Egypt's Housing Crisis

Yahia Shawkat

Description

• The only comprehensive analysis of housing policy in Egypt, with added historical depth.


• Author is an architect and urban and housing researcher , co-founder of a research studio in Egypt where he built an open knowledge portal identifying deprivation, scrutinizing state spending, and advocating equitable urban and housing policies.

List of Figures

List of Tables

Foreword by David Sims

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations and Acronyms

Timeline

Introduction: The Politics of Shelter in Egypt

1. Etymology of a Crisis


2. Self-builders


3. Old to New Rent


4. ‘Model’ Villages for ‘Model’ Citizens


5. Government Housing, a Brief History


6. Government Housing Today


7. Housing Unravels

Epilogue: Back to Homes

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Sociology
• Urban

Informations

• Publié par: The American University in Cairo Press
• Date de parution: 08 septembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781649030337
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

Extrait

EGYPT S HOUSING CRISIS
EGYPT S HOUSING CRISIS
The Shaping of Urban Space
Yahia Shawkat
Foreword by
David Sims
First published in 2020 by
The American University in Cairo Press
113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt
One Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020
www.aucpress.com
Copyright 2020 by Yahia Shawkat
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Dar el Kutub No. 10611/19
ISBN 978 977 416 957 1
Dar el Kutub Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shawkat, Yahia
Egypt s Housing Crisis: The Shaping of Urban Space / Yahia Shawkat.-Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2020.
p. cm.
ISBN 978 977 416 957 1
1. Housing
2. Political Science
3. Public Administration
363.5
1 2 3 4 5 24 23 22 21 20
Designed by Adam el-Sehemy
Printed in the United States of America
In memory of my father, Ezzeldin Shawkat
To my wife, Alia Mossallam
To my children, Taya, Rawi, and Nura
CONTENTS
List of Figures
List of Tables
Foreword David Sims
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations and Acronyms
Timeline
Introduction: The Politics of Shelter in Egypt
1. Etymology of a Crisis
2. Self-builders
3. Old to New Rent
4. Model Villages for Model Citizens
5. Government Housing, a Brief History
6. Government Housing Today
7. Housing Unravels
Epilogue: Back to Homes
Notes
Bibliography
Index
FIGURES
1.1. Share of urban housing production by provider, 1960-2017.
1.2. Number of urban housing units produced by provider, 1960-2017.
1.3. Change of household tenure for urban Egypt, 1976-2017.
1.4. Comparing housing production to population in selected countries.
2.1. Extended family home in a mature part of the informally self-built Izbit al-Haggana, Cairo, December 2011.
2.2. A row of shacks built under high voltage cables in Izbit al-Haggana, Cairo, March 2012.
2.3. Three stages of development in the formally planned self-built neighborhood of Muqattam, Cairo, November 2016.
2.4. A row of Ibni Baytak (Build Your Home) houses in various stages of development in Badr New City, February 2013.
2.5. Comparison between household connection to infrastructure in Egypt and informal housing production, 1976-2017.
2.6. The revered hadida (metal plaque) proclaiming a formal electricity connection hangs on a crumbling mudbrick village home in Qaranfil, Qalubiya, March 2012.
2.7. A new informal developer tower stands falsely demolished in Maryutiya, Giza, December 2018.
3.1. One of the neater examples of the addition of two floors to this 1950s rent-controlled building in Zamalek.
3.2. A mostly vacant and decaying building in Downtown Cairo, with occupied rent-controlled shops on the ground floor preventing demolition.
3.3. Comparison between new urban households living in Old Rent to total households formed, and total new housing built in the intercensal periods 1976-86 and 1986-96.
3.4. Change of household tenure for urban Egypt, 1976-2017.
3.5. Comparison between the number of rental households in urban Egypt by type, 1976-2017.
3.6. A caricature in the leading state-owned daily parodying the public debates around rent control as being unimportant to the poor and homeless, February 1996.
4.1. The model village of Gezzaye, designed by Joseph Hekekyan in 1852.
4.2. Aerial view of the izba of Mustafa Bey Fuda in Daqahliya, built in 1927.
4.3. One of the original sandstone houses in Izbit Tunis in Fayoum, December 2018.
4.4. Plan of the al-Marg muhagirin (migrants) model village showing U-shaped clusters of houses opening onto a clean street for people and a dirty street for livestock.
Second image: Six decades later, only traces of the model village remain.
4.5. Recent aerial view of the former royal estate in Kafr Sa d, showing the names of the model villages built there from 1947.
4.6. Original plan of Umm Saber model village in Mudiriyat al-Tahrir.
Second image: Aerial view of the model village sixty-one years after it was built.
