Building Amman
My cousin who emigrated a long time ago to New Zealand came across this local in Australia while traveling there. When the local was asked about the difference between Australia's two major cities, Sidney and Melbourne, the man rubbed his chin for a moment, then replied, "Melbourne was planned, Sidney happened."
Living in Jordan, you get a little sense of both, the planning and the happening. The growth here is apparently beyond what anybody expected. The minor exits leaving the main highways. The minor ones feeding into it? Whew. How about building a tricycle path with a ramp to feed into the highway?
At the same time, Amman is adjusting shway shway, little by little. Only a few weeks ago, they finally completed a pedestrian zone in the center of Swefieh, a shopping area that is actually beginning to look chic. Not a bad idea, that concept. People might just enjoy shopping a lot more if they don't have to inhale unleaded gasoline like patrons at a shisha bar. The result is a zone surrounded by modern stores with something to offer other than the inventory of your basic One Dollar Store back in the States. These people are beginning to get it with the concept of consumerism. A baby store here, a sports equipment shop there, a Starbucks across the road. That's how people slap down their plastic!
Of course even the fanciest pedestrian zone pales when compared to the latest pawn (make that something bigger, like a queen) of corporate capitalism in Amman, the City Mall. Even my wife and I were impressed: a giant supermarket that alone would make any Walmart in the States look like a Seven Eleven, adjoining dozens of big name brand stores selling clothes, sunglasses, electronics, sportsware, etc., scattered on five floors with elevators and escalators to connect them. Granted, the parking house is still a project in the works, but one people can easily overlook as long as they can take that latest mammoth flatscreen or remote controled toaster home with them.
It makes up for a long list of blunders people formerly assigned with the task of building Amman were charged with. Case in point: the sidewalks. No city is complete without them. If you are to enjoy a city to its fullest, it's better to do so at your leisure, rather than having one hand on the steering wheel and another on the horn. Amman has miles of sidewalks. The problem is, some expert decided they would look more aesthetic if they planted palm trees in the middle of them. Genius move, sir. You might want to take your baker's apprenticeship and apply it to your own area of expertise before screwing up an entire city. As a result of this brainstorming session in the middle of the desert during a sandstorm and an acid trip, people still can't walk on those sidewalks for ten meters if they tried. I have an idea: how about building a playground in the middle of the street? Better yet, give the kids a remote to operate the traffic lights with. If filmed, the ratings of that show would be through the roof of the City Mall.
Amman, of course, was built on seven hills, so getting from one hill to the next is as easy as making it through a pool of sharks with a bleeding seal strapped to your back. That was until it finally dawned on somebody that, hey, what if we actually built a bridge? Well, it took a few years and thousands of hours of cheap imported labor, but the bridge is finally standing, even though another Isaac Newton somewhere decided that pedestrians were not important enough and thus left minimal room for people to walk. Think on the bright side, though: that's quite a drop (maybe 60-70 meters) to the road in the valley below it. If people wish to commit suicide they will have to earn it.
But again, most attempts to block the efficient expansion of the city are doomed to fail, no matter how hard people try. Dozens of skyscrapers are in the works, cranes are as abundant in Amman as crocs in the Nile, and the city is loosening its rigid height limit for residential and commercial buildings. Good idea, I think. It's not like Amman is blocking the view to anything around here but a desert mirage. With the latest constructions, most notably the Abdali downtown project that supposedly will include a series of canals and water fountains (although which country will they have to attack for the water?) to surround a series of stores and office buildings, people here are banking on a future that might compare to that of its more wealthier neighbors in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait and the UAE. Again, considering that downtown Amman now looks like a giant sewer with a couple of one star hotels in its midst, I think people might welcome the idea.
Summa summarum, I tell people Amman is just all right. There's nothing special about it, although I can also guarantee everyone that the Amman that people will actually remember is yet to come.
Living in Jordan, you get a little sense of both, the planning and the happening. The growth here is apparently beyond what anybody expected. The minor exits leaving the main highways. The minor ones feeding into it? Whew. How about building a tricycle path with a ramp to feed into the highway?
At the same time, Amman is adjusting shway shway, little by little. Only a few weeks ago, they finally completed a pedestrian zone in the center of Swefieh, a shopping area that is actually beginning to look chic. Not a bad idea, that concept. People might just enjoy shopping a lot more if they don't have to inhale unleaded gasoline like patrons at a shisha bar. The result is a zone surrounded by modern stores with something to offer other than the inventory of your basic One Dollar Store back in the States. These people are beginning to get it with the concept of consumerism. A baby store here, a sports equipment shop there, a Starbucks across the road. That's how people slap down their plastic!
Of course even the fanciest pedestrian zone pales when compared to the latest pawn (make that something bigger, like a queen) of corporate capitalism in Amman, the City Mall. Even my wife and I were impressed: a giant supermarket that alone would make any Walmart in the States look like a Seven Eleven, adjoining dozens of big name brand stores selling clothes, sunglasses, electronics, sportsware, etc., scattered on five floors with elevators and escalators to connect them. Granted, the parking house is still a project in the works, but one people can easily overlook as long as they can take that latest mammoth flatscreen or remote controled toaster home with them.
It makes up for a long list of blunders people formerly assigned with the task of building Amman were charged with. Case in point: the sidewalks. No city is complete without them. If you are to enjoy a city to its fullest, it's better to do so at your leisure, rather than having one hand on the steering wheel and another on the horn. Amman has miles of sidewalks. The problem is, some expert decided they would look more aesthetic if they planted palm trees in the middle of them. Genius move, sir. You might want to take your baker's apprenticeship and apply it to your own area of expertise before screwing up an entire city. As a result of this brainstorming session in the middle of the desert during a sandstorm and an acid trip, people still can't walk on those sidewalks for ten meters if they tried. I have an idea: how about building a playground in the middle of the street? Better yet, give the kids a remote to operate the traffic lights with. If filmed, the ratings of that show would be through the roof of the City Mall.
Amman, of course, was built on seven hills, so getting from one hill to the next is as easy as making it through a pool of sharks with a bleeding seal strapped to your back. That was until it finally dawned on somebody that, hey, what if we actually built a bridge? Well, it took a few years and thousands of hours of cheap imported labor, but the bridge is finally standing, even though another Isaac Newton somewhere decided that pedestrians were not important enough and thus left minimal room for people to walk. Think on the bright side, though: that's quite a drop (maybe 60-70 meters) to the road in the valley below it. If people wish to commit suicide they will have to earn it.
But again, most attempts to block the efficient expansion of the city are doomed to fail, no matter how hard people try. Dozens of skyscrapers are in the works, cranes are as abundant in Amman as crocs in the Nile, and the city is loosening its rigid height limit for residential and commercial buildings. Good idea, I think. It's not like Amman is blocking the view to anything around here but a desert mirage. With the latest constructions, most notably the Abdali downtown project that supposedly will include a series of canals and water fountains (although which country will they have to attack for the water?) to surround a series of stores and office buildings, people here are banking on a future that might compare to that of its more wealthier neighbors in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait and the UAE. Again, considering that downtown Amman now looks like a giant sewer with a couple of one star hotels in its midst, I think people might welcome the idea.
Summa summarum, I tell people Amman is just all right. There's nothing special about it, although I can also guarantee everyone that the Amman that people will actually remember is yet to come.
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