Urbanization

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.