thiab said. “Now we cannot pay our loans. We are all just sleeping, smoking, drinking coffee and having headaches because of the situation.”

I wonder what will become of this former boomtown post-downturn. As the song goes, “It’s a tragedy for me to see, the dream is over…”