Before and After: How Middle Eastern Cities Have Transformed Over Decades

Before and After: How Middle Eastern Cities Have Transformed Over Decades

The cities of the Middle East contain some of the oldest continuously inhabited urban spaces on earth. Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Beirut have been centers of civilization for millennia. Yet in the span of a single lifetime, many of these cities have undergone transformations so dramatic that a person who left in the 1950s would scarcely recognize them today. Some changes have been driven by war and destruction. Others by oil wealth and breakneck modernization. Still others by the quieter forces of population growth, rural migration, and changing economic systems.

This exploration traces the urban transformations of major Middle Eastern cities, examining what has been gained, what has been lost, and what efforts are underway to preserve the region's irreplaceable urban heritage.

Beirut: The Paris of the East and Its Many Lives

No Middle Eastern city embodies the drama of urban transformation more than Beirut. The Lebanese capital has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times that reinvention has become part of its identity.

Martyrs' Square in Beirut, circa 1970 -- during its mid-20th century heyday, Beirut was known as "the Paris of the East," the most cosmopolitan city in the Arab world.

The Golden Age: 1950s-1960s

In its mid-20th century heyday, Beirut was the most cosmopolitan city in the Arab world. Known as "the Paris of the East," it combined Ottoman-era architecture with French Mandate-period buildings, Art Deco cinemas, and modernist apartment blocks. The corniche along the Mediterranean was lined with grand hotels. The downtown area, centered on Martyrs' Square and the Bourj, was a vibrant commercial district where multiple languages, religions, and cultures mixed with an ease that was unique in the region. Intellectual life flourished, with Beirut serving as the publishing capital of the Arab world.

Civil War and the Green Line: 1975-1990

The Lebanese Civil War devastated Beirut. The city was divided along the Green Line separating East and West Beirut, and the downtown core became a no-man's land of ruined buildings and sniper positions. Entire neighborhoods were destroyed or depopulated. The Holiday Inn, a once-glamorous seafront hotel, became a notorious sniper tower, its bullet-pocked facade a symbol of the war's senselessness. By 1990, central Beirut was a ghost town of ruins overgrown with vegetation.

Reconstruction and Controversy

The postwar reconstruction of Beirut, largely driven by the Solidere development company founded by Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, remains one of the most controversial urban projects in the Middle East. Historic buildings were demolished and replaced with luxury developments that many Lebanese felt erased the city's authentic character. Archaeological layers spanning Phoenician, Roman, and Ottoman periods were disrupted or destroyed. Yet Beirut rebuilt itself once again, only to face another catastrophe: the devastating port explosion of August 2020, which destroyed much of the historic Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhael neighborhoods and killed over 200 people.

Cairo: The Mother of the World

Cairo, known in Arabic as Umm al-Dunya (the Mother of the World), is one of the largest cities in Africa and the Middle East. Its transformation over the past century reflects the broader tensions between heritage preservation and the pressures of explosive population growth.

An aerial view of Cairo showing the dense urban fabric of the city -- from roughly two million residents in 1950, Cairo's greater metropolitan area has grown to over 22 million today.

Khedival Cairo: A Planned City

In the 1860s and 1870s, Khedive Ismail undertook an ambitious project to transform Cairo into a European-style capital, timed to coincide with the opening of the Suez Canal. The resulting "Khedival Cairo," centered on what is now downtown, featured wide boulevards, public squares, opera houses, and apartment buildings in the Beaux-Arts and Art Nouveau styles. For nearly a century, this district was the commercial and cultural heart of the city, home to department stores, cinemas, and the cafes where Egypt's literary and political culture took shape.

Population Explosion and Urban Sprawl

Cairo's population has grown from roughly two million in 1950 to over 22 million in the greater metropolitan area today. This explosive growth has transformed the city almost beyond recognition. Agricultural land in the Nile Delta has been swallowed by informal housing. The Khedival downtown, once meticulously maintained, has been overtaken by traffic, pollution, and decades of deferred maintenance. Many of its historic buildings are in a precarious state, their ornate facades crumbling beneath layers of grime and unauthorized modifications.

