Cairo 2050 urban dream or modernist delusion

CAIRO 2050:URBAN DREAM OR MODERNIST DELUSION?

Nada Tarbush

Since the late 1960s, Cairo's urban development has been characterized by a rapid expan-sion of densely populated informal settlements ("ashwa'iyyat,) that now house more than60 percent of Cairo's population. In 2008, the Egyptian government began promotingCairo 2050, a grandiose "vision" that aims to counter this phenomenon and transformCairo into a global city like Paris or Tokyo. This article shows that attempts to redirectCairo down this path of modernization would fail to resolve the city's urban challengesbecause they ignore realities on the ground. The article argues that informality and itsassociated high population density have offered solutions—though they are subopti-mal—to resolving Cairo's urban challenges, and that implementing modernity from abovewill create more problems than solutions.

"This was the regime's 'urban dream': With skyscrapers and luxury develop-ments replacing all the informal neighborhoods, and their working-class resi-dents shunted to the desert, the busy, historic heart of Cairo, home to plentyof crumbling, informal housing of its own, would be remade as a sanitizedtourist park."

Frederick DeknateP

Since the late 1960s, Cairo's urban development has been characterized by

the rapid expansion of densely populated informal settlements, known as

'ashwa'iyyat ("haphazards" in Arabic). They were built without planning or con-

struction permits, mostly on reclaimed agricultural land flanking inner Cairo.^

The settlements are now home to more than 60 percent of Cairo's estimated sev-

Nada Tarbush is a graduate student in the dual master's-degree program in international affairsbetween Sciences Po Paris and Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

Tlie Global Public Policy Network Essay features the finest work received by the Journal/rom studentsat GPPN partner schools, including Sciences Po Paris, the London School of Economics and PoliticalScience, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Columbia University. The essay prize wasinaugurated in 2011.

Journal of International Affairs, Spring/Summer 2012, Vol. 65, No. 2. SPRING/SUMMER 2012 | 171© The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York

Nada Tarbush

enteen million inhabitants and cover over half of the city's physical space.^ In 2008

the Egyptian government began promoting "Cairo 2050," a series of mega-projects

designed collaboratively by a large, international team of consultants intended to

modernize Cairo and counter the city's informal urbanization."*

The plan would redistribute residents of informal areas to satellite towns in

the desert in order to "even out" the population of the city and make space for

elements of modernity like business parks, luxury hotels, tourism centers, office

towers, recreational parks and wide boulevards. But why is there such a vision for

Cairo? Inspired by global-city master plans like Sydney 2030, Paris 2020, Abu

Dhabi 2030, Singapore 2050, Shanghai 2050,

The phenomenon Tokyo 2050 and London 2066, the goal of Cairo's

of informality in strategic pian is to replicate these models of. r 1 • modernity. For a number of reasons outlined in

C a i r o , rar rrOm b e i n g ^ is article, Cairo 2050 is unlikely to materialize

an indication of fully—at least in its proposed form—particularly

UnderdevelODment ^^ postrevolutionary setting. Nevertheless, stud-1 1 , . 1 ying the plan is useful for understanding recent

has been a rational ^ *, . „ . . ,u ^ .developments in Cairo and the Egyptian govern-

r e S p O n S e Dy V^aireneS ment's approach to urban planning, including its

to population "continued penchant for the manufacture of unre-

growth and housing " ' ^ ' ' ' '•".. This article shows that the phenomenon of

öl lOI LdgcS). informality in Cairo, far from being an indication

of underdevelopment, has been a rational response

by Cairenes to population growth and housing shortages. Attempts to redirect the

city onto the Cairo 2050 modernization path do not account for this and other

realities on the ground. If pursued, they will not only fail to resolve Cairo's urban

challenges, but will be detrimental to social equity, the environment and Egypt's

cultural heritage.''

The first section of this article describes the Cairo 2050 study in more detail,

its diagnosis of Cairo's urban problems—namely, informality (and associated high

population density) and lack of "modernity" (with modernity defined as the urban

state of affairs in global cities like Paris and Tokyo)—and its vision for moving

forward. The second section of the article shows that informality and the lack of

modernity should not be construed as problems, but as features of the city that

emerged logically from the local context. Therefore, the Cairo 2050 plan to counter

these phenomena cannot work, and implementing it would have disastrous conse-

quences. The third and final section maps out possible ways forward.

