The New New World
Americans visiting Dubai know how 19th-century Europeans must have felt when they saw the United States. DUBAI—Foreign travelers visiting New York or Chicago in the 19 th century often came away with mixed impressions. Some found American cities ugly by comparison to their European counterparts: They seemed vulgar, blatantly commercial, lacking in taste. The natives had higher living standards, but they were crude, and the ethnic mix—German, Irish, Italian, Jewish—was terrifying.