Re branding Amman: a ‘lived’ city's values, image and identity

participant relayed how ‘ Jabal Al Weibde is 
like the undiscovered treasure. Rainbow Street 
started [developing], but Jabal Al Weibde is still 
undiscovered with its old buildings and houses ’
while another stated that ‘ Jabal Amman and 
Fuhays ’ assume signifi cance and explained their 
preference for Fuhays ‘ because you feel that 
[Fuhays] is still in touch with its roots and 
was not affected [by development] ’ (Focus 
group with young Ammani professionals, 
13 December 2010). Another focus group 
with representatives of Amman ’ s citizens also 
revealed they perceive the old downtown core 
as representative of Amman ’ s identity. One of 
the participants emphasized that while ‘ Most 
of the discussion is about buildings and 
construction, our lives do not happen in 
a building but in a street. And that is why 
Downtown [Amman] is so great because it 
is holistic. You can appreciate cities but admire 
how people live beautifully in them ’ (Focus 
group with Ammanis on 12 December 2010). 
Notwithstanding their criticisms of 
Amman, Ammanis in fact value their city ’ s 
contradictions. One of the participants in the 
young Ammani professionals focus group 
relayed ‘ I see Amman a combination of so 
many contradictory things; poverty and wealth, 
ignorance and education, illiteracy and 
knowledge. There are nice areas and organized 
and haphazard areas, and this sort of refl ects on 
the people, and creates a sort of segregation 
where the areas become the identity, so they 
share the identity of the geographic area that 
they live in ’ . 
However, by the same coin, our respondents 
argued that unity may be achieved through 
the active search for commonalities versus 
differences. One of the participants in a focus 
group that targeted urban planners with the 

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© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1751-8040