New Cairo and New Administrative Capital

Egypt's response to Cairo's congestion has been to build entirely new cities in the desert. The New Administrative Capital, located about 45 kilometers east of Cairo, is designed to house government ministries and eventually millions of residents. Whether this approach solves Cairo's problems or simply replicates them in a new location remains to be seen. Meanwhile, organizations like the Aga Khan Trust for Culture have undertaken significant restoration work in historic Cairo, particularly in the Darb al-Ahmar district adjacent to the Fatimid walls.

Damascus: The Wounded Capital

Damascus, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, has endured a transformation that no one would have wished for. The Syrian civil war, which began in 2011, has scarred a city whose urban fabric was one of the most precious in the Middle East.

The ancient walls of the Old City of Damascus, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with an urban fabric stretching back millennia.

The Old City Before the War

The Old City of Damascus, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was one of the best-preserved historic urban cores in the Arab world. Its labyrinthine lanes, traditional courtyard houses, and historic souks represented an unbroken tradition of urban living stretching back millennia. The great courtyard houses of the Jewish Quarter and the Christian Quarter had been increasingly restored and converted into boutique hotels and restaurants, making Damascus a growing destination for cultural tourism.

War and Destruction

While the Old City of Damascus was largely spared the worst destruction of the civil war, the surrounding suburbs, particularly areas like Jobar, Daraya, and the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, were devastated. The Eastern Ghouta, once a green belt of farms and orchards surrounding the city, was besieged for years and largely destroyed. The human cost, hundreds of thousands killed, millions displaced, is beyond the capacity of urban planning to address. The physical reconstruction of Damascus will take decades; the human reconstruction, far longer.

Jerusalem: Layers of History, Layers of Conflict

Jerusalem's transformation is unique because it is shaped not only by modernization but by an ongoing political conflict that directly impacts the city's physical fabric and demographic composition.

The skyline of Jerusalem's Old City, dominated by the Dome of the Rock -- one of the most contested and layered urban spaces on earth, shaped by millennia of history and ongoing conflict.

The Divided City: 1948-1967

From 1948 to 1967, Jerusalem was divided between Jordanian-controlled East Jerusalem (including the Old City) and Israeli-controlled West Jerusalem. The armistice line, marked by concrete walls and barbed wire, cut through the heart of the city. Buildings along the divide were destroyed or abandoned, creating a no-man's land that bisected urban life. The Jewish Quarter of the Old City was largely destroyed during the 1948 war, and its residents expelled.

Post-1967 Transformations

After the 1967 war, Israel occupied East Jerusalem and began a process of urban transformation aimed at establishing permanent control. The Mughrabi Quarter, a historic neighborhood adjacent to the Western Wall, was demolished within days of the war's end to create the plaza that exists today. Settlement construction in and around East Jerusalem has dramatically altered the city's geography, creating a ring of Israeli neighborhoods on expropriated Palestinian land that has fundamentally changed the city's demographic and physical character.

The Old City Today

The Old City of Jerusalem remains one of the most densely layered urban spaces on earth, with Roman, Byzantine, Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk, and Ottoman-era buildings crowded into less than one square kilometer. Preservation efforts are complicated by political considerations, as control over heritage sites is deeply intertwined with claims to sovereignty. Palestinian residents face mounting pressure from restrictive building permits and settlement expansion, while the fabric of daily life in the Old City's markets and residential quarters continues, as it has for centuries, against extraordinary odds.

Amman: The Quiet Transformation

Amman's transformation has been less dramatic than that of its neighbors but no less significant. From a small town of a few thousand people in the 1920s, Amman has grown into a sprawling metropolitan area of over four million.

