Al-ashwaiat areas in Greater Cairo Region (GCR)‎ : a challenge for the state

Abstract EN

urban growth of Egyptian cities takes place primarily on informal areas, where informal settlements grow at high rates that they have really become to represent connected cities where poor and middle classes adjoin.

Informal areas are a disgrace on the forehead of urban communities in Egypt, as their environmentsand communities lack many basic elements of accepted human life.

The informal areas issue has gained increasing concern since almost fifteen years ago, receiving more political and security attention.

Concern with this issue has become the official drift announced by the State.

Informal areas have several, diverse, and extremely disparate types.

Cairo alone includes 81 informal areas with eight million people living amongst 16 million inhabiting the capital.

These informal areas occupy 62 % of GCR.

Two factors needed to be considered with regard to land use of GCR are that: (1) Half of the urban expansion takes place on agricultural land; and (2) Most of the growth occurs on the agglomeration fringes.

For the future, it will probably be difficult to avoid asubstantial increase in the urban population, and this is assuming that very favorable conditions will exist in the rural areas.

But whatever the case may be, decision maker and planners should take this figure as a target because any failure to meet the demand for urban space would mean resorting to agricultural land for further development.

Aim this paper to address the issue of “Al-ashwaiat areas in GCR as a Challenge for the state ”.