In a pattern that is repeated in megacities–and not so megacities–everywhere, Cairo’s rich are opting “for the private gated enclaves, while the poor live in illegally built suburbs reclaimed from the surrounding countryside.”
What are the growth patterns within the city?
“It is only a slight exaggeration to say that informality is the defining characteristic of the modern Egyptian built landscape,” says David Sims, an American housing expert who worked extensively in Egypt. He cites studies which found that the population of the informal areas of Cairo has been growing at more than three times the rate of the formal districts of the city. The city is now ringed by vast areas of informal housing. These are overcrowded forests of unrendered blocks crammed so close together that their balconies almost touch above streets that are too narrow for cars to pass.
Experts estimate that well over half of Cairo’s 16m people live in unplanned districts that have sprouted in breach of laws banning construction on farm land.
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