Despite the easy access to the Manshiet Nasser neighborhood and its proximity to the main roads in Cairo, Cairenes’ knowledge of the neighborhood, its residents, and its history is lacking, as it is based on broad media stereotypes of Manshiet Nasser and informal areas in general. There is a perception among some groups in Egyptian society that informal areas are associated with danger and criminal activity. In turn, this perception increases the isolation of these areas from the rest of the city and facilitates the violation of the residents’ rights, including their right to appropriate housing and adequate services.

Manshiet Nasser is among the largest informal areas in Egypt, and is the most densely populated area not only in Egypt, but in all of Africa (Amnesty International 2009). The neighborhood’s historical development differs from most informal areas in Cairo, as  it was one of  the first areas to benefit from government and donor-funded planning and development projects, which began in the 1970s and continue today. Since the area is located on al-Muqaṭṭam Mount, it suffered from two major rockslides: the first in 1993 in the al-Zabbālīn (literally, ‘the trash collectors’) neighborhood and the second in 2008 in al-Duwayqa.

This article aims to introduce the neighborhood of Manshiet Nasser, and to present an overview of its history, development, and residents–who make up an important part of the city’s urban fabric. In terms of administrative boundaries, the area of Manshiet Nasser includes Maqābir Qāytbāī (Qāytbāī Cemeteries), located near al-ʾAutustrād Road (a highway). In this article, however, we will concentrate solely on Manshiet Nasser, located to the southeast of the highway. Though the two areas are contained within the same administrative boundary, most residents do not consider them as one neighborhood as the standards of living, history, and problems of al-Maqābir differ from Manshiet Nasser’s. Administrative boundaries often have little meaning in reality. Instead, residents define their own neighborhoods, influenced by shared histories, social bonds, economics, and the built environment.

Figure 1: The official administrative borders for Manshiet Nasser (its formal name is Munsha’at Nāṣir). The shaded area is the subject of this study.

Manshiet Nasser in numbers

Governorate: Cairo

Neighborhood: Munshaʾat  Nāṣir

Area: According to the Cairo Governorate’s official website, the neighborhood’s area is 7.934 km², while the area of the neighborhood’s inhabited portion is 5.180 km².

Population: The official number differs from numbers cited by most studies. The official number according to the Cairo Governorate is 321,302, while a report by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) estimates that the neighborhood’s population is between 800,000 to one million (the German Agency for International Cooperation 2007). The Central Agency for Construction, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Housing, mentions in one of its unpublished reports that the population of the neighborhood is “around one million.”

Figure 2: The Manshiet Nasser (Munshaʾat Nāṣir) neighborhood, and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Manshiet Nasser’s story

During both the British occupation of Egypt and World War II, the laws regulating agricultural property were often unfair to farmers. Many had no choice but to sell their land and migrate from rural to urban areas in search of a new labor market. Old Cairo provided cheap shelter for these internal migrants. Most of Manshiet Nasser’s first generation of residents had migrated from Qinā and Sūhāg during the war, settled in the al-Gammāleyya District in the heart of Old Cairo, and worked on recycling steel using oil drums. In subsequent years, the migrant community developed this craft and the neighborhood became this new trade’s home, while other residents built warehouses to sell used building materials such as bricks and wood. This new community built its houses and businesses using tin, as the governorate’s authorities warned people against building permanent homes. Hence, the area was known as ʿIzbit al-Ṣafīḥ (‘the tin village’) and was famous for selling cheap building materials.¹ During the Second World War, it was necessary to rely on locally manufactured materials as a result of the disruption in trade lines, thus attracting new migrants to ʿIzbit al-Ṣafīḥ who came to join the new construction market in the capital (Tekçe et al. 1997).

The new community remained unchanged for many years. Then, in 1960, the government declared its need for ʿIzbit al-Ṣafīḥ’s land to build a hospital and a school. However, the local mayor (ʿumda) rejected the order to vacate the area and asked the government to provide the residents with an alternative place to live. After months of negotiations, the authorities gave implicit permission to the community to live on government land in al-Muqaṭṭam Mount which was known as ʾarḍ al-Mamālīk (‘the land of the Mamluks’). The new community became Munshaʾat Nāṣir because President Nāṣir was the one who gave verbal acknowledgment for the residents to live on that land.

The land in al-Muqaṭṭam was not suitable for living at that time, as it was mountainous and lacked infrastructure; yet despite that, the residents agreed to move. Before the government provided water spouts on the main road in Munshaʾat Nāṣir, residents had to collect water from spouts in the mosques located close to the road near Maqābir Qāytbāī. As for lighting, people were dependent on kerosene lamps in the beginning.

