This paper examines the construction and marketing of recent upscale gated communities on the Egyptian capital's desert outskirts. Discussing questions of design and their use in promotional materials, I show how global inventories of architecture and social lifestyles are inserted in concrete local marketing contexts. While some of this marketing and subsequently some communities are successful, I argue that many aspects of projects are flawed in their neglect of local social forms and material demands. Differentiating between projects that imply a certain globalization of the local versus those that represent the localization of the abstractly global, I argue that the latter are more likely to fail. Reviewing a number or recent projects I illustrate how they all address upscale material demands, social sentiments and fear, and centrally promise safe and healthy homes and like-minded neighbors. Drawing on recent western theoretical debates about the increasing segregation of urban spaces, and the disappearance of public spaces, this paper explores the use and limits of such theorizations for the context of a post-colonial Middle Eastern metropolis.

The role and position of Muslims in Germany has been a controversial topic for years. This unresolved conflict manifests itself most acutely in controversies over the construction or renovation of mosques or mosque facilities. In this article, I examine two such controversies. I focus on themes of civic participation and visibility, to illustrate how mosque conflicts, regardless of their final outcomes, constitute important elements of Muslim localization. I argue that such conflicts are not isolated incidents but are embedded in larger processes of urban cultural and political negotiations and transformation. Mosque conflicts reflect the quest for visibility as expressed in the wish to construct a minaret. This quest is one step in a long journey toward recognition and participation, it symbolizes moments of arrival, and emphasizes local roots and commitment. I illustrate how mosque conflicts constitute crucial elements in the construction of future multi-ethnic and multi-religious cityscapes. Such controversies are both catalysts for further Muslim urban civic participation and results of lengthy processes of Muslim localization. Spatial presence becomes an expression of political presence, and the quest for participation, visibility, and citizenship. Opponents and municipalities’ struggles for control of the built environment in such conflicts represents attempts to order cities and societies at a historical moment when dynamics of globalization undermine the power of urban and national governments.

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This paper examines the cultural, social, and economic contributions of multi‐ethnic neighborhood businesses to the transformation of German cityscapes. The diversity on N‐Street in Stuttgart has been at the forefront of urban transformations and cultural production. I show that neighborhood stores and shopping streets are sites of urban experiments and cultural beginnings which produce new authenticities in the face of rapid urban homogenization. Combining theoretical debates about urban “authenticities,” the creative potential of immigrant neighborhoods, and ethnic/cross‐cultural economies, I analyze transformations of N‐Street and the surrounding neighborhood. I argue that neighborhood shopping streets are relevant nodes and agents in urban transformations and the production of urban futures. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, I introduce N‐Street's history, its current configuration of genuinely local urban cultures and economies, and its cultural complexity and cultural and economic innovation.