{"id":527305,"date":"2010-04-14T03:46:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T07:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6760875.post-4222312134445004014"},"modified":"2010-04-14T04:19:14","modified_gmt":"2010-04-14T08:19:14","slug":"changes-to-the-downtown-area-of-cairo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/527305","title":{"rendered":"Changes to the Downtown area of Cairo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenational.ae\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=\/20100411\/ART\/704109984\/1111\/LIFE\">The National<\/a> (Ursula Lindsey)<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">Downtown \u2013 Wust al Balad in Arabic \u2013 is Cairo\u2019s 150-year-old central district. With its mix of Belle \u00c9poque, neo-Islamic and Art Deco apartment buildings, its roundabouts ornamented with statues, its glittering cafes and elegant shops, the area was once known as \u201cParis on the Nile\u201d. But in recent decades the neighbourhood has lost its upper-class cachet, and its architecture has been damaged by misuse and neglect.<\/p>\n<p>It has become common to lament Downtown\u2019s decline \u2013 in the press and in Egyptian literature, whose development is deeply linked to the area. Now private investors and government authorities are putting in motion plans to protect and renovate the neighbourhood.<\/p>\n<p>Karim Shafei fell in love with the area when he attended an art festival there in 2001. \u201cI thought: Downtown is going to happen again, the same way it happened in Paris, New York, Istanbul,\u201d he says. Shafei is the chief executive of Al Ismaelia Company for Real Estate Investments, a new venture that is dedicated to buying and renovating Downtown properties \u2013 and possibly returning the area to its glory days.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\">Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes<img width='1' height='1' src='https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/6760875-4222312134445004014?l=egyptology.blogspot.com' alt='' \/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The National (Ursula Lindsey) Downtown \u2013 Wust al Balad in Arabic \u2013 is Cairo\u2019s 150-year-old central district. With its mix of Belle \u00c9poque, neo-Islamic and Art Deco apartment buildings, its roundabouts ornamented with statues, its glittering cafes and elegant shops, the area was once known as \u201cParis on the Nile\u201d. But in recent decades the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-527305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}