Two points of clarification should be made before proceeding. First, this article

172 I JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Cairo 2050

is not arguing that plans to improve Cairo's urbanization are, in principle, wrong,

and that the status quo is the best alternative and should be maintained. It is

arguing that Cairo 2O5O's vision is flawed. The second point is, by extension, that

this article is not meant to romanticize informal areas, but rather to show that the

construction of these areas has been and continues to be rational, which should be

recognized in any response to informal development. Hence, while the construc-

tion of informal areas should not be condemned, they have disadvantages that

should be addressed.

TERMINOLOGY

Greater Cairo Region (GCR): Includes the governorates of Cairo, Giza and

Qalyoubiya. Note that the Sixth of October governorate (seen in Figure 1 and

Figure 2) and the Helwan governorate (seen in Figure 2) were reincorporated into

the Cairo and Giza Governorates, respectively, in April 2011.'' Throughout this

article, "Cairo," "capital" and "city" are used synonymously with "Greater Cairo

Region." The GCR has a population of approximately seventeen million people.^

Formal areas: Characterized by legal modes of urbanization. About five

million people live in these areas.

Informal areas: Characterized by extra-legal modes of urbanization. About

eleven million people live in these areas.'

New towns: These are towns that have been built in the desert around Cairo.

Approximately 800,000 people live in these towns.'" Throughout this article,

"desert towns," "satellite towns" and "new towns" are used synonymously.

THE CAIRO 2050 PLAN

Cairo 2050 is a $3.5 million proposal that was commissioned by the Mubarak

administration and was intended to be a new "Strategic Urban Development

Plan" for the Greater Cairo Region." The General Organization for Physical

Planning spearheaded the effort under the aegis of the Ministry of Housing,

Infrastructure and Urban Development.'^ A number of organizations collaborated

on the project, including the United Nations Development Programme, the United

Nations Human Settlements Programme, the World Bank, the German Society

for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the Japan International Cooperation

Agency.'^ The idea behind the plan is that Cairo cannot continue on its current

"flawed" development path if it is to become a modern global city.

SPRING/SUMMER 2012 1 173

Nada Tarbush

Figure 1: Greater Cairo Region, new town boundaries in 2009

Source: David Sims, Understanding Cairo: The Logic of a City Out of Control (New York: American

University in Cairo Press, 2010), 174. Reprinted with permission of the copyright holder.

174 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Cairo 2050

Figure 2: Extent of formal and informal settlements in the Greater CairoRegion. Note that since April 2011, Sixth of October and Helwan are no longerseparate governorates

6th of October

D Ssvernorate BorderI I River Nile

Kiiomet&rs

I

0 2 4

Source: Sarah Sabry, "Egypt's Informal Areas: Inaccurate and Contradictory Data," in Cairo's Informal

Areas: Between Urban Challenges and Hidden Potentials, ed. Regina Kipper and Marion Fischer (Cairo:

GTZ Egypt, 2009), 28. Reprinted with permission of the copyright holder.

SPRING/SUMMER 2012 175

Nada Tarbush

Perceived Problems

According to the study, Cairo "has declined as a result of several problems: (1)

High density in [the] inner-city; (2) Traffic congestion; (3) Environmental deterio-

ration; (4) Informal development."'"* These are interlinked, with high population

density—largely the result of informal development—leading to chaotic traffic,

pollution and the construction of more informal housing. Informal development

goes hand in hand with high density, causing the "maldistribution of population."'^

This contrasts with the more evenly distributed populations of Paris, New York

and Tokyo, among others.

The comparison with other global cities is a leitmotif in Cairo 2050, indicating

that the lack of modernity—defined as the extent of deviation from Western urban

models—is also perceived as a fundamental obstacle to proper urban development.

Informal development and its associated high population density and "maldistribu-

tion" are phenomena that deviate from Global North urban models; hence, they

are antithetical to modernity and contribute to the "backward" state of Cairo's

development.