Residents were not reassured of their legal status or security due to two major concerns. Firstly, the government did not grant them official tenure of the land, and secondly, the al-Muqaṭṭam area was known for harboring outlaws. These fears of instability prompted residents to cluster at the foot of the mountain and build a row of adjacent houses, 100 square meters each, as well as a slightly larger area designated for warehouses and workshops. The residents asked their relatives living in Cairo or the South to come to live with them in the new land for support and safety (Tekçe et al. 1997). Upon completing  the first row of structures alongside al-Naṣir Road (al-ʾAutustrād Road), construction expanded towards the top of the mountain.

Due to the uneven land, construction was particularly difficult; workers leveled the land manually or with dynamite. Residents who shared land, shared the cost of leveling the ground and building ladders on the slopes of the mountain. Building individual homes required each homeowner to act as a construction contractor; owners had to know the best prices for building materials, how to acquire them, and how to hire good workers. During construction, workers and owners would cooperate in bringing scarce water from distant spouts. The construction was initially completed with brick; but later, people gradually began to use reinforced concrete, allowing residents to construct buildings higher than the old ones—up to nine floors.

In the absence of state authority, the Manshiet Nasser community organized itself according to its inhabitants’ cultural heritage. The local mayor (ʿumda) and a tribal council (Majlis al-ʿArab) were responsible for resolving disputes among the populace without the intervention of the state (Manshiet Nasser did not have a police station until 1990). Majlis al-ʿArab comprised members from different communities within Manshiet Nasser. The ʿumda and the Majlis al-ʿArab divided the land among the residents, and they typically grouped inhabitants who originally came from the same town together.

The new community laid down rules for regulating property; the right to land was linked to its construction. Once all the vacant land had been built up, the ownership of a house would be transferred from one inhabitant to another by giving some money to the homeowner in exchange for him leaving his house to the buyer. This value is recorded in a paper stating that the buyer owns the building and not the parcel of land.

Over time, as the population of Manshiet Nasser increased, so did the need for state institutions to supply the area with basic facilities. Access to electricity was easier to obtain than access to water and sanitation because the mountainous landscape made it difficult to extend the water pipes and drainage systems (Tekçe et al. 1997). Later in this article, we go into more detail about the state of Manshiet Nasser’s infrastructure. However, it is important to begin by addressing other development factors that shaped the area, including the arrival of a new group of residents that became the nucleus of the al-Zabbālīn neighborhood.

In 1890, groups of people migrated from al-Wāḥāt to Cairo and settled on the outskirts of the city. Known as the “al-Wāḥiyya,” their main activity was collecting, drying, and selling organic waste to use as a fuel source for ovens and public baths. As their activities expanded to include the entire city, the al-Wāḥiyya took control of garbage collection in the capital (Fahmi and Sutton 2010).

Over time, as the city developed and the population expanded, the al-Wāḥiyya community could not continue to provide garbage collection services on their own and began to seek out new laborers. They found workers in a group of Coptic migrant farmers who emigrated from the al-Badāry neighborhood in Asyūṭ to Cairo. The farmers’ main activity was raising pigs; they would buy the right to collect organic waste from the al-Wāḥiyya to feed their livestock (Neamatalla 1998). When these immigrant farmers first arrived, they settled in ʾAbū Wāfiyya in the Shubrā al-Khīma neighborhood. For five years, they collected garbage in wagons (pulled by animals) and  transported the waste to their neighborhood, where the women would sort and separate organic waste out from other waste. The garbage collectors’ main profits came from selling pigs to tourist restaurants in Cairo, but they also sold the inorganic waste (Fahmi and Sutton 2010). However, the smell of garbage adversely affected neighborhoods close to the garbage collectors’ area, prompting the government to frequently relocate the garbage collectors; eventually, they settled in al-Muqaṭṭam Mount (GIZ 2009).

The risk of sudden eviction prevented the residents from investing in their  new homes; instead, they preferred to build cheap, temporary tin housing. They lived in these homes until 1975, when the construction of the al-ʾInbā Simʿān Church and Monastery² gave the residents a sense of reassurance and belonging, allowing them to finally build permanent homes (Neamatalla 1998). In 1984, the Garbage collector’s association was established, which was another factor that contributed to the stability of the al-Zabbālīn neighborhood. The association was founded by Bishop Ṣumw’īl, who established and served as the bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church’s Bishopric of Public, Ecumenical, and Social Services (BLESS). The BLESS program included members of famous families working in the garbage collection trade, the leaders of the local community. BLESS’s main interest was to improve the situation of workers in the profession, especially the poor.

