We must develop other urban centres if we are to relieve the pressure on Cairo, opines urban planning expert Beyond's Samia Farid Shihata spoke with , professor of architecture and urban planning at Ain Shams University, on the seemingly intractable problems of our capital. Professor Abdel Aziz Attia is a well-known figure in the urban planning community and is credited with the design and execution of "Marina", Egypt's most popular resort on the Mediterranean Sea. What follows are excerpts from the interview. To the layman, it appears like there is no master plan for Cairo's urban development. Is Greater Cairo being developed according to any plan? The master plan for the Greater Cairo region (Cairo, Giza and Kalioubia governorates) was formulated in 1970 and its first amendment was authorised in 1983. Several later amendments were made until finally in 1997 the development plan was approved and authorised. According to the plan, the city's sprawl would be checked primarily by removing industrial activities and relocating them outside Cairo. The plan included the creation of 10 industrial cities, each with a population capacity of 250,000 inhabitants. Among these were Obour City, 6th of October City, and communities one, three and five in Katameya (now known as New Cairo). All were planned as industrial cities, each with an economic base to provide sufficient employment opportunities for inhabitants. But not a single one was developed according to the plan's intent. When the minister for housing and urban development changed in 1993, the new minister began doing exactly the opposite of what the plan envisaged. He started selling land in "New Cairo", and began with an area of 45,000 feddans. The driving force of these sales was not development, but simply income generation for the cash strapped government. The original plan's objective was to stimulate economic development, to reduce population density in Cairo and to stem the growth of slum areas. Today, 45 per cent of Egypt's population is living in slum conditions. There are about eight million slum dwellers in Greater Cairo. This is very serious and very dangerous. At the same time we find that urbanisation has been increasingly replacing scarce agricultural land. The creation of peripheral ring roads around the Greater Cairo region is very risky because of the resultant urban sprawl in all directions, including swallowing up agricultural land, that lies within the new boundary. This calls for an effective regulatory framework to enforce the protection of agricultural lands. Is there a comprehensive development strategy today? Unfortunately, we are still concentrating on Cairo: projects, investments, services etc. This results in an imbalance in our development. We have a huge wealth of human resources that we are not utilising. To utilise it efficiently we have to spread our population over a much larger area; not just on five per cent of our country around the Nile River. The other 95 per cent of Egypt is full of resources we can exploit. There is also no policy governing the sale of land in Egypt. There should be a national strategy that governs the sale of land. There are areas that can be sold and others that must not be sold. Land sales to non-Egyptians must also be reassessed. Generally, I believe we should consider a system like the UK, where land is leased rather than sold. The national urban strategy is part and parcel of our national development strategy. In 1977 Egypt was divided into eight economic regions. Each was to develop in a decentralised manner as a semi- autonomous area. Each region was supposed to direct its investments in such a way as to attract people away from overpopulated areas to areas with low population density. In 1983, Alexandria, Behera, and Matrouh were grouped in one economic region. The strategy was meant to attract population away from Alexandria and the Delta westwards, towards Matrouh, through investments in exploration, mining, tourism, agriculture, housing etc, providing numerous employment opportunities. Three economic regions were established in Upper Egypt, which later were extended to reach the Red Sea. Assiut, the capital of Upper Egypt, should have become the nucleus for development of the area. Its main activity is agriculture. But population density in agricultural land is very high -- 10 persons per feddan. How can production from one feddan sustain 10 people in terms of food, shelter, clothing, education etc? Impossible. The result is rampant poverty and migration to Cairo with ever more people living in its slums. People migrate to Cairo because there are no economic opportunities where they live. Let me give you another example. Sinai is very important for our national security and is full of resources also. It has the potential to sustain a high population density, which is essential for our national defence. Population is the real line of defence for Sinai. Leaving it empty is a strategic error. The state should direct investments to areas of priority for development. For example, the Toshka project seems to have been undertaken without proper study and does not help in terms of population dispersion and comprehensive economic development. If we had invested this huge amount of resources in central Upper Egypt we would have stimulated human and economic development covering a large area, which would have encompassed activities in industry, agriculture, education, tourism, etc. Investments should be spread out and distributed in a fair manner, not concentrated in a small spot like Toshka. But is Cairo not the main problem? Cairo's solutions lie outside Cairo. That is, by developing other areas of Egypt. If we keep only investing in Cairo to improve its situation, we will be stuck in a never- ending cycle of drawing in more migrants, further increasing population density, and making solutions to Cairo's problems ever more difficult to find. I believe our problems have solutions. Unfortunately these solutions are not implemented, despite our dire need to do so. Implementation is in the hands of decision makers, each with his own personal perspective and personal policy. There is no national development strategy where all policies aim to reach the same strategic objective. Instead, each minister acts like a Pharaoh and does whatever he wants. The reality is that we keep finding ourselves being dragged by such people into haphazard policies that have nothing to do with a national development strategy. Decision makers need to rely on experts to advise them on priorities. Instead, they base their decisions on short-term political considerations.
