system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What is the deal with Dubai?

I feel like I've only heard of Dubai in the last five or ten years. What's the low-down on the city/country's rise to noticeability?
gpt
Oil money. Then they leveraged that oil money for credit to build up Dubai, initiating a huge slew of construction projects (islands, manmade reefs, tallest building, giant indoor skiing mountain). Some of these building projects are so ostentatious and excessive that people took notice. They have been building a Las Vegas in the Middle East (although they'd compare themselves to Singapore -- they want to be the major trading port of the ME). However, with the recession that hit in 2007, they lost a ton of money and have been unable to sell a lot of what they built. They've had to take a huge ($60bil iirc) loan from their neighboring Emirate cities.