When academics look back on the Late Great Housing Bubble, the poster-child city might surprise you

Sure, Phoenix, San Diego, Tampa, DC, Boston, Vegas, Naples and Sacramento are obvious crash victims, but worldwide, one city rises to the top.

Rampant speculation, buyers made up of speculators buying from other speculators (the perfect Ponzi scheme), a god-forsaken area to live in (you thought Phoenix was hot?), stupid prices, no economy to support it (after homebuilding is done), and a collective "what the heck were they thinking" heard around the world for hundreds if not thousands of years to come.

It's Dubai. The world-wide housing bubble epicenter and future environmental wasteland.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - With 14,000 laborers toiling day and night, the first of Dubai's three palm-shaped islands is finally about to get its first residents.

The Palm Jumeirah, a 12-square-mile island group, is part of what's billed as the largest land-reclamation project in the world, the product of five years of brute hauling of millions of tons of Persian Gulf sand and quarried rock

Many observers believe Dubai's frenetic homebuilding will soon outstrip demand.

"We've still got a shortage of properties in Dubai, but that's likely to become an excess in next six or 12 months," said Steve Brice, an economist with Standard Chartered Bank in Dubai.

Brice said year-old estimates that 50,000 housing units would hit the market in 2006 will be more than doubled. Nakheel, one of three big developers here, has said it will release 60,000 units in the 2nd half of 2006 alone.

Nakheel's two copycat Palms, the Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Deira, have also been delayed by design changes and other factors, Kazim said. A nearly finished fourth Nakheel archipelago, shaped like a map of the world, has attracted few buyers and remains mostly unsold.

Kazim said The World's sales trouble stems from simple economics: Nakheel is selling empty islands for tens of millions of dollars only to builders promising low-density luxury.