I Dedicate This Thesis to My Father, Who Has Taught Me That Diligence and Perseverance Are the Keys to Success

The Streets of Cairo and the Battle for Public Space Fady S. El-Sadek Thesis IDBE, Cohort 15 University of Cambridge May 2011 I dedicate this thesis to my father, who has taught me that diligence and perseverance are the keys to success. Also to the people of Egypt, who continue to prove that even the most difficult of circumstances can be turned into a goldmine of opportunities. Forward This thesis was started in September 2009 with the aim of articulating numerous problems inherent in the Cairo governments’ urban planning and development. These problems were evident in the city’s deteriorating qualities of life, paralleled by a lack of public space. The writing of this thesis was nearly complete at the onset of the people’s uprising against the Egyptian government’s neglect and abuse of its citizens. On January 25 2011, after mass collaboration on the internet, protestors gathered in the largest public space in the center of Cairo; Tahrir Square. As the protests grew in intensity, the incumbent government disconnected the nation’s mobile telephone network and internet access in an attempt to weaken public organization within the virtual public sphere. The efforts, however, were in vain as the people had already taken to the streets. Over a million people gathered in the square and aired their grievances and demands during 18 days of continuous protests that started peacefully, but turned violent when the government attempted to quell the protestors by force. Aided by the continuous media coverage of Tahrir Square, the movement managed to topple the government, and the president was forced to step down on February 11, 2011. Therefore, the final writing of this thesis reflects the situation as it was and also has the fortunate opportunity to report on significant changes that are being planned for the future of Cairo’s built environment. 2 Photograph of an informal settlement around Sayeda Zeynab in central Cairo: The picture shows the tight knit fabric, the city smog, and satellite dishes that keep the ‘informal residents’ connected to the public sphere. “When we looked at public space, Cairo was one of the cities which had the highest density of people, and the lowest square meters of public space.” (His Highness the Aga Khan quoted in AKTC 2008) 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Introduction 5 I. Chapter One 7 The Urban Center: the Global City a. Privatization of the City 9 b. Decline of Public Space and the Ecological Environment 12 c. Achieving a Sustainable Balance 14 II. Chapter Two 16 Cairo: An Overview of Development and Urban Fabric a. Modern Cairo 18 b. Three Generations of Modern Satellite Cities 20 c. The Informal: Social and Environmental Priority 24 d. The New ‘Order’: Economic Priority 25 e. Public Infrastructure 28 f. The Streets of Cairo 29 III. Chapter Three 31 The Battle Ground: Cairo Today a. Exclusivity: Gated Communities and ‘Fortified’ Public Space 34 b. Environmental Sustainability of the New Order 36 c. Tourism and the Sterilization of Cairo’s Public Spaces 38 d. Balancing Priorities 42 IV. Chapter Four 43 The Macro-Urban Core a. The Refurbishment of Islamic Cairo 44 b. Gentrification of ‘Khedival’ Downtown 45 c. The Ramses Challenge 47 d. Al Darb al Ahmar: the Social Intervention of Al Azhar Park 51 e. Cairo 2050: “The Planned City Sweeps the Poor Away” 53 f. Overview of the Four Projects: The Scale of Intervention 56 V. Chapter Five 57 Remediation at the Micro-Urban Scale a. Grassroots Connection: the Role of Public Space 57 b. A New Urban Approach: Proposed 200 Streets in Cairo 59 c. Bottom-Up Redevelopment 61 Conclusion 62 Bibliography 64 Appendix A 69 Appendix B 70 4 Introduction Public space plays a vital role within the urban fabric of a nation and its communities that has been too often ignored as an essential ingredient in the health and life of a society. Historically, the programming of public space circulated around civic functions of political affairs, communication, and the marketplace. In the 21st century, internet technology and high speed transport have taken much of the information, communication and commerce activities remotely to individuals, reducing the need for physical presence. Today, urban public space involves the fostering of community through vital activities such as commuting, recreation, socializing, celebration, and when necessary, giving voice to the populace. Fundamentally, public space establishes the physical grounding of social justice within the urban built environment. True public spaces within the city can secure social rights by providing communal safeguard against “the futility of individual life.” (Arendt, p. 56) In Cairo, Egypt, there is a dire need for public space. Over the past two centuries the built environment of the city has spread rapidly and intensified to the point that most publically accessible open spaces and green areas have all but disappeared. Priority has gone to the automobile; the road network within the city is continuous and extensive. In Cairo today, the asphalt road has become