Vision for the Future

To modernize Cairo and mitigate the problem of informal development and its

associated high population density, Cairo 2050 envisions widely redistributing the

population. This would entail removing some informal areas of Cairo entirely, and

decongesting others by replacing built-up areas within them with wide boulevards,

green open spaces and other design interventions. Ultimately, hundreds of thou-

sands if not millions of inhabitants of informal areas would be forced to resettle,

mostly in "new housing extensions" in the desert.'^

This vision of a modern Cairo follows from the desire of consultants and gov-

ernment planners to mimic other global cities. Reducing informality is one way

to do this.'^ They want Cairo to become "a super-modern, high-tech, green, and

connected city that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the metropolises in the

world's most advanced countries."'^

As a result, the development plan includes a number of megaprojects, some

designed by "starchitects" like Zaha Hadid, and calls for the widespread privatiza-

tion of spaces and services, especially in real estate and tourism." The Khufu Plaza

Parks project aims to create a wide boulevard of parks and multilane avenues that

would cut through the informal area of Boulaq el Dakrour. East of Cairo, the crea-

tion of a 1,900-acre finance and business center is on the agenda. A third project

would establish a "tourism oasis" with two thousand hotel rooms and a tourism

center with 3,200 rooms. Other plans include the creation of open-air museums

in historic Cairo, the establishment of an international library, a number of tech-


Cairo 2050

nological universities, two international "medical cities" and the conversion ofseveral cemeteries inhabited by informal settlers into green spaces and high-enddevelopment areas.^°

How CAIRO 2050 GETS IT WRONG

The Logic of Informality

This section argues that informality and associated high population densityhave been a solution—albeit a suboptimal one—to Cairo's urban challenges, andthat they are not a hindrance to further development. According to David Sims,Cairo has developed successfully as a megacity, having been able to grow "fromfour to seventeen million inhabitants in less than fifty years on its own, so to speak,counter to government intentions and plans. . . . This 'auto-development' has gen-erated efficient neighbourhoods where two-thirds of all Cairenes live and almosthalf of them work, where housing is minimally acceptable and quite affordable,and where 'basic services,' which only government can provide, are surprisingly notbad."^' Informal processes in, among others, the subdivision of land, constructionof housing, exchange of properties and operation of businesses—all of which areproscribed by law—have made this possible.

Informal construction in Cairo, the result of rapid population growth and aninsufficient supply of affordable housing, began in the late 1960s. From 1960 to2006, the number of inhabitants in informal areas jumped from nearly zero toabout eleven million—that is, approximately 65 percent of the city's population.^^During the same period, the population in formal areas expanded by about amillion people, while the desert towns attracted only about 600,000.^^

The Success of the Informal Real Estate Market

At least 80 percent of all informal development has taken place on the agricul-

tural land that bounds inner Cairo, the majority of which is private freehold prop-

erty.^'' Since agricultural strips are roughly rectangular and already divided, they

are easy to parcel for construction purposes.^^ Farmers have the incentive to convert

their land holdings to real estate, which has a much higher market value. Informal

processes have been developed to facilitate sale transactions between farmers and

purchasers. In most cases the purchaser (or an extended family member) goes on

to construct housing on the land.^^ These processes serve to minimize costs.

The state has attempted to prohibit illegal construction, though this has

only led to more innovative forms of construction involving additional actors. '

Moreover, it has increased density by inadvertently incentivizing people to buy

vacant plots in densely populated areas or that are adjacent to existing buildings—

SPRING/SUMMER 2012 I 177

Nada Tarbush

making them less likely to be noticed by the authorities.^^ However, state prohibi-

tions have generally been lax because many state officials have an incentive to turn

a blind eye to informal activities in exchange for bribes or to "[insulate themselves]

from bottom-up demands for services and housing." "

Though these effects have led to an increase in the effective cost of housing

units, the informal option remains more affordable and desirable than alterna-

tives provided by the government or the private sector. Also, other advantages of

informal areas^—largely brought about by the char-

informal acteristic of high population density—play a majornr>t i C\V\ r p m a i n <î " ' ^^ making them preferred areas for settlement.

