Lessons From Cairo: How Small Scale Urban Initiatives can Improve a City (A. A. Mohamed)

Cairo, like many cities, is deeply wounded by fragmentation and heterogeneity. It is a complex city with a broken public realm. And while policymakers use lack of money as an excuse for not making substantial improvements, money has no relation with innovation and creativity. Inexpensive, short-term actions can give people the confidence that something is taking place.

Imagine a city as an urban envelope made up of floors, walls, roofs, and dwellers. How can these simple components, with limited capacity, make change?

Some recent small-scale Egyptian urban initiatives, when compared with the government’s expensive plans, are powerful in drawing people into spaces. These following initiatives are good ‘urban acupunctures’ that might heal Cairo. [...]

Coloring Cairo

Cairo is known for being one of the most crowded cities in the word. The city is usually covered with a grey cloud of dust and smog. But colors directly influence our health and mood. Can coloring the “grey city” reduce the frustration of local citizens and improve their mood, satisfaction and productivity? Two independent initiativeshave recently been launched to color Cairo:

Coloring a Grey City: A group of undergraduate students studying interior design at Helwan University’s Faculty of Fine Arts launched a campaign for colouring staircases, walls, and lamp posts in order to add comfort happiness and joy to the working-class in Cairo. The group roamed the city to add brightness to its streets and to introduce a touch that might change people’s live. The initiative aims to cover the whole country. Notably, governmental support was limited to granting permission to paint.

Cairo Dish-Painting Initiative: The Cairo skyline is covered with millions of dusty satellite dishes. This depressing view was a source of inspiration for the American artist Jason Stoneking who decided to change the face of rooftops in Cairo. He started painting rooftops in Ard-Ellewa – an informal settlement in the western part of Cairo where he lives. Many residents invited him to paint more dishes in Ard-Ellewa and in other places within the city. This innovative intervention might add brightness and dynamism to the townscape of Cairo.

Read the complete article + more information on the projects here.

Informal Housing: Conventional Wisdoms Reappraised (P. M. Ward)

(www.texashousing.org)

"Since the mid-1970s self-help housing policies have entered the mainstream of international planning conventional wisdom. Prior to this period self-help advocacy was limited largely to academics or research workers concerned to identify the natures of squatter or irregular settlements, the characteristics of their populations, and the processes whereby theses areas were physically upgraded and became part of the urban fabric. They argued that the self-build and the mutual-aid activities in these neighbourhoods should be stimulated through supportive government intervention. This would include the provision of essential services which the residents could not organise themselves or readily afford, and the provision of some sort of tenure security (invariably outright ownership) that would stimulate investment in the dwellings.

[...] the incorporation of self-help philosophy into planning has not been without criticism. Emerging practices are criticised on several grounds. It is said to be an abrogation of government responsibility insofar as housing construction is placed firmly in the hands of the worker rather than those of the industrialist, local or central government. Labour is, therefore, exploited twice over; first in the workplace where wages are low; second, in the home where householders bear the burden of life in poor dwelling conditions with inadequate services and have to use their spare time and labour to build or improve their dwellings. This is a primary means whereby labour is reproduced cheaply. Others have suggested that self-help romanticises and confuses freedom of choice to construct one's own home with no choice at all (Harms, 1976). Politically it is seen as inherently conservative; the acquisition of home ownership through a bootstraps self-help approach fosters a petty-burgois mentality (Harms, 1976). [...] In is increasingly apparent that self-help functions to the advantage of a range of interests: it offers politicians opportunities for patronage and social control exercised through vote catching and negotiation over services and land. The construction industry benefits through an enhanced market for materials; while industry, commerce and the rich in general benefit through being able to pay low wager. Lastly, it is argues that successful consolidation achieved by low-income groups in the past is seriously threatened as economic growth declines, inflation increases, real wages drop and, as self-help policies require, a commitment to pay the costs of land and legal recognition, together with the costs of service installation and land taxes."

Ward, Peter M. (1982) Informal Housing: Conventional Wisdoms Reappraised. Built Environment, Vol 8, No 2. pp. 84-94.