In August of last year, Amira made the trip from the western end of Greater Cairo, where she has been living, to Zamalek to pay her last respects to an old school friend at one of the city’s Orthodox churches.

Zamalek was the neighbourhood in which both she and her friend had grown up in in the 1960s.

Unlike the deceased friend, who had spent all her life in Cairo and never moved out of Zamalek where she was born, got married, and gave birth to her children, Amira left Zamalek for Britain with her doctor spouse in the 1980s and only came back to Egypt in 2010 to retire in a house in one of the luxurious compounds of Sheikh Zayed City.

“When we were planning to come back, we were discussing whether to come back to Maadi, where Hashem [her husband] had lived before our marriage, or to Zamalek,” she said.

The relatively frequent visits that the couple had made to Egypt during the holidays and those that their children had made had been full of disappointment over the “ways things were changing” in both neighbourhoods. For Amira and Hashem, neither Maadi nor Zamalek resembled what they were before. It was upon the suggestion of one of the children who had visited a friend in Sheikh Zayed that they decided to buy a house there.

At the time, the couple thought that the days of Maadi and Zamalek were behind them, as both neighbourhoods were not what they used to be, “residential areas that were quiet and stylish.”

However, for Amira her most recent visit to Zamalek for the funeral of her school friend came as a shock. “I have not been to Zamalek for at least four or five years, and I could not believe the decline. The neighbourhood for the most part looked like a commercial zone that is busy and almost troubling,” she said.

This sentiment of a neighbourhood that is losing its identity is far from the reaction of someone who has been away for a long time. According to Nadra Zaki and Farida Makkar, two founding members of the Zamalek Association for Development (ZAD), which was established in August 2023, there has been a growing concern among residents of the district, especially those who are second or third-generation residents, that Zamalek is at serious risk of dilapidation.

This has been prompted by the loss of its architectural identity, the growing replacement of residential units with fast-food stores, the declining level of greenery, and the growing level of pollution.

Regaining the identity of Zamalek as a primarily residential neighbourhood that is pedestrian-friendly and aesthetically appealing has been identified as among the key objectives of ZAD.

Makkar and Zaki did not want to knock on the doors of the owners of apartment buildings, asking them to carefully consider their options when offering their previously residential units for commercial services that are inevitably more financially rewarding.

The fact that several of the apartment buildings that are being taken over by the increasing number of fast-food services in the district are no longer owned by Zamalek residents, but rather by investors who benefit from amended legal regulations that allow for stores, restaurants and cafés to be operated without the consent of the residents of the building in question, was also an issue.

“In 2014, the Urban Harmony Authority [UHA] issued a decree to stop the expansion in the number of stores and entertainment services in Zamalek, but this decree was never actually observed and people always found a way to work around it,” Zaki said.

“We tried hard to lobby support for reducing the number of stores and putting in place regulations on the nature of the functions allowed through the UHA, but we were not successful in this legal battle,” Makkar said.

The members of the ZAD decided to bow to the fact that this battle was not going to be won in the traditional way. Their decision was to walk another path and to encourage investment but make it compatible with the nature of the neighbourhood and count on public opinion when need be.

Over the past year, ZAD has been part of spreading awareness of the downside of some of the proposed large-scale entertainment projects that are bound to induce a significant shift in the character of some neighbourhoods.

As a result of several sit-ins, some of these projects were stopped or at least suspended. With the help of some keen investors who live or have lived in Zamalek, there has been a push towards the kind of money-generating businesses that are compatible with the nature of the neighbourhood and with its older population.

According to one of the investors who asked for his name to be withheld, it was not difficult to work on a scheme that meets both the objectives of preserving the identity of the neighbourhood and of running a profitable business.

 “With the changing models of hotels allowing for serviced studio apartments and Airbnb, it was not difficult to find the right future for several apartment buildings and houses around Zamalek,” he said. Refurbishing, redecorating, and renting these units proved profitable enough. “It actually generated sufficient funds to keep the business going and to expand by adding more apartments to the inventory we are working on,” he added.

What started in Zamalek, he said, did not stop in Zamalek but also went out to Garden City and Downtown in order to help save and rebrand some of the architectural gems in these districts too, the same investor said. “The successful business model has attracted other keen investors to come to Zamalek and to other parts of central Cairo,” he said.

Meanwhile, according to Hassan bin Ali, introducing an entertainment business that is in line with “the nature of the neighbourhood and its residents has proved possible and actually to be welcomed.” The introduction of a very popular bistro in the vicinity of All Saints Church in Zamalek “without imposing any aggressive structural or decorative changes” proved to be a success.

“It was not impossible to do things in style and without a colossal budget,” Bin Ali said. The success story, he added, has been prompting a replay in other parts of Cairo “in the older quarters of the city in Khan Al-Khalili and the eastern part of Heliopolis.”

“There is room for this kind of project all across the city,” he added.

According to Zaki, the work of ZAD is non-governmental and its success story could be replicated in other neighbourhoods. “Obviously, the city will always grow, as it has always been growing, but as the city grows it does not need to lose what it has acquired over the centuries,” she concluded.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 7 November, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.