Indeed, compactness has many advantages. It

makes providing personal services straightforward

ÛCSirâDlC tíl3.n and cost effective, and generates business opportu-

D d c d "iti^s by luring entrepreneurs with a large clientele

1 , 1 , and a pool of readily available labor. Residents can

bv tne povernment•' o also benefit from social capital since relatives and

or t h e pr ivate sector, fiends live nearby. »As mentioned earlier, that informal develop-

ment has been a logical choice does not mean it is the best option. An obvious

disadvantage is the loss of agricultural land. The uncontrolled urbanization process

in informal areas also means that spaces are seldom allocated for the public good.

Buildings are tall, blocking air and sun from the interior and streets, and are con-

structed with the largest possible footprint, narrowing streets and leaving little

space for recreational parks. Vehicular access is difficult and there is almost a

complete absence of traffic police control.^' Most of the problems of informal areas

could, however, be fixed by better provision of government services, especially in

terms of infrastructure.The Failure of Public and Private Real Estate Markets

As noted earlier, one of Cairo 2O5O's main proposals for dealing with "maldis-

tribution of population" is to relocate part of the population to "new towns" built

on state-owned land in the desert fringes of Cairo. Over the last thirty years, a

massive amount of resources—both human and financial—has been expended

on these towns to build public housing estates, private developer compounds,

individual subdivisions and, in four of the eight towns, industrial complexes.

Their overall success in terms of attracting inhabitants has been dismal, however;

not even a fraction of the target of at least twelve million inhabitants has been

The public and private real estate markets operating in desert towns have


Cairo 2050

failed to create affordable, appropriate and sustainable housing. There are several

explanations for this. Let us first consider government public-housing programs.

In these programs, housing has none of the advantages of informal areas that arise

from high density, diversity, access to informal jobs and markets, affordability

and proximity to family and friends. Diversity and compactness are prevented by

strict adherence to Western planning norms. Residential areas are segregated from

commercial, industrial and other areas, and individual buildings are separated by

areas earmarked for parking and green space. The prohibition on opening shops or

offices in most buildings prevents the formation of informal businesses (a source

of at least 40 percent of jobs in urban Egypt).^^ An arbitrary, lottery-style method

of distributing housing units makes it difficult to remain close to friends and

family. Transport costs reduce affordability. As a result, a large proportion of public

housing units remains vacant. Many times, someone who gains a unit through the

lottery system will rent or resell it in anticipation of speculative gains.^''

Turning to the private real-estate market, speculation and the desire for

modernity have led to the proliferation of unaffordable private-developer schemes

in desert towns.^' Most of this development has taken the form of exclusive

residential areas, including gated communities, golf and luxury villas and garden

apartments. Sheikh Zayed City, for example, boasts exclusive private compounds

like the one called "Beverly Hills."^'' Madinaty, one of Egypt's biggest property

developments, is advertised as "a City of International Standards in Egypt." *" In

Cairo's eastern desert, at least eight luxury shopping complexes are planned.^^ One

of these, "Park Avenue," is being advertised as "one of the biggest high-end retail

destinations in the Middle East . . . [which includes] the Park Avenue Shopping

district, 595 luxury villas at Hyde Park and Centre Ville apartments all overlooking

a lush central park."^'' In part, this is the result of downtown Cairo's reputation as

crowded, noisy and polluted, juxtaposed with an image of the new towns as islands

of modernity, peace and serenity.

Another reason for this trend is the prospect of speculative gains. A large pro-

portion of the land and property purchased in desert towns by private companies

or families is for speculative investment."*" Speculators can reserve the right to buy

into a new housing project with a relatively small down payment and can subse-

quently sell that right to other speculators who repeat the same transaction for a

profit without ever living on the property.

The proliferation of private-developer schemes can also be explained by the

incentives created by convenient terms of payment. When state land is sold to

individuals and investors, a 10 percent down payment is required, and the balance

is paid in equal installments over the next seven to ten years. After designing and

advertising a project, the developer has an incentive to take advantage of "buyer


Nada Tarbush

financing"—i.e., selling housing units to interested buyers through a sequence ofpayments (reserve payments, payments upon signing contract, etc.) so that mostland purchase installments and construction costs can be financed without bankloans.^'

This means that the costs of starting and developing a project are relativelylow, creating the conditions for private ventures that are profitable to developersbut of little value to the public. Government officials have also engaged in corruptland-sale deals with private companies, further increasing the profitability of thesekinds of development projects.

