By Mazen Aziz
A continuation on my studying of the Egyptian
settlement pattern for my thesis project…
The Egyptian Ministry of Finance
has allowed about 1 billion LE (180 million dollars) yearly towards new urban
projects. However, last year, the total cost of the new urban projects in Cairo
itself is about 4.4 billion. The government doesn’t even support half that, so
the government will try to go as cheap as possible to afford the maximum number
of housing in the budget.
In the 1950’s, Manshiet Nasser
started to form and people started to settle there informally with no
regulations or planning. The area has a great view, the Autostrada highway on
the west (main highway in Cairo), Cairo Citadel in the west south as shown in
the picture above, Mokattam on the east, new Cairo and Mokawloon Al Arab club
in the north. During to the current economy crisis or residence not able to
afford, almost 4.58 million urban housing units are empty, unused or closed.
Cairo has a renting law since 1996 to freed the rental market for newly built
and then vacant the units as the cities Alliance article mentioned. The urban
sector has been growing gradually in Egypt with interesting curve by annual
average of 2.8 percent or 263,839 units. Of those yearly new units, average of
55.6 percent are formal and 45.4 percent are informal. However, government
cheap housing is located in the new towns or in remote dessert areas far away
from the city, making the residence struggle mainly with transportation if its
even allowed. Moreover, the formal private sector aiming the upper income
Egyptians located on the new towns closer to the city.
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