By Roba Assi (a version of this post was published on the blog AndFarAway)

After a decade of construction work, the Abdali project will finally be opening its doors to the public this weekend. The ads are everywhere; on the billboards, in the newspapers, even on the websites I frequent. World, meet the “new downtown of Amman”.

And to me as a woman from Amman, the advertising pitch of the Abdali project is…offensive.

Even if the Abdali Boulevard turns out to be the coolest thing in the world (and it might), we should all make a conscious effort to not refer to the project as “downtown”. That’s a marketing game, and the winners are the marketeers and the Saudi/Lebanese investors.

You know who the loser would be? You, I, and the heritage of our city.

We already have an amazing downtown Amman (elbalad) that has been inhabited from around 6,500 B.C.

Money can never create anything as beautiful and meaningful as the citadel overlooking downtown Amman. It’s one of the oldest continuously-inhabited places in the world. It represents the history of significant civilizations that stretched across continents and prospered for centuries, as one empire gave rise to the next. It is a part of the heritage of mankind.

The most high-tech stage will never compare to the 2000-year-old Roman amphitheater in downtown Amman, the most obvious and impressive remnant of Philadelphia. It’s ancient history playing out right in front of your eyes.

And no matter how delicious it is, no restaurant will ever be able to compete with the charms of the restaurants in downtown Amman, like Hashem, Habiba, Balat Al-Rashid, Central, and Al-Quds.

It’s not that I mind the Abdali project. On the contrary: I am actually quite excited, especially for open-air shopping and perhaps one or two new places to go out to.

But I have major issues with the attitude of foreign investors arrogantly marketing their project as “the new downtown” when we already have a gorgeous downtown. That might work in Beirut, where the downtown of the city was completely ravaged during the Lebanese Civil War. It might work in Dubai, where there is no real downtown to begin with. It might work in the new-world capitals like New York or Houston, where history goes back only a couple of hundred years.

But in Amman? No. We might enjoy a nice-looking, fancy “business district” with the very funny name of “Abdali Boulevard” (which in my mind translates to flea market Frenchie cuckoo), but we are definitely not in need of a new downtown. Our downtown is beautiful, it’s rich, and it’s real. No money, no experience, and no marketing can ever fake that.
People of Amman, let’s all make a conscious effort to refer to the Abdali project as what it is: the Abdali project, مشروع العبدلي, or the Abdali Boulevard.

We already have a downtown Amman, البلد, and thank you very much, we don’t want a new one.