The coming urban crush
A report issued last week by the United Nations Population Fund reveals that in 2008 more than half of the world's inhabitants will be living in towns and cities. The study voices the ominous warning that this urban surge will be particularly strong in Africa and Asia between the years 2000 and 2030. This will result in a situation where, within the span of one single generation, urban growth in the two continents will exceed all that which has taken place over the entire course of human history to date.
Nowhere is the trend of intense demographic urbanisation, with all of its alarming ramifications, more manifest than in Cairo, dubbed by Egyptians the "mother of the world". The population of Cairo is currently over 16 million individuals. It is the city with the greatest demographic density in Africa, ranking seventh amongst the world's cities in this respect.
Rural migration to Egypt's capital has resulted in two parallel worlds co-existing, two worlds that are in reality universes apart when it comes to living standards and infrastructural, health and educational services offered. Juxtaposed alongside the elegant boulevards of Mohandessin, the streets of Zamalek, and the parks of Heliopolis are the narrow roads of the shantytowns and slums that have proliferated around, and sometimes even within, the heart of Cairo. While the new trend of building mini-cities on the outskirts of Cairo -- 6th of October City, Qattamiya, Al-Rehab etc. -- has gained momentum, these new urban centres cater primarily to the upper and middle classes, while leaving the underbelly of the underprivileged barely subsisting on the outskirts of the capital.
A pertinent question is what the government is doing to improve the living standards of the silent majority that has fled the restrictions of rural conditions and of poverty in search of better, yet elusive, opportunities elsewhere. While it is true that Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif has set a positive example by positioning his office in the Smart City at the beginning of the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road, the same cannot be said for other state bodies.
Such a step, indeed, by the government would help establish new and vibrant urban centres and break the mould of excessive centralisation that has made everyone in Egypt regard Cairo as the centre of their universe, the one and only place in which they can get their interests served. The Ministry of Economic Development has announced that it is working towards the implementation of a more equitable development plan for all of the provinces and cities of Egypt, and not just Cairo. This ambitious plan is much-needed, and if realised will do much to stave off the almost certain hazardous consequences of the current inequitable distribution of the country's resources.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/852/ed.htm