In a city that barely existed 10 years ago, towers now compete for size and scope. To be the most lavish, the most expensive, the tallest. They loom, like a forest of steel, curves and ambition. They peer down on fountains and promenades and parks and malls and marinas and hotels, one shaped like a pair of curved swords; everything new, marble, imported. They’re best viewed at night, when they gleam and sparkle from spotlights and neon lights and art displays designed to glow.
On Sunday, the largest sporting event in the world will conclude in Lusail City, which sprouted along Doha’s northern waterfront with singular purpose. It will be held under the largest spotlight imaginable, inside Lusail Iconic Stadium. Argentina versus France. Some will tune in for the soccer, others for country or spectacle or, perhaps, Lionel Messi’s final World Cup match. But above all this, many observers will wrestle with a question that my late friend Grant Wahl first posed eight years ago when he looked at what was developing in Qatar:
