![]() ![]() Khufu Boulevard was to be a wide, European-style boulevard full of greenery, connecting Cairo's Mohandessin neighborhood to the Giza Pyramids. Some of Cairo 2050's mega-projects have been altered to reduce their potential impact on Cairenes. To accommodate the Imbaba development, Mansour says families were forced to move to temporary housing that is neither healthy nor safe. ![]() So far, the only component of Cairo 2050 that has been implemented to any extent is the North Giza Redevelopment plan, which is supposed to bring parks, schools, health clinics and youth centers to Cairo's low-income Imbaba neighborhood. Mansour says that when it comes to housing, "The Egyptian government sees it as an investment, not as a social right for the people." The organizers presented an analysis of Cairo 2050 there. In July, Ahmed Mansour of the Housing and Land Rights Network's regional office in Cairo organized a conference on rural development in Egypt. Some consider those areas undesirable due to a lack of transport options and general isolation. "There is mention of 2.5 million houses needed as part of the plan, but it is not clear if this includes resettlement housing or is just for new housing for the growing population."Ĭontroversy has surrounded the government’s capacity to fairly compensate displaced families, as well as its desire to move families into desert cities such as 6th of October and New Cairo, which are still quite vacant. He says there is no official estimate of how many people would need to be relocated to implement Cairo 2050. “The main critique is the huge amount of displacement involved,” Sims says, “but also a complete unconcern for the majority of poor existing and future inhabitants.” Its projects range from renovating the Nile corniche to moving government buildings from around Qasr al-Aini Street to a new government district, well outside the city's core.Ĭritics of Cairo 2050 have focused on potential social costs, especially the resettlement of Cairenes whose homes are in the path of projected construction. Looking ahead, Cairo 2050's survival will likely depend on Egypt's still-uncertain political and economic future, and the forthcoming government's response to rights groups' continued criticism of it.ĭavid Sims, a renowned urban planner who wrote the book "Understanding Cairo: The Logic of a City Out of Control," says that Cairo 2050 is more a “vision” than a true plan. The plan faced immediate criticism for its top-down mandates delivered as mega-projects that promised to displace large numbers of residents in an effort to turn Cairo into a “global city.” In 2008, the Egyptian government proposed a plan that not only addressed factors such as transportation connectivity and lack of green space, but also sought to bring control of Cairo’s development trajectory into official hands.Įgypt's General Organization for Physical Planning (GOPP) unveiled a 260-slide PowerPoint presentation entitled Cairo 2050. With just under a quarter of the Egyptian population calling Greater Cairo home, the city naturally faces the challenges of sustainable urban development. Because of this reality, al-Masry al-Youm decided to run a series of articles, “Redrawing Cairo." The series addresses urban planning and potential solutions to issues such as traffic, informal neighborhoods and satellite cities in Africa's most populated city.Ĭairo, the largest city in Africa and the Middle East, functions as Egypt’s social, economic and political hub. With 20 million inhabitants, Cairo is a megalopolis whose urban design raises countless questions.
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