Neighborhood renewal, or urban waste in haifa?

Driving along Independence Street in the lower city of Haifa, you see sign after sign trumpeting the future inauguration of this or that college in the future Port Campus.

In most cases, the buildings marked for development house nothing but pigeons and fleas. This neglect doesn't exactly scream of an inspiring project designed to change the face of Haifa and renew the dilapidated neighborhoods at the bottom of the mountain. But though investment may be slow, the Haifa municipality truly is devoting major resources to the future campus - at the expense of the Hadar Hacarmel neighborhood, which remains in the rear.

Haifa mayor Yona Yahav told TheMarker Real Estate in August 2005 that within a few years, the lower city would become a buzzing center, proudly housing faculties from the Technion and Haifa universities, alongside a selection of colleges.
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The campus is the city's solution for a tedious problem: the empty buildings in the area that once provided services to government institutions but whose offices moved to new edifices in Kiryat Hamemshala. Hassan Shukri Street is an example: once it housed many a government building, such as the local offices of the Interior Ministry, the court house, and city hall. But with the inauguration of the government complex, the offices emptied and now stand innocent of sapient life.

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