The Real Mediterranean’ in the Middle East: Real Estate and Imaginaries of Urban Development

Description

This article examines patterns of real estate and urban development on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, interrogating the imaginaries of urban living, leisure, and Mediterranean space they produce. It analyzes how real estate projects demarcate property, mobility, and belonging in the Mediterranean amid Egypt’s debt crises and the refugee reception crisis. Drawing on longer spatial and racial histories of defining the Mediterranean, the article investigates ‘the Real Mediterranean’ as a spatial representation that encloses luxury spaces while recasting multiple existing Mediterraneans.