The role of advertisements in the marketing of gated communities as a new Western suburban lifestyle: a case study of the Greater Cairo Region, Egypt

This paper examines the advertising themes and rhetoric that have been assembled in the marketing of the Greater Cairo Region's (GCR) newly built gated communities. We demonstrate how place-marketing strategies, in this case, selling the Egyptian dream home, draws upon specific landscape offerings and values. It shows how aspects of globalization interact with processes of urbanization in the GCR to create new landscapes of housing consumption. The globalization of mass media has influenced consumption preferences and brought new consumption choices to the GCR's residents. This study concludes that the demand for gated communities in the GCR, in large part, has been created by developers who foster an image of these areas as symbols of 'modernism' and Western lifestyles. Underlying these sales efforts is the common assumption held by developers, potential buyers and segments of the larger society that the lifestyles of Western urbanization should naturally emerge as the result of economic development.