Urbanization
Giza Spaces
“Itfaddalu ma‘ana,” Umm Ibrahim shouts across the alley to the next roof, “please eat with us.” “Shukran, Allah yikhalliki,” promptly comes the answer from Abu Samia and his wife, “thank you, may God keep you.” It is a sunny Friday afternoon in December, and both families have decided to eat lunch on their rooftops where Umm Ibrahim and Umm Samia keep their chickens. [1] Behind Umm Ibrahim’s house, two palm trees sway in the breeze, many neighbors are napping and the children, who often fill the alley with their games, are quiet. As the afternoon progresses, the sun sets behind one of the upscale 25-story apartment blocks further down the street.
Urban Planning and Growth in Cairo
Descriptions of Cairo are dominated typically by the stark imagery of an extremely concentrated population mass near asphyxiation. From this perspective, one need look no further than its inhabited rooftops, its streets choked with traffic and pollution and its crowded cemeteries, where the living reside with the dead — all confirm the most obvious symbols of overpopulation. Indeed, Cairo has a population concentration that makes it, along with Bombay, one of the densest metropolitan areas in the world. Despite the rapid modernization of urban infrastructure (subway, elevated highways, sewer and telephone systems), Cairo appears to be stricken by disorder and incoherence. To many, Cairo evokes all the dangers of urban excess, inextricable chaos and spiraling poverty.