4.7. Houses in Sayyidna al-Khidr, a kharigin model village in Wadi al-Rayyan, Fayoum, November 2015.
4.8. Ghost village-one of the larger al-zahir al-sahrawi villages, Wadi al-Rayyan in Fayoum, standing empty six years after being built, July 2016.
4.9. The izba reincarnated-a large workers compound, one of many, on a super farm in East Uwaynat, December 2014.
5.1. A row of old single-story railway housing near Aswan, January 2018.
5.2. Two commemorative stamps issued by King Fouad to mark the inauguration of Port Fouad in 1926.
5.3. One of the villas in Port Fouad s European Quarter housing Suez Canal Company employees, October 2010.
5.4. Originally built as a village for muhagirin displaced by the Second World War in 1941, these houses in al-Mahalla formed one of the earliest modern workers colonies in Egypt.
5.5. Kima Fertilizer Company s workers colony built in the 1960s in Aswan, January 2018.
5.6. One of the villas in the Sahari colony built for Soviet and Egyptian engineers working on the High Dam in the 1960s in Aswan, January 2018.
5.7. Government versus private production of formal urban housing, 1960/61-1970/71.
5.8. Government versus private formal urban housing production, 1971/72-1981/82.
5.9. Plaque commemorating the inauguration of 130 new housing units in the workers colony in al-Mahalla on the occasion of the Mahalla Spinning and Weaving Company s golden jubilee, May 1978.
5.10. Comparison between rent and installment values for a two-bedroom economic housing unit and median incomes in the late 1960s and 1978.
5.11. Government housing production by agency, 1982/83-1991/92.
6.1. Urban housing production by sector, 1976-2017.
6.2. Future Housing blocks, New Cairo, February 2013.
6.3. Typical NHP Tamlik blocks, Sixth of October City, December 2013.
6.4. Original SHP advertisement, as it appeared ten days after Mubarak was deposed, and before it was officially named as the Social Housing Project, February 2011.
6.5. The first SHP advertisement after it was relaunched in 2014.
6.6. Brand new SHP blocks, New Cairo, January 2019.
6.7. A fenced-in villa in Haram City, a low-income public-private development part of the NHP, Sixth of October City, Giza, December 2013.
6.8. Inflation of SHP prices relative to income, 2014/15-2018/19.
6.9. Comparison between unit targets, completions, and deliveries for the SHP, 2011/12-2017/18.
7.1. The Izzawi mansion, inundated by the shacks of Ramlit Bulaq, Cairo, February 2015.
7.2. Private agricultural land that is informally subdivided and built on, Mansuriya Canal, Giza, April 2012.
7.3. Aerial image showing sanctioned agriculture reclamation, in addition to borderline low-density second homes on large plots.
Second image: An illegal higher-density neighborhood that is part of the Suleimaniya Golf development on the Cairo-Alexandria highway, later designated New Sphinx City.
7.4. Demolition of two illegal floors in al-Hadaba al-Wusta, Muqattam, Cairo, February 2015.
7.5. Banner proclaims ownership of entire building by Mona Elias Nashed, as per a registered contract and a court ruling.
Second image: Banner proclaims partial ownership of someone else according to a preliminary contract, Port Said, January 2016.
TABLES
1.1. Sorting contradictory figures in the 1976 census.
1.2. Residential housing stock in the census years, 1960-2017.
1.3. Housing production in Egypt by provider in units, 1960-2017.
3.1. Highlights of rent legislation between 1920 and 1947.
3.2. Highlights of rent legislation between 1952 and 1969.
3.3. Highlights of rent legislation between 1971 and 1981.
3.4. Share of major repairs and regular maintenance after the first ten years of construction.
3.5. Highlights of rent legislation from 1996.
4.1. Rural land ownership and izba population estimates in 1952.
5.1. Imbaba housing rents in 1950.
5.2. Monthly rents for a range of government-built homes in Cairo in 1969.
5.3. Key legislation assigning responsibilities for government housing, 1950-1970.
5.4. Comparison of housing production by government agency between the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s.
5.5. General details and conditions of the government housing ownership scheme.
6.1. Distribution of planned and implemented NHP units by scheme.
6.2. Quantitative affordability of the seven NHP schemes.
6.3. SHP schemes in 2016/2017.
6.4. Estimated cost of the NHP.
FOREWORD
David Sims
Housing in developing countries is a huge subject. It is a field that has produced conflicting narratives and is not a pretty story, especially in terms of housing production and exchange that is affordable to the majority and is socially equitable. This is not to say that housing markets in advanced countries are anywhere near perfect, but in poor and emerging economies-with increasing populations and rampant urbanization-it could be said there is a perfect storm, where government institutions and legislation plus the formal private sector seem congenitally unable to deliver housing that is anywhere near the needs and capacities of the majority of today s households, let alone future families under formation. Lack of a