While the world stews over the economic crisis, Dubai works to its own rules: build it and they will come.

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Chinese policy makers' build-it-and-they-will-come approach has worked in some cases, most prominently in Shanghai's bustling Pudong district.

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If you build it, they will come, and entrepreneurs of all ages - students, faculty, local communities - are taking notice and choosing cities such as Charlottesville over Austin or Santa Clara.

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The build-it-and-they-will-come success of Bandon Dunes, already with four 18-hole courses and another, 27-hole expansion under consideration for a few miles away, is also the inspiration for the new Doak course at Dismal River, well under way with a planned opening in 2013.

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"They said, 'Build it and we will come, '" recalls Thompson, who's now 42.

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"They said, 'Build it and we will come, '" recalls Thompson, 42.

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If you build it (a trail and a cabin) then they (eager hikers) will come.

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But the argument--if you build it, they will come--smells of the Internet craze when dot-com businesses sprouted on the Web and not enough people came.

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