Ignoring the Logic of Informality: Consequences

As long as appropriate alternatives for housing are unavailable, a policy of relo-cating Cairenes away from informal areas to satellite towns in order to "upgrade"the former is neither desirable nor feasible. Imposing formality on informal areasand transforming them into high-end development and green spaces would havecatastrophic consequences for the poor and would exacerbate, rather than resolve,a housing crisis. Many of these areas would be bought up by entrepreneurs andcompanies interested in implementing lucrative schemes and speculative projects.Land values would skyrocket, impeding the construction of affordable housing. Inthe desert, the focus on investor-led, market-driven growth would also affect thepoor negatively. It would surely result in increased urban inequalities as the middleand upper classes benefit at the expense of the poor. This could in turn lead to abreakdown in social cohesion.

Moreover, instead of creating a green "global heritage capital," implementingthe vision for Cairo would lead to environmental and cultural disasters.*2 Housingprojects in the new towns would be problematic given the amounts of energy andwater needed for construction and to sustain green areas, and because of height-ened pollution from increased transportation needs. The vision also makes use ofenvironmental arguments to justify a number of plans that would have culturallyharmful effects, including plans to transform a large part of the historic City of theDead into a fifteen-thousand-acre public park.''^ While authorities claim that theywould preserve heritage sites within the area, one wonders whether they take intoaccount the fact that "the tombs have been inhabited for most of the 1,400 yearsbetween their establishment [in 642 CE] and today."'*''

The Irrelevance of Modernity

The desire to implement modernity and turn Cairo into a "global city," alignedwith first-world urban development models and strategies, is a hindrance and nota solution to the city's urban development challenges.""^ The existence of informal


Cairo 2050

and high-density areas is considered to be a sign that not enough has been done tointroduce modernity to the city. The state, which views itself as the agent of mod-ernization, believes it can rectify the situation through ambitious desert schemesand market-led development policies that would transform the inner city into anaggregation of futuristic skyscrapers and large green areas.

The State: Agent of Modernization?

Three assumptions underpin the belief that thestate is an agent of modernization. The first is that i m p O S m g l O r m a l l t ythe city's problems derive from its being "unmodern," QJ informalfrom which it follows that modernization is the solu- a rp i i <; \MCÏ\ I lH V» u\re^tion. Many think that Cairo, once the "Paris of the .Nile," has become an "unmitigated mess."** This CataStrOphlCsentiment has permeated Egyptian public discourse, COnSeOUenCeSparticularly since the 1990s.''' The following descrip- J^QJ- \\\Ç^ DOOr a n dtion, which appeared in A/-A/zram in 1994, is typical: I i i„- ^ ,, . f J V • wouiQ exaceroate ,Informal housing areas are one of modern Egyptian

society's problems. They are made up of nests of r a t n e r t n a ncriminals, beggars, drug dealers and those who flee g hoUSithe law. They are a continual source of disturbanceand anxiety for society and represent an ax that will destroy progress. Informalhousing areas and their surroundings live with health, societal, and cultural back-wardness and the spread of social and psychological diseases."***

A second assumption is that the state as modernizing agent "can actually beeffective, that it can intervene and has the ability to transform society and theeconomy."*' A third assumption is that the state is external to and distinct frominformality. Indeed, the 'ashwa'iyyat discourse mentioned previously is contingentupon the idea that informality reflects the absence or antithesis of the state.^"Chaos, disorderliness, criminality and dangerous Islamism are seen to exist ininformal areas because these areas are autonomous and separate from the state.^'

In reality, "the state cannot always be so neatly located outside informality."'^Indeed, informal areas are, according to W. Judson Dormán, "closely connectedto the state both in origins and reproduction."'^ State policies were responsible forthe creation of "two of the essential conditions" for informal development: "theabsence of new subdivisions at the root of inflation in land prices and the eco-nomic development of the city periphery."''' For reasons of expediency, the statehas tacitly approved and sometimes even encouraged informal development.

