I wanted to share this great and quick read on Cairo as it reinforces various issues sparked in previous posts, particularly referring to the future growth and development of the city:

WHERE DOES URBAN HARMONY BEGIN? LINK

left: RAMSES SQUARE TODAY (image from Urbanharmony.org); right: RAMSES SQUARE 1954 (image from Al-Ahram)

The article was written by  Egyptian architect Manar Moursi. Moursi holds a dual degree in Architecture and Urban Planning from Princeton University .

How do you analyze informality in a city that is basically all informal? A city where informality is the norm and not the exception? My visit to Cairo was quite enlightening because of its complexity and range of the “informal”.

What defines informality? What are the standards used to define it? Informality can be the result and response to the constraints of a system. In the case of Cairo, it has become the paradigm, one that s difficult to understand based on “western standards” but a paradigm that drives an entire population nonetheless. With the formal becoming informal (or informalized), and the informal, formal (or formalized), where does the “legitimate city” lie?

In constant evolution, Cairo challenges this black and white dichotomy of formal and informal, and thus, reflects the complexity and intricate relationships between the latter. In this regards, the nomenclature and categorization of the informal have a direct influence on the perceptions; they dictate the type of intervention and measure taken, and redefine the right to the city of inhabitants. The definition of what is “informal” varies from day to day and place to place, and is in great respect dependent on the “formal”. To paraphrase Castelles and Portes, informality is not a product but a process, constantly in the making, shifting and redefining relationships with the “formal”.[1] As such, it is necessary to focus on the sociopolitical dynamics underlying the production of social conditions that quite often surround informality. By looking at informality as a product, or as a mere issue of form and morphological conditions, we ignore critical factors related to the process.

Dr. Dina, professor in the Institute of Architecture and Housing at the Housing and Building National Research in Cairo, states that contrary to the existing stigma, there are various advantages to living in informal settlements- social networks, “walkability”, self-sufficiency (self-belt and self-policing) , sense of safety, participation in the community, work-home proximity, identity, and solidarity are some of the key point… This is not to romanticize on the conditions of the dwellings, such as the poor quality or lack of services and infrastructure (including public transportation), Read More…

Cairo's Residential Densities; source: GTZ

OVERVIEW

Close to 70% of inhabitants of greater Cairo are living in informal settlements. Although informal housing today represents the dominant residential mode in Cairo, there are few “slums” in the city. Urban poverty is not particularly concentrated in a specific area, but is mixed within lower and middle-income families, in a number of older neighborhoods and informal areas of Greater Cairo.

Only recently, did the government recognize informal areas or Ashaw’iyyats (the term literally translates to “random,” and has become synonymous to informal areas and ”slums”) creating in 1993, a fund- “the Fund for Urban Upgrading”- to improve these areas.  The term currently used through the Fund is “unsafe areas.” The categorization is based on UN habitat slum criteria: life threatening (location), makeshift (condition of building structures), health (presence and conditions of basic infrastructure), and security/violence as well as legality. From what I was able to gather on the Fund’s structure, projects are constructed on a land based financing, where the value of the land pays for the housing. The Ministry of housing constructs the housing and puts it up for rental. When relocation is part of the solution, it is firstly paid for leaving the remaining money to be used for housing (usually 5 floor apartments). The governorates (local administrations of Cairo) are the ones that do the actual implementation of the project, first applying for funding to the Fund and then providing the technical assistance for the project.

To further explain, Cairo is politically divided into governorates; these are the main division of local administration in Egypt. There are 5 governorates total- Cairo, Giza, Qalyubiyah, and the newly formed Helwan and 6^th of October. Even though a “Greater Cairo Region” has been established at the national-level General Organization for planning purposes, governorates remain dependent on central government budget allocations for recurring and capital costs. This has obviously hindered any type of program or solution addressing the reintegration and upgrading of informal areas in the city. Contingent on this, it seems that in many cases, the Fund has been used on large infrastructural works such (roads, bridges, etc.) often bypassing the informal areas.

On a parallel note, GTZ has promoted a participatory approach to urban upgrading (Participatory Development Program -PDP), urging participation on all local levels and actors. There are two pilot areas in which the PDP has been working and experimenting: Boulak al Drakour and Manshiet Nasser. GTZ_PDP link

It must be noted that a program’s success lies, amongst others, in the active participation of the government (not only NGOs and community actors), as well as Read More…

Capital of Egypt, Cairo is one of the largest cities in both Africa and the Middle East. The city is situated in an area where the flat floodplain, surrounded by the deserts hills to the East and West, opens up to the Nile Delta. Cairo, with a population close to 16 million inhabitants, representing a quarter of Egypt’s population, contributes close to half of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

Boulaq al Drakour, Giza

Boulaq al Drakour-inner street

Cairo’s expansion began up the Nile and West of the historical city, later moving to the South towards Giza and North towards Shubra el Kheima Governorate during the postwar period.The majority of Cairo’s expansion has been on agricultural land. Only Eastern districts such as Medinet Nasr, early Heliopolis, etc. have been developed on what was previously desert land. For a little history on the urbanization:

Cairo's Development of Informal Areas, source: GTZ

In the early 1800s, Mohammaed Ali initiated the “modernization” of Cairo following a European paradigm. This transformation of the city was continued by his grandson Khedive Isamail (1863-1879), earning Cairo the nickname “Paris of the Nyle.” Western planning strategies continued to shape the city in the early 20^th century, witnessing an explosive growth for the city in the immediate post-World War II period. With the free-spending on the Allied armies, the city’s economy boomed and the industrial base expanded rapidly, also leading to the development of many informal areas. Following the 1952 revolution, under the socialist government of Nasr there was further acceleration of the city’s expansion, including a large number of massive public housing projects (15582 new government units were built between 1960 and 1964). The city’s expansion from 1947-1967 was mostly on agricultural land, achieving 3.4 inhabitants by 1960 (compared to a population of 2.8 million in 1947). The main axis of growth was to the North were the delta plan invited easy conversion to urban use and where the industrial hubs located various factories and public housing projects.

The 1967 war with Israel froze formal development in the city, but it did not stop the demographic growth, leading to an explosion of informal developments (Boulaq al Drakour, Waraq el Hadir, Bassatiin, Embaba, etc). In 1974, the oil boom opened up the economy, once again allowing Egyptians to travel freely, and Read More…