The Roman amphitheater in downtown Amman, a reminder of the city's ancient past -- from a small town of a few thousand people in the 1920s, Amman has grown into a sprawling metropolitan area of over four million.

From Town to Capital

When the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan was established in 1921, Amman was little more than a Circassian village built on Roman ruins. The city grew through successive waves of migration: Palestinians after 1948 and 1967, Iraqis after 1991 and 2003, and Syrians after 2011. Each wave transformed the city's culture and physical form. The result is a city without a single dominant identity, a palimpsest of communities and architectural styles that reflects the turbulent history of the wider region.

Modernization and the Loss of Character

Amman's rapid growth has come at a cost. Many of the city's early 20th-century stone buildings have been demolished to make way for apartment blocks and commercial towers. The traditional downtown area around the Roman amphitheater and the hustle of the old souks has lost ground to shopping malls in wealthier western neighborhoods. Yet recent years have seen a growing appreciation for Amman's heritage, with initiatives to preserve the remaining historic fabric of downtown and to reimagine the city's public spaces.

Gulf Cities: From Pearl Diving to Hypermodernity

Perhaps no urban transformations on earth have been as rapid or as total as those of the Gulf cities. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, and Riyadh have undergone changes in the past fifty years that took other cities centuries to achieve.

Before Oil

It is difficult to overstate how different Gulf cities were before the oil era. Dubai in the 1960s was a modest trading town of wind-tower houses, dhow wharves, and date palms. Doha was a small fishing and pearl-diving village. Riyadh was a walled town in the middle of the Najd desert. The entire infrastructure of modern urban life, roads, electricity, water systems, schools, hospitals, was either minimal or nonexistent.

The Oil Transformation

Oil revenues, beginning in earnest in the 1950s and 1960s, funded one of the most rapid urbanization programs in history. In many cases, the old town was simply demolished and replaced with a modern grid plan. Dubai's historic Bastakia quarter survived only because a handful of preservationists fought to save it. In Riyadh, almost nothing of the pre-oil city remains except the reconstructed Masmak Fortress and fragments of the old Dira souk.

Hypermodernity and Its Discontents

Today's Gulf cities are monuments to architectural ambition. Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, and Abu Dhabi's Louvre museum on Saadiyat Island represent the latest chapter in a region-wide effort to transform oil wealth into global cultural capital. Yet critics point to the environmental unsustainability of these cities, built in one of the hottest climates on earth, and to the social costs of the migrant labor that built them. There is also a growing sense of cultural loss, a recognition that in the rush to modernize, something essential about the character of these places was sacrificed.

Preservation: Fighting for the Future of the Past

Across the Middle East, a preservation movement is gaining strength. In cities from Cairo to Muscat, architects, activists, and community organizations are working to save what remains of historic urban fabric and to ensure that new development respects the character of existing places.

The challenges are immense. War continues to destroy heritage sites in Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere. Economic pressures favor demolition and redevelopment over restoration. And the sheer scale of population growth in cities like Cairo and Amman makes preservation seem like a luxury when millions lack adequate housing.

Yet the argument for preservation is not merely sentimental. Historic neighborhoods are often more sustainable than new construction, their dense fabric and passive cooling strategies well-adapted to the local climate. They provide affordable housing and commercial space in city centers. And they offer something that no amount of new construction can create: a sense of continuity, identity, and belonging that connects present-day residents to the thousands of years of urban life that came before them.

The story of Middle Eastern cities is not over. It is being written every day, in every decision about what to demolish and what to save, what to build and what to remember. Understanding how these cities have transformed is essential to shaping how they will transform next.

About Native Threads

Native Threads is dedicated to celebrating the heritage, history, and living culture of the Middle East and North Africa. The urban transformations explored in this post reflect the same themes of identity, resilience, and memory that inspire our designs. From the ancient souks of Damascus to the streets of modern Cairo, the spirit of these cities lives on in the stories we tell and the heritage we wear. Explore our full range of collections at nativethreads.co.