Or Is the Question Missing the Point Entirely?
Every few years, a country on the rise gets handed a borrowed identity.
Singapore becomes “the Switzerland of Asia.”
Rwanda becomes “the Singapore of Africa.”
And now, increasingly, Jamaica is being labelled “the Dubai of the Caribbean.”
At first glance, the comparison feels flattering. Dubai is sleek, ambitious, technically advanced, unapologetically extravagant. It is a city that arrived late to the global party and somehow still managed to take centre stage. Who doesn’t like going to Dubai? Indoor ski slopes in the desert. Palm-shaped islands visible from space. Architecture that looks like it was designed by science fiction writers with unlimited budgets.
So when Jamaica is spoken about in the same breath, it sounds like progress. Momentum. Arrival.
But scratch beneath the surface and the comparison starts to wobble — not because Jamaica lacks ambition, but because Dubai and Jamaica are fundamentally different things. And that difference mat…