The differentiation in public discourse between the state and formality on theone hand and informality on the other has been an expedient move on the part of

SPRING/SUMMER 2012 181

Nada Tarbush

the government to help legitimize a range of policies pertaining to informal areas,including eviction, upgrading schemes, the repression of political movements andincomplete service provision.^^ This would suggest that, in practice, the state hasnot necessarily been pursuing modernization. While this goes a long way towardexplaining why the state has not effectively addressed informality, I agree withDavid Sims that "ignorance of reality" and "continued self-delusion" contain more

explanatory power, especially given the shape thatWestern models urban planning policies have taken over the past few

of modernity have ^"""been exported to The Fallacy of the Modernity Solution

Cairo for decades ^^^ '^S''- ^"^ rationality attributed to the work-thp fart ^"^^ °^ modernity, such as the market, capitalism and

^ technology, are far from obvious.'*^ Postmodern, post-mOQernity- colonial and post-development discourses seek to go

based government beyond the common assumptions inherent to moderni-have zation theories. A full-fledged critique of modernity is

J , beyond the scope of this paper, however.repeatedly instead, I will focus on an internal criticism of

UnSUCCeSSIUl . modernization theories, namely that they embody anahistorical approach to development and are guilty

of universalism and homogenization. If history is linear, first-world developmentis the desired end-state for the third world. This logic is underpinned by univer-salism—the idea that there is one development trajectory, namely westernizationand homogenization—as societies of the third world are grouped together and col-lectively prescribe a "one-size-fits-all" solution to their problems."

Modernity is prone to failure when it is not contextualized. Western models ofmodernity have been exported to Cairo for decades, despite the fact that modernity-based government programs have been repeatedly unsuccessful. Egypt's economy,its budget and the majority of its people "simply cannot afford the shining para-phernalia of western city living"—a reality that is not apparent to urban planners,with their "modernist delusions" and "'Dubai-beautiful' complexes."'** As notedin the first section of this article, Cairo 2050 was inspired by grand visions likeParis 2020, Sydney 2030, Singapore 2050 and London 2066. The tendency to lookoutside of Egypt for inspiration is part of a broader trend, prevalent in academicand development-agency literature, to use broad, international paradigms to solvehighly local, individualized problems.

Ignoring the Irrelevance of Modernity: Consequences

When modernity is imposed based on external examples, the result is often


Cairo 2050

highly abstract and divorced from reality. Words like "dream," "fantasia" and

"desert Disneyland" have been used to describe aspects of Cairo 2050.^' It is

inconceivable that the government would raze large sections of built-up areas

and to relocate possibly millions of people. Where plans require colossal sums of

money and resources for implementation, they become even more dangerous and

pie-in-the-sky. These fantastical ambitions will inevitably result in major parts of

the vision being tossed out.

Moreover, the vision's top-down approach means that it fails to consider the

needs of the majority of Cairo's residents, has little regard for their preferences and

does not seek their approval. For example, according to Amnesty International, the

development of Cairo 2050 was based on the findings from a survey of no more

than five thousand people.*^" Such considerations mean that it will be unaccept-

able to implement the plan in its original form, especially in a postrevolutionary

context. According to an article by Nabil Shawkat, "no one wants to associate with

it these days."''' However, there is little chance that, even post-Mubarak, Cairo

2050 will be discarded completely. Indeed, it will be difficult to rid the system

of its domination by special interests, which has led to a highly disproportionate

amount of government investments ending up in new towns rather than in the

much more populated informal areas.*" Yet there is no guarantee that "the manipu-

lators and opportunists and bribers, so prominent in the past, will not still find

fertile ground."''^

CONCLUSION

This article has argued that in Cairo, informality has not been a diversion from

a superior modernization path, but is a logical alternative route for urbanization to

have taken given the local context. Indeed, the challenge presented by the Cairene

megacity could not have been met without the people's ingenuity, especially in a

context in which government policy has been biased toward "western, modernist-

corporate paradigms."*""* However, while informality has been ingenuous and appro-

priate, it is not optimal.

As a result, the way forward is to try to "re-orient Cairo's development away

from inefficient and wasteful grandiosity" toward the needs of the city's residents.*"'

Government resources should be shifted from satellite towns that benefit mainly

the rich minority to informal areas where about two-thirds of the population lives

and where public services are most lacking. Also, well-positioned desert parcels

that are currently undeveloped could be used for the construction of affordable

housing as the population increases. One way of doing this would be to prepare

and service plots of land and then sell them to would-be informal homesteaders

for home construction. This would not worsen the problem of agricultural-land


Nada Tarbush

scarcity and would make more city services available to homesteaders than if theyhad settled in informal areas. Such a project was implemented in Ismailia in themid-1970s and by 1983 was "a well-known success." *" Other ways forward includetrying to eliminate real-estate speculation by making provisions regarding owneroccupancy, such as imposing restrictions on the transfer of ownership for a numberof years following the date of acquisition.

