Yiuco may be the Middle East’s greener Etsy. Etsy, the global online store, has enjoyed great success due to the fact that it enables individuals to buy handmade, unique items from other individuals around the world with the click of…
At stake for Oman is the extinction of traditional handicrafts in the face of cheaper, machine made imitations. Man making khanjars (traditional Omani daggers). [image via: v.williams46] Omani handicrafts – such as silver items, woven cloths, and pottery – may…
One of the most pressing needs in countries with little open space is to make urban life desirable enough that city folk won’t want to flee to the suburbs. But in Beer Sheva, a strange phenomenon is underfoot – suburbanization…
You heard it here when Jenin got a mall-ish furniture superstore. Now East Jerusalem is also joining the trend. According to Danny Rubinstein at YnetNews, the Nusseibeh family has started work on the A-Dar Mall on Salah-a-Din Street, right outside…
According to Lebanon’s Daily Star, the war-ravaged southern town of Bint Jbeil is remaking itself as a suburban summer getaway for expatriates who left over the last three decades of strife. Suburban living has made deep imprints across the Middle…
Beer Sheva, the long-suffering capital of Israel’s Negev desert, just broke ground on the biggest shopping mall in Israel. Like the other seven malls of Beer Sheva, this $180.5 million complex will continue to suck business out of the dilapidated…
This coming Tuesday, July 7th a new store will be opening up in the Old City of Acco in northern Israel. A store that invites its customers to “Shop For Meaning.” Stocked with products carrying both social and environmental messages,…
One of America’s most enduring gifts to the Middle East is the suburban indoor shopping mall. Israel’s first was the Ayalon Center outside of Tel Aviv (1986). Istanbul saw the Atakoy Mall go up in 1987. Jordan’s pioneer was Amman’s…
Consumption is, in general, not very green. It often involves the wasteful use of resources, fossil fuels for transportation, and non environmentally friendly materials. While a general reduction in consumption would be ideal, though, there will always be certain purchases…
A day before Buy Nothing Day (today), an American salesman lost his life, as bargain hunters in a Wal-Mart shop in Long Island trampled him to death. No one was going to get in the way of a good deal:…
