More than likely while growing up you’ve been told that money can’t buy everything, e.g. happiness, love, culture. Some people amend this statement, saying that even if it can’t buy these things, it certainly can’t hurt to have—just in case buying that yacht could make you happy or cultured by being able to sail the world’s seas. However, as citizens of Dubai prove, money is dispensable and one that has feigned a high quality of life.

According to an article on Vanity Fair’s website called “Dubai on Empty,” Dubai has built up its city with miraculous things. Having a $3 billion horse racetrack is quite neat. But so are the shopping centers that are larger than many airports around the world. And then there’s Ski Dubai: a ski resort in the middle of the desert. I would be neglectful to mention that Dubai is also home to the world’s tallest building, Burj Kahlifa. If only Dubai hadn’t had to borrow $10 billion from its neighbor, Abu Dhabi, to erect the structure, the building would have been called Burj Dubai. Guess the name wasn’t as important as actually having the structure on its land.

The naming of the building has deeper implications, as do the creation of nightclubs that don’t allow native dress so patrons step into their Western attire to go out for the evening. All-the-while the streets hum with the roar of engines from Ferraris and Lamborghinis. As the article states, the answer to everything in Dubai is money. The smell of greed is almost palpable. But what has this greed gotten the country? Things, and only material things. Toys, if you will.

The deeper implications of all the greed and materiality are that no amount of money can help Dubai retain its sense of culture. “The money seeped out of the ground and they spent it. Pretty much all of it.” Nothing Dubai claims originated in Dubai; everything was, and still is, imported. The author states that Dubai was cursed with money because nothing it has adds to retaining its culture. Maybe its true, that money can’t buy everything.

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