Above all, planners and government officials alike should recognize that theviews of "older professional elites whose models for Cairo are London, Singapore orDubai" are not appropriate for a city where most people are poor and the economyis stagnant.*'' Shedding widely held misperceptions about informal areas and disre-garding special interests will prove far more important to the development effortsof the future.*^ The views and interests of the majority, rather than existing modelsfrom abroad, should form the basis for future plans.

In November 2011, the author attended the Harvard Arab Weekend inCambridge, Massachusetts, the largest pan-Arab conference in North America,where one participant asked the following about development in the Arab world:"You speak of a Turkish model for our governance, an Israeli model for our entre-preneurship and a Chinese model for our employment. Why not an Arab modelborn on Arab soil?" Continuing this thought: Why not a Cairene model for Cairo'surban development? ^

NOTES

Frederick Deknatel, "2050 or Bust: On Urban Planning in the Egyptian Desert " Los Angeles Reviewoofa 16 November 2011.

2 Ibid.

^ Cairo: A City in Transition, City &. Citizens Series (Nairobi: United Nations Human SettlementsProgramme, 2011), 152, http://www.unhabitat.org/pmss/getElectronicVersion.aspx?nr=3136&alt=l,146.

Cairo 2050 has not been officially published. The Egyptian government, together with a group ofconsultants, is now working on an amended version of the original plan, but definitive informationabout modifications is not yet available. However, a PowerPoint presentation outlining the originalCairo 2050 plan is available to the public and is the basis for information in this article. AymanEl-hefnawi, "Cairo vision 2050: The Strategic Urban Development Plan of Greater Cairo Region"(presentation. World Urban Forum 5, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, March 2010), http://www.urbangatewayorg/sites/default/ugfiles/8635_42944_ AymanEl-hefnawi.pdf.

^ David Sims, Understanding Cairo: The Logic of a City Out of Control (New York: American Universityin Cairo Press, 2010), 88; Deknatel, "2050 or Bust."

This represents a failure in terms of resolving Cairo's urban challenges, not vis-à-vis certain indi-viduals and groups whose narrow economic and political interests are served by the plan. This pointis expanded in a later section of the article.

'' "Fresh reshuffle in Egypt's governors," Egypt State Information Service, 15 April 2011, http://www.sis.gov.eg/En/Story.aspx?sid=54863.

^ Deknatel, "2050 or Bust."


Cairo 2050

' David Sims, "Understanding Cairo in Revolutionary Times," American University in Cairo Press,15 February 2011, http://www.aucpress.com/t-DavidSimsNewIntroduction.aspx.

'0 Ibid.

" Nabil Shawkat, "Street Smart: Cairo 2050, Cuilty by Design or Association?" Ahram Online, 10September 2011.

'2 Cairo: A City in Transition, 152.

'^ Ibid.: GIZ was formerly called the German Society for Technical Cooperation (DeutscheGesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, or GTZ). Since 1 January 2011 it has been knownas the German Society for International Cooperation (Deutsche Gesellschaft für InternationaleZusammenarbeit).

'•* El-hefnawi, "Cairo vision 2050," 3.

'5 Ibid., 5.

"' Deknatel, "2050 or Bust."

''' Cairo: A City in Transition, \S9.

'^ ?>\ms. Understanding Cairo, 88.

''•* "Cairo: The Organized Loss of Identity," International Network for Urban Research and Action,Cairo, http://www.inura.org/NMM_Posters_PDF/INURAl l_Cairo.pdf.

2** Cairo: A City in Transition, 153.

2' Sims, Understanding Cairo, 267.

22 Marion Séjourné, "The History of Informal Sett lements," in Cairo's Informal Areas: Between UrbanChallenges and Hidden Potentials, ed. Regina Kipper and Marion Fischer (Cairo: GIZ Egypt, 2009), 17.

