In December 2012, the Goethe Institute in downtown Cairo hosted a panel discussion titled ‘Artists as Urban Catalysts in Downtown Cairo’. The event was organised by Beth Stryker and Omar Nagati, founders of the Cairo Laboratory for Urban Studies, Training and Environmental Research (CLUSTER). Invited panellists represented two types of stakeholders in downtown: propertyowners (Karim Shafei, chief executive officer [CEO] of Al Ismaelia Real Estate Development; and Bruce Ferguson, Dean of the School of Humanities, representing the American University in Cairo [AUC]); and representatives of cultural organisations (Heba Farid, founding member of the Contemporary Image Collective; Ania Szremski, Townhouse Gallery curator; and Tamer El Said, filmmaker and co-founder of Cimatheque). The panel was moderated by the author of this chapter, who was selected by the organisers as the founder of Cairobserver.com, a blog dedicated to Cairo's urban affairs. The panel aimed to bring together the earlier-mentioned stakeholders in a public discussion to re-examine what the organisers called ‘the classic appropriation of artists as catalysts for urban regeneration by real-estate developers seeking future gentrification’, asking how things might play out differently in Cairo.

Cairo does not offer an example of the emergence of state-led gentrification in the Global South; however, some aspects of conventional gentrification are present in the city but they have yet to produce the kinds of shifts in the urban community that have typically been considered in gentrification studies. Prior to, and after, the 2011 revolution, the state has been focused on transforming the desert peripheries of Egyptian cities across the country into new urban developments where real estate speculation is made possible. Desert land, typically owned by the military, is given value by way of direct sale operations with private investors, who acquire large swathes of land previously unavailable on the market. Policymakers and private capital functioning within the formal economy have abandoned urban cores across Egypt and focused on the gated, privatised, suburban market. The state has led expansionist-urbanising operations that build on policies of neglect governing the urban core, including the Egyptian capital's downtown. Despite the lack of policy or vision for its management or rehabilitation, downtown has attracted individuals including artists and activists, in addition to a few investors interested in urban regeneration and profit.