The United Arab Emirates, and Dubai specifically, are fascinating models of a meritocratic society. Free enterprise and risk-taking are championed. Immigration laws welcome anyone who can prove their worth (likely why 92% of residents are foreigners).

That said, it’s not a democratic paradise or one that preaches liberal values outside the marketplace. The absence of a social safety net may worry people who come from Europe or North America, but for many younger millennials who lived in highly indebted countries with few opportunities, it’s intriguing.

As a plus, it had a cosmopolitan flair that makes it more akin to 1900s Vienna, Paris of the 1920s, and Florence of the 1500s.