23 Sims, Understanding Cairo, 86.

24 Ibid., 112.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid., 114.

27 Ibid., 122.

28 Ibid., 114.

2 ' Cairo: A City in Transition, 148; W. Judson Dormán , "Informal Cairo: between Islamist insurgencyand the neglectful s tate?" Security Dialogue 4 0 (2009): 422 .

^^ No te tha t in informal areas, most personal services are "provided by establishments tha t are them-selves informal." Sims, Understanding Cairo, 120-21 .

31 Ibid., 121-22.

32 Ibid., 173, 181, 187, 207.

33 Ibid., 188.

34 Ibid., 158-62.

35 Nicolas Kemper, "Revolutionizing Cairo," Yale Globalist, 28 February 2011.

36 "Beverly Hills," SODIC Human Developments, accessed 8 March 2012, http://www.sodic.com/our-developments/sodic-west/beverly-hills.

3'' "A City In Egypt With International Standards," Madinaty, http://www.madinaty.com/innerpage.aspx?id=l.

3^ Sims, Understanding Gairo, 206.

3' "DAMAC Properties—Strength to strength in KSA," press release, DAMAC Properties, 16 January2011, http://www.damacproperties.com/16-jan-2011.html.

4" Sims, Understanding Cairo, 207.


Nada Tarbush

4' Ibid., 192-94.

"• El-hefnawi, "Cairo vision 2050," 16.

•* Ibid.; Jack Shenker, "Desert Storm," Guardian, 10 June 2011; Kemper, "Revolutionizing Cairo."

'* Cairo: A City in Transition, 162; Matt Bradley, "Razing the City of the Dead to breathe new life intoCairo," National, 19 June 2009.

•^ This section of the article defines "modernity" as adherence to global models.

^* Sims, Understanding Cairo, 15.

'*'' Diane Singerman, "The Siege of Imbaba, Egypt's Internal 'Other,' and the Criminalization ofPolitics," in Cairo Contested: Governance, Urban Spaee, and Global Modernity, ed. Diane Singerman (NewYork: American University in Cairo Press, 2009), 111-44.

48 Ibid., 111.

'*' Sims, Understanding Cairo, 272.

' ° Dormán, "Informal Cairo," 428; Shawn O'Donnell, "Informal Housing in Cairo: Are Ashwa'iyyatReally the Problem?" (working paper, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, 2010), 16,http://conservancy.umn.edU/bitstream/92714/l/InformaI%20Housing%20in%20Cairo.pdf.

" Dormán, "Informal Cairo," 428.

'^ Julia Elyachar, "Mappings of Power: The State, NGOs, and International Organizations in theInformal Economy of Cairo," Comparative Studies in Society and History 45 (2003): 576.

'^ Dormán, "Informal Cairo," 435.

' ' ' Ibid., 422.

" A well-known example of the repression of political movements is the Siege of Imbaba, which tookplace in the winter of 1992.

"> Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 2002), 14.

' ' ' Wolfgang Sachs, ed.. The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power (New York- ZedBooks, 1992), 3-4.58 Sims, Understanding Cairo, 272; Sims, "Understanding Cairo in Revolutionary Times."

'^ Deknatel, quoting an architect who has worked in Egypt for twenty years. Deknatel, "2050 orBust"; Sims, "Understanding Cairo in Revolutionary Times."

*° "We Are Not Dirt": forced Evictions in Egypt's Informal Settlements (London: Amnesty International2011), 81.

*' Shawkat, "Street Smart."

* John Harris, "Urban planner David Sims explodes myths on Cairo's dysfunction," Egypt Independent12 January 2012. f / A//' F .

Sims, "Understanding Cairo in Revolutionary Times."

^"^ Sims, Understanding Cairo, 268-69.

*' Sims, "Understanding Cairo in Revolutionary Times."

^ Amira Howeidy, "International Expert David Sims: Rethinking Housing Policy," in Cairo's InformalAreas: Between Urban Challenges and Hidden Potentials, ed. Regina Kipper and Marion Eischer (Cairo-GIZ Egypt, 2009), 181.67 Sims, "Understanding Cairo in Revolutionary Times."

8 Arab Republic of Egypt: Towards an Urban Sector Strategy (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008),


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