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By the end of the nineteenth century, the doubling of Cairo's population and the exponential growth of its foreign community had created a huge demand for new accommodation, which fired the imagination of a Belgian entrepreneur. Baron Empain proposed creating a garden city in the desert, linked to the downtown area by an overground metro; a commercial venture attractive to investors, since Empain's company would collect both rents and fares from commuting residents of Heliopolis . Laid out by Sir Reginald Oakes in radial grid patterns, the suburb's wide avenues were lined with apartment blocks ennobled by pale yellow Moorish facades and bisected by shrubbery. Named after the ancient City of the Sun near Matariyya, Heliopolis soon acquired every facility from schools and churches to a racecourse and branch of Groppi's. Wealthy Egyptians settled here from the beginning; merely prosperous ones moved in as foreigners left in droves throughout the 1950s. Meanwhile, poorer quarters started growing up around Heliopolis, ending its privileged isolation from Greater Cairo. During the 1970s, air-conditioned towers began to replace spacious villas, the racecourse was turned into a fun park, and burger joints proliferated. Today, visitors come for the restaurants and nightlife, or to admire the stylish architecture along its central boulevards; many foreigners also rent apartments or work in Heliopolis, which is nowadays called "New Cairo" ( Masr el-Gadida).
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