Qatar: From Mideast afterthought to shining World Cup host

Two camels relax in the Souq Waqif district in Downtown Doha, Qatar with the West Bay Skyline in the background on November 23rd, 2022. (Hunter Roberts) more >DOHA, Qatar — When 31-year-old Samir Shanny was growing up in West Bay, an area just north of this gleaming city’s central zone, there were only a few tall buildings and none of them sparkled the way the Qatari capital’s skyline has as host of the World Cup soccer tournament over the past month.

Mr. Shanny remembers being a kid who loved jumping on his bicycle, finding a few friends and trekking down endless dirt paths that extended across the Connecticut-sized Persian Gulf nation — paths that today are paved over by multi-lane…