Dubai dispatch: How long will the city stay paralyzed?

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Since the global boom went bust last year, no city has been harder hit than Dubai. After turning itself into a center for massive real-estate speculation during the easy-money years, it is now probably best described as the world capital of abandoned construction cranes.

So what’s next for Dubai? Is the current crisis merely a pause -- a recessionary lull -- or more like a reckoning? And will its strange model of urbanism begin to copied in other cities around the world?

Click here to read my take, which will appear in Sunday’s Arts & Books section.

Watch for my report from Abu Dhabi in next Sunday’s Arts & Books section. And over the next few days, I’ll be back on Culture Monster with snapshots and outtakes from my reporting trip to the UAE.

--Christopher Hawthorne

Follow me on Twitter @HawthorneLAT