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Hundreds of abandoned construction cranes languish above Dubai’s gated communities and beach-side developments and, most dramatically, up and down Sheikh Zayed Road, its high-rise spine. According to a recent estimate in the Middle East Economic Digest, projects worth a staggering $335 billion in the United Arab Emirates — of which Dubai, with a population of about 2 million, is the largest member — are stalled or have been canceled outright.
Fort Worth-based BNSF has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to beef up its Southern California operations to grab a bigger share of that business.

“Within our 28-state network, California is incredibly important to us,” BNSF Chief Executive Matthew K. Rose said. “A lot of trade comes through there, a lot gets consumed in California, and a lot gets handled and repackaged there.”

China’s rise has given a new push to U.S. railroads, which have chugged their way back into the nation’s transportation future after losing ground for decades to the trucking industry.

Dubai’s residents, roughly 85% of them expatriates, have been left to wonder if the current crisis is merely a pause, a recessionary lull that will be painful but temporary, or closer to a fundamental reckoning that will entirely reorder the emirate and how it does business. The same question is being asked in cities around the world, of course. But it’s a particularly acute, even existential one here, since it goes right to the heart of Dubai’s self-image.

During the boom years of the last decade, the emirate — which has only a tiny fraction of the oil reserves held by the capital of the UAE, Abu Dhabi — became synonymous with frenzied real estate speculation and headlong growth. It operated as a highly efficient machine for attracting capital from around the globe — in some cases from investors who, for political reasons, rejected the idea of sending it to the U.S. — and turning it into real estate. In a fundamental sense, many of Dubai’s skyscrapers were conceived and designed primarily as vessels to store excess liquidity. If the endless rows of stalled towers now resemble mere shells, perhaps shells are all they were ever meant to be.

You wouldn’t have to be hopelessly cynical to conclude that it was all a kind of Ponzi-scheme urbanism: city planning à la Bernard Madoff. “During the boom,” as the Economist put it, “supply seemed to create its own demand.”

A separate report from the Federal Reserve showed U.S. industrial production fell 0.5% last month, a sixth consecutive monthly decline but at a more modest pace than in recent months. Economists had been looking for output to slide 0.6% drop. A month earlier, output fell by 1.7%.

The report shows that the U.S. industry remains weak. Industrial production has fallen in 15 of the 17 months since the recession began in December 2007, and is down 16% since then.

The capacity utilization rate for total industry, a measure of slack in the economy, fell to 69.1% in April, the lowest level on records dating back to 1967.

A third report said consumer confidence rose in early May to its strongest since the September failure of Lehman Bros., with rising expectations the economy may be in the last stages of the recession.

The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its preliminary index of confidence for May rose to 67.9 from 65.1 in April. This was above economists’ median expectation of a reading of 67.0, according to a Reuters poll.

The index of consumer expectations jumped to 69.0 in early May, its highest since October 2007 and up from 63.1 in April.

“Consumer confidence rose in early May as consumers became increasingly convinced that the economy is in its final stages of contraction, and paradoxically, that their personal finances would remain dismal and keep their spending at reduced levels for the foreseeable future,” the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said in a statement.

Confidence remained shaky overall however, with the majority of consumers in early May reporting their financial situation had worsened due primarily to income declines, shorter work hours and lost jobs, according to the survey.

Most economists believe inflation will not be a threat for a prolonged period. The CPI followed a report Thursday that wholesale prices rose 0.3% in April, but fell 3.7% the past 12 months, biggest decline since 1950.

Concern about deflation is muted in this country because of the aggressive actions taken by Congress and the Fed. The central bank has pushed a key interest rate to a record low near zero and has taken a number of other measures to flood the banking system with cash to deal with the credit crisis. Congress passed record spending bills to stimulate the economy.