Heritage Conservation Management in Egypt: The balance between heritage conservation and real-estate development in Alexandria

Abstract

In Egypt, and especially in the old city of Alexandria, the battle between heritage conservation and real estate investment exists and raging. Are we obliged to keep old buildings although they have lost their original settings?The debate of either keeping or demolishing some of the heritage stock for the sake of stimulating investment and harmonising street-scape is argued in this research at the administrative, public and private levels, with regards to real estate investments and building laws in the last 9 years, since the establishment of the Technical Secretariat of the Standing Committee of the Heritage Conservation Commission in Alexandria.© 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.Keywords: Heritage Conservation Management; Heritage Buildings Inventory; Real Estate Investment; Public Interest.