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The City of the Dead As a Place to Live: Unpacking the Narratives About Tomb Communities by Lindsey Bertrand Logan B.A., Univers

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The City of the Dead As a Place to Live: Unpacking the Narratives About Tomb Communities by Lindsey Bertrand Logan B.A., Univers The City of the Dead as a place to live: unpacking the narratives about tomb communities by Lindsey Bertrand Logan B.A., University of Arkansas, 2018 A THESIS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF REGIONAL AND COMMUNITY PLANNING Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional & Community Planning College of Architecture, Planning, and Design KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas 2020 Approved by: Major Professor Dr. Susmita Rishi Copyright © Lindsey Bertrand Logan 2020. Abstract The housing crisis in Cairo, Egypt is a “wicked problem” that has stumped planners and built environment professionals for decades. Cairo’s 20 million residents are engaged in an everyday struggle for space, particularly housing. The current housing stock does not respond to the residents’ everyday needs. Overpopulation and lack of affordable housing has resulted in residents squatting and self-building housing. My research centers around one such “informal” settlement called the City of the Dead (COD). A series of cemeteries located in Cairo’s city center, COD is home to many of Cairo’s poor and rural migrants. Planning efforts such as the Masterplan Cairo 2050 outline intentions to evict these residents, without details on their rehabilitation. Standing between decision makers and new or modified development, are embedded place narratives that cannot be erased. Narratives hold power to shape, change, and ignore what already exists. This thesis explores the narratives about the City of the Dead that are ignored in Masterplan Cairo 2050. Using qualitative methods, I focus on unpacking these narratives about COD, held by major stakeholders such as government officials, urban planners, popular media, and other sources, in order to elucidate how these, determine the negative planning outcomes proposed in policy documents. Based in the analysis of primary and supplementary data, I unpack the dominant narrative based in themes around legality, relocation, services, historical and cultural aspects, urban fabric, planning and governance. Through this in-depth analysis of themes and terminology used by respondents, I show that the dominant narrative about COD imagines it to be a cemetery and not a residential settlement. Also, evident in the plans and policies pertaining to COD, and in the terminology used to describe those who live in COD, this dominant narrative ignores the value that COD brings as a place to live to its residents. Table of Contents List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. v List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. vi Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... vii Chapter 1 - Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 The Problem ................................................................................................................................ 1 Research Question ...................................................................................................................... 2 Significance of Work .................................................................................................................. 2 Background ................................................................................................................................. 3 Chapter 2 - How I Answered My Question .................................................................................. 31 Methods .................................................................................................................................... 31 Analysis .................................................................................................................................... 37 Limitations ................................................................................................................................ 40 Chapter 3 - What I Found ............................................................................................................. 42 Legality ..................................................................................................................................... 42 Relocation ................................................................................................................................. 49 Services ..................................................................................................................................... 54 Community ............................................................................................................................... 66 Historical/Cultural .................................................................................................................... 70 Urban Fabric ............................................................................................................................. 73 Planning .................................................................................................................................... 80 Governance ............................................................................................................................... 90 Chapter 4 - Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 94 Ideas for Future Study............................................................................................................. 101 References ................................................................................................................................... 102 Appendix A - Interview Questions ............................................................................................. 111 Appendix B – Interview Questions in Arabic ............................................................................. 112 Appendix C – Research Consent Form ....................................................................................... 113 Appendix D – Research Consent Form in Arabic ...................................................................... 114 Appendix E – IRB Approval....................................................................................................... 115 iv List of Figures Figure 1: Photographs taken from advertisements for gated communities................................... 22 Figure 2: Map of the City of the Dead (COD) .............................................................................. 25 Figure 3: Above ground structures in the COD ............................................................................ 26 Figure 4: Conventinal Western Cemetery..................................................................................... 27 Figure 5: In Vivo Coding Sample ................................................................................................. 38 Figure 6: Girl living in COD next to above-ground water main................................................... 57 Figure 7: Family living in close quarters in COD......................................................................... 58 Figure 8: Boys playing video games in tomb dwelling ................................................................ 59 Figure 9: Woman washing clothes next to tomb. ......................................................................... 76 Figure 10: Man getting haircut in a courtyard .............................................................................. 76 Figure 11: Children using courtyard for recreation ...................................................................... 77 Figure 12: Men playing chess next to tomb .................................................................................. 78 Figure 13: Map of ‘unsafe’ and ‘unplanned’ areas in Cairo 2052 Plan ........................................ 82 Figure 14: Map of plans to transfer tombs out of COD in 2050 Plan ........................................... 88 Figure 15: Map of plans to create a green corridor network in place of COD ............................. 88 v List of Tables Table 1: List of supplemental data sources ................................................................................... 34 vi Acknowledgements I owe a giant thank you to my committee who helped me tremendously throughout my two years in graduate school. Particularly my major professor, Sush, for caring about the success of this work and also about my academic career. Thank you for the countless hours spent helping me narrow down exactly what I was trying to say. You (patiently) helped me understand the complexities of informal housing - I owe you one for that! Jessica, I am forever indebted to you for helping me better articulate my research question. I am inspired by your calm demeanor and willingness to jump into my research topic. And Huston, thank you for your support on this work and as a student at K-State. Keep taking students on the Portland field trip! You are a phenomenal professor, and I hope to teach with the same passion and zeal, should my academic career continue. This research would not have been possible without my friend and former professor, You .وا ِسطة …Amir Gohar. Thank you for your encouragement, strong opinions, and of course helped me understand the
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