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Will Dubai avoid the "skyscraper curse"?

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Bloomberg columnist William Pesek has an interesting theory on the correlation between tallest-building projects and financial crises.
It happened in Kuala Lumpur in 1997, Chicago in 1974, New York in 1930 and in biblical times with the Tower of Babel. A bizarre coincidence perhaps, yet humankind's propensity for architectural overreach has been a reliable omen of meltdowns. Taiwan, which in 2004 became home to the tallest building, was arguably affected. Its economy didn't implode, so much as it's disappearing....

...The thing about record-breaking skyscrapers is that they can say as much about hubris as wealth, ambition and technology. Is Dubai a development miracle? Or is it the center of an Arabian asset bubble tied to surging oil prices?

At least for the moment, it would appear to be the former.

Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of information and networking services to the private equity and venture capital ecosystem in India. View free samples of Venture Intelligence newsletters and reports.

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