Contrasting Neighborhoods of Cairo
With the rise of capitalism globally, the economic disparity between the wealthy and the poor in countries all over the world has grown substantially, leading to a global rise in slum communities. Characterized by overcrowding, inadequate sanitation and access to clean water, and a lack of housing tenure security, slums are seen as undesirable places within the cities that house them, but exist out of the necessity and desperation of the poorest of the poor in their search for a place to live. In general the decision to live in slums is a recourse taken to minimize the costs of tenure while at the same time lessening costs of travel for work. The UN makes the distinction that not all slums are homogenous and not all slum dwellers suffer from the same level of deprivation, but generally the conditions within these neighborhoods are dirty and dangerous.
Cairo, Egypt
The capital of Egypt is no exception to this global rise in poverty, with around six to eight million slum dwellers. Renting an apartment is not feasible for the poor, and many choose to pursue alternate places to live. The cheapest housing solution is typically to squat on undesirable public land, in Cairo desert outskirts, which creates challenges of commuting to work as well as a lack of basic amenities. Another low cost living “solution” is choosing to squat in a more central location, closer to jobs, but at a greater risk of being forced to move. As seen on the map, Cairo is extremely densely populated, especially around the center of the city, with many slums located in less modernized and urban areas of the city.
The City of the Dead slum of Cairo, in which the poor publicly squat in tombs.
In Cairo, the most common housing option for the poor is to buy a house site in an informal development area. These sites do not usually come with building permission and are far from jobs, but provide housing tenure security as well as access to basic municipal services. In all of these situations the poor are faced with difficult sets of tradeoffs in order to find a place to live in which they can somewhat make ends meet. The UN Habitat definition of a slum highlights the technical aspects of what comprises such neighborhoods, however, certain social aspects are usually contiguous with such subliminal living conditions. Slums, though not technically specified within their definition, are often plagued with violence, crime, and social unrest, and as a result face further marginalization due to these associations.
Imbaba
A dirty and narrow road in Imbaba.
As of 2005, the megaslum of Imbaba on the outskirts of Cairo, was listed as the 13th largest slum in the world, with a population of one million inhabitants. Imbaba has a high population density with an extreme lack of resources to support the people living there. The number of grocery stores in the area is significantly less than other parts of the city, and buildings are haphazardly packed in next to one another, a feature which is visible on the map. With the rise of gentrification and modernization the more poverty stricken and marginalized Cairenes were forced out of the city, and the slums of Cairo tend to be in the periphery. For this reason, Imbaba is on the outskirts. Many residents have menial jobs and the people live in constant fear of eviction.
The living conditions in Imbaba.
In 2011, Amnesty International highlighted Imbaba as a part of their slum stories project. The segment of the video that discusses Imbaba shows that the people there do not have access to basic security and the slum faces major ethical concerns with the encroachment of the government to build wider roads and demolish segments of the neighborhood, most notably in an area known as the Airport Land. While in the name of modernization this is prudent, there is a disregard for the people who the construction will affect and displace. Many of the unemployed youth within Imbaba joined with the Egyptian revolution in 2011 because they felt the government was leaving them behind. The Imbaba neighborhood received the brunt of police brutality leading up to the revolution, and there was significant violence in the neighborhood with many of those killed honored as martyrs. While it seems like the more wealthy neighborhoods are constantly encroaching upon the defensive slums, in reality the relationship between the two is much more complex. Though slums are certainly on the defensive much of the time in response to the threat of eviction or government projects, due to the overcrowding and low standard of living, slums are also constantly on the offensive, looking for ways to expand and accommodate the dense population. The revolution within Imbaba is an example of this rebound, and one that ultimately led to conflict.
Slumstories: Egypt - A visit to Imbaba
Zamalek
In response to the conflict and the, arguably justified, social unrest within megaslums like Imbaba, there has been a subsequent rise in large and substantially wealthy gated communities which Mike Davis has termed “Off Worlds” in his book Planet of Slums. In these luxury neighborhoods, residents are closed off from the sight and severity of poverty in their cities and are separated from the violence that is often synonymous with the slums. Within Cairo, an example of this is the neighborhood of Zamalek, an extreme version of an off world, quite literally, geographically separated from the rest of the City and the slums, as a gated community on an island just outside the city. Starkly juxtaposed to Imbaba, Zamalek is located to the Southeast of the megaslum and is a prime example of the large disparity in wealth felt by different groups within Egypt. When Zamalek was originally founded in the 20th century it was the home of elite Egyptians and European colonizers alike, and it has retained its exclusivity throughout the years.
An aerial view of the island neighborhood of Zamalek.
The inhabitants of Zamalek are old-money rich Cairenes, whose families have lived in the neighborhood for generations. The community, unlike Imbaba, has high security and is appreciated by European and American foreigners for its “Western feel,” echoing the sentiments of Davis that Off Worlds are like models of Southern California neighborhoods. Despite Egypt’s turbulent history and the evolution and growth of slums, Zamalek has remained wealthy throughout the years and has retained a substantial amount of its residents. As a result of its separation and economic distance from the other communities of Cairo, the property values here, worth millions of dollars, have never dropped considerably. With it’s consistent prosperity, it is fitting that the etymology of it’s name has a derivation from the Arabic expression zou-molk meaning 'he who owns assets.'
A Zamalek apartment building (left) and villa (right).
According to Real Estate Egypt, the average villa on Zamalek sell anywhere between $2 million USD to $10 million USD, with apartments costing on average $3,800 USD per square meter. Making it both one of the most expensive places to live on the planet.
This high price of land stands in sharp contrast to the aforementioned Imbaba neighborhood to the north where most land is simply claimed by squatters who build shanty towns in which to live.
Throughout Cairo there is a stark contrast between the extremely wealthy, living in nicer and spatially less-dense areas with an abundance of amenities, and the extremely poor, who have been forced into crowded, and sometimes informal, settlements without access to many of those same resources. There is a great disparity among parts of the city that are within walking of each other, largely due to historic events and zoning. In the case of Zamalek and Imbaba, Zamalek has a longstanding history of wealth, stemming from it's British military base past, the effects of which can still be seen today in its abundance of resources, a church in the area, and American-style architecture. Nearby Imababa, however, was only formally incorporated into the city of Cairo in the 1970s, and has always been a site of expanding informal settlements, originally on the fringes of the city. The story of these two areas of a single city can tell us a lot about contexts of colonization, poverty, and exclusion and how the vestiges of these structural inequalities continue to shape the urban landscape to this day.
