A New/Old Neighborhood in Cairo

Cathryn Drake writes, "Five years after opening, Cairo's Al-Azhar Park has surpassed all expectations. Built by the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) on top of an ancient dump, the miraculously lush 74-acre park is among the biggest in a city with 18 million people and one of the world's lowest ratios of green space per inhabitant. It is also the linchpin of an extensive historic-preservation and community-development effort in Al-Darb al-Ahmar, the vibrant, impoverished neighborhood just across the ramparts of the newly excavated medieval Ayyubid wall."