Air-to-ground missiles rained down on Gaza's cinder-block sprawl and Hamas militants warned "the gates of hell" had been thrown open.
Today the city itself isn't any more beautiful — there's just too much cinder-block sprawl — but it's buzzing with new talent and bold ideas.
The Hamas-led government in Gaza is organizing a homecoming at Brigades Park, one of the largest open green spaces in the densely populated gray cinder-block sprawl of Gaza City, for some of the Palestinian detainees to be released next week in exchange for an Israeli soldier, Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit.
With its red-brick office blocks, sprawling Convention Center and waterfront piers, Fort Point Channel in Boston would seem an odd place for an arty fashion boutique like the Achilles Project.
It has five-star hotels, a Gucci store, endless blocks of shops and flashy restaurants, but also acres of factories and cramped dormitory blocks, sprawling into the next industrial town.
Carandiru, a legendary complex of seven blocks, sprawls across a central area of the world's third-largest city, home to 17 million people, 20percentt of them slum residents.
Conservation easements have become the weapon of choice in the battle to block urban sprawl.
Last week, Mrs. Whitman was inaugurated for a second term and came bearing a broader agenda, with particular emphasis on blocking suburban sprawl, preserving open spaces and renewing blighted urban neighborhoods.
MARIA DOLORES ORTIZ has a small shop selling dresses and baby clothes at the smarter end of the main street of Lucha de los Pobres (Struggle of the Poor), a shantytown whose half-finished breeze-block houses sprawl over a hillside on the southern outskirts of Quito, Ecuador's capital.
The would-be refugees are being put up in three accommodation blocks in sprawling College grounds.
Tall, luxury apartment blocks overlook sprawling slums.