the predominant definition of public space. In this space, pedestrians negotiate with cars, buses and street vendors for right of way. There is no enforced regulation to maintain sidewalk continuity. Pavements are most often obstructed by electric boxes, advertisement boards, parked cars and even dividing walls. The street is nearly the only remaining arena that provides continuous pedestrian access to everyone without charge. Empirical study has correlated societal well being with the public provision of open space and pedestrian infrastructure. Additionally, public transportation and the support of ‘non- automobile’ modes of circulation have been positively associated with a healthier ecological 5 environment. Research asserts that on average Egyptians have a low “subjective well being” and the majority of Cairo’s residents live in ‘informal housing’ significantly lacking in basic infrastructure. (Hussein 2008) Pollution levels of the city are among the highest in the world. This dissertation assesses the value of public space within the contemporary global city and its correlation with social, political, and environmental stability. Specifically the investigation covers the lack of public space in Cairo, assesses its impact, and proposes a possible approach of remediation. The preliminary issues that established the framework of investigation are; the intolerable traffic of Cairo, its lack of continuous pedestrian infrastructure, record pollution levels, and incessant planned development that does not prioritize social and environmental welfare. This is mainly the result of top-down planning that has been unable to holistically address these issues, resulting in compounded damage and increased difficulty in resolution. The definitive gap lies within the relationship between the individual districts and neighborhoods and the central planning authorities. The discussion unfolds in five chapters. Chapter One discusses the historical and contemporary function of public space, and relevant issues of urban planning found in Cairo and other global cities. Chapter Two briefly reviews the history of Cairo’s built environment with the objective of identifying patterns in development. Cairo’s current situation and obstacles to sustainable development are then discussed in Chapter Three. Chapter Four reviews and assesses four macro-urban scale projects that address public spaces of the core city. Finally, Chapter Five proposes a possible approach that can address the ‘megalopolis1’ at a yet unexploited scale of intervention, the micro-urban scale. 1 Term used to describe large populous city regions that cover several urban centers. (Watson 2009) 6 CHAPTER ONE The Urban Center: the Global City Good spatial planning should shape our urban environment. It allows us to respond to complex needs at the most appropriate scale – whether regional, city or neighbourhood. The planning system has struggled to distribute activities in a sustainable way. It should always be possible to walk, cycle or take public transport to work, to school or college, to shops, to the park or the cinema. When the planning system gets these kinds of basics right, it will provide busy, distracted citizens with a genuine choice to reduce their carbon emissions. Vitally, we need to use the landscape of towns and cities – trees, parks, rivers and lakes – to mimic natural processes, like water flow and cooling air flow. This green infrastructure should be as much a priority for a successful place as grey infrastructure – like the road network, or the sewage system. (CABE, Hallmarks of a Sustainable City, p.4) In both ancient and modern times, the city has always been a complex organism; a continuously transforming built environment that supports the largest groupings of human existence. Today, cities house over half of the world’s population. (Kries 2006; Watson 2009) Within this built environment human activity is sustained and organized through laws and culture. The laws influence the built environment, which in turn influences the culture, and in turn influences the laws. The cycle establishes the growth and continuous development of a city. There is rarely direct initiative to modify the culture as there is in dictating the laws and built environment, yet with the circle of influence among the three, cultural change is inevitably incurred with time. In Cairo, to promote the image of a modern and global city, there is often direct initiative to hide, or mask the culture. This is most notably executed through barriers and exclusionary public spaces. Urban theorist Alberto Perez-Gomez discusses in his article “The City as a Paradigm of Symbolic Order” the architectural manifestation of ‘order’ within the city as portrayed by its built environment. The historical materialization, transformation, and layering of order over the past two millennia have resulted in the modern city, which he claims is in a state of contemporary crisis. (Perez-Gomez 1986) 7 Of the historically significant cities that have survived to present day, the majority of them have origins in the Roman Empire [Figure 1].

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