Stability, low taxes, relative openness, and easy work permits right in the center of one of the very wealthy regions of the world. And the rest of that gaudily rich region of the world is known for its nastiness toward foreigners, intensely planned socialist economies, and violent volatility.

I lived there for a year, and yes this is pretty much it. Compared to the rest of the Middle East it's a very stable and open place, it's mostly on par with Western cities.

You can get a residence visa and open a company for around $20,000 which makes it an attractive option for the rich to flee from whatever oppressive regime they have at home. For Westerners the main attraction is no taxes and the glitzy lifestyle.

Wow, it is actually just 20,000 AED ($5500~) according to [1]. That's pretty neat!

1: http://www.investorvisa.ae/investor-visa/uae/

"which makes it an attractive option for the rich to flee from whatever oppressive regime they have at home."

Funny you're saying this about Dubai and the UAE in general when they're known to be one of the most oppressive regimes in the region when it comes to political freedoms.

"one of the most oppressive regimes in the region "

Oh, I forgot about all the liberal democratic regimes in the region. You must be talking about Saudi, Guitar, Jemen, ISIS, Quwait, Syria, Iran, Bahrayn.

At least get the name right first before you make your counterargument,it's Qatar not Guitar. Second, for me the UAE as a whole fits very well in the list you made and you can refer to Press Freedom Index [1] for more insight on its ranking and the overall picture there.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index

Low taxes: You basically forgo your political rights as an immigrant in exchange of this (No taxation without representation )

Stability: The price you pay for authoritarianism you get in temporary and shallow stability.

I know that Dubai/UAE may seem like a RW libertarian utopia from the outside but they still are very mean to foreigners esp poor ones and there are still very generous benefits and preferential perks for natives that immigrants can't even cross their mind to ask out of fear of retribution.

Do Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Bahrain really have "intensely planned socialist economies"? I see them more as a bunch of plutocracies, where the oligarchy makes all the money due to ties with the ruling family.

" oligarchy makes all the money due to ties with the ruling family."

Same as the Soviet Union, Red China, North Korea, Cuba, and so forth. Some people[0] mistakenly say 'socialism' for Western Europe-style social insurance, so I specified "intensely planned."

[0] http://www.vox.com/2015/10/31/9650030/denmark-prime-minister...

I live in Denmark, I have a fairly good idea of what social-democracy looks like.

"Intensely planned" means something like the USSR's five-years plans, and generally comes with state ownership of all companies. As far as I know, that's not what's happening in the Middle-East.

I'm glad you understand the difference. As you can see from my link, some people are confused about what socialism is.

You need a special personal connection to the insider elites to run major companies in most of the Middle East. The decisions about economic initiatives and major industry are made by a small politbureau, though it isn't called that. A privileged class controls vast wealth and power over the lives of subjects for personal pleasure, though it may or may not be in their own personal names, just like under Communism.

Location, location, location!

First, Dubai is geographically perfectly positioned to be an airline hub between Europe, much of Asia (particularly India), Africa and Australia, which is why Dubai is the world's biggest airport for international flights and Emirates is well on its way to being the world's biggest airline.

Second, Dubai is right next to Iran, which is a large, moderately wealthy country blocked off from a large chunk of the world by sanctions. Guess where a huge part of Iran's legal and less legal trade goes through? Dubai.

It's in a desert and way too hot to be comfortable most of the year. I don't understand why anyone would want to be in Dubai except for the money/lifestyle.

I can understand the argument made for Dubai being a viable and intuitive hub connecting Europe with Asia and Australia but connecting Africa with Europe, it lacks the strategic location advantage to make it viable.

The other point you raised is more of condemnation not praise of the city as it promotes and engages in shady activities like money laundering not only with Iran but with other entities and organizations.

By the way the whole Dubai bubble or project is financed by someone else's credit card. If it weren't for Abu Dhabi, the bigger sister emirate, bail-out package during the financial crisis, the whole emirate would have gone belly up and disappeared afterwards. [0]

[0]: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-03-16/dubai-roll...