Due to the concentration of garbage collectors’ community in Manshiet Nasser, BLESS provided the area with services, creating a solid foundation for community development. An environmental and urban development program managed by Environmental Quality International (EQI) provided BLESS with technical support and helped it institutionalize its activities and support the garbage collector communities, not only in Manshiet Nasser but throughout Cairo (Neamatalla 1998).

BLESS played a pivotal role in the subsequent years, as it helped transform the garbage collectors’ community from a rural community living on the outskirts of the city into an urban community with a specific economic activity. This new community established economic and social ties with the surrounding communities, although it maintained a degree of isolation (Tekçe et al. 1997). As the garbage accumulated in the Manshiet Nasser neighborhood, garbage collectors from the al-Zabbālīn neighborhood, under the auspices of the EQI, entered into an agreement to collect garbage from Manshiet Nasser in return for a monthly payment. Manshiet Nasser residents paid an association established by al-Zabbālīn’s residents to manage the project and collect dues for this service (Tekçe et al. 1997). This local administration initiative works to solve one of the most complex local administrative issues concerning all authorities and residents in Egypt: solid waste management.

Figure 4: Al-ʾInbā Simān Monastery, Manshiet Nasser. Source: Tadamun 2015.

Figure 5: Al-ʾInbā Simān Monastery, Manshiet Nasser. Source: Tadamun 2015.

Figure 6: Al-ʾInbā Simʿa Monastery, Manshiet Nasser. Source: Tadamun 2015.

To understand how authorities engage with and respond to informal areas,  we must study the al-Duwayqa area—the largest and most famous part of the Manshiet Nasser neighborhood. In 1977, President al-Sādāt issued a decree to establish temporary shelters in al-Duwayqa to house families whose homes had collapsed as well as other families from other informal areas. The purpose was to house these families for only six months until they could be transferred to suitable permanent housing. However, the government did not fulfill this promise, and the housing meant to “temporarily” host these families became permanent with families living in tiny units that lacked the water and sanitation systems necessary to sustain them. Housing units in al-Duwayqa were called al-Sharq al-ʾAwsaṭ Housing Units and Saʿd al-Maṣry Housing Units; they were then divided into types named al-Waḥāyd, al-Atnynāt, al-Talātāt [‘the singles, the doubles, the triples’]. According to the area’s residents, al-Waḥāyd housing comprises one story of adjacent rooms, where families share one bathroom; al-Atnynāt is the same arrangement but consists of two or three stories of rooms. Families also constructed houses at the foot of the hill.

Over the years, al-Duwayqa’s urbanization expanded and its population increased. New areas with inadequate infrastructure have emerged, such as the al-Razzāz and al-Shabha areas in Wādy Farʿoun, located between al-Duwayqa and al-Muqaṭṭam Heights. Al-Razzāz is one of the most densely populated areas in Manshiet Nasser. More housing projects such as the Masākin al-Ḥirafiyyīn Housing Units came to al-Duwayqa in the 1980s. These units consist of buildings with workshops at street level for a wide range of artisans, mainly car maintenance workshops. The Suzanne Mubarak State Housing project occupies a large area of the best part of Manshiet Nasser. Its construction began in 1999 and continued over the next decade. These new housing units were supposed to host all residents living in the most dangerous areas in al-Duwayqa, but the 2008 rockslide changed the government’s plan.

The disaster of the al-Duwayqa rockslide

An investigative report published by Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper in 2007, a month before the rockslide, addressed the housing situation in the neighborhood and cited testimonies from the inhabitants:³

“The cracks began to increase in my house since the digging machines started to work, so I had to clog those cracks with some bags and cloth so that no snakes or scorpions would enter. But I failed. A few days ago, I woke up to a loud scream from my 6-month-old daughter. When I turned to her, I was surprised to see a large scorpion next to her; I discovered that it had bitten her and had snuck back to the mountain. I rushed her to the hospital where they treated her and saved her life.”

Before the al-Duwayqa rockslide, another rockslide had occurred in the al-Zabbālīn neighborhood in 1993, killing 70 people. The National Authority for Remote Sensing & Space Sciences (NARSS) and the Geological Survey Authority published a map of the most dangerous areas in al-Muqaṭṭam Mount; the site of al-Duwayqa 2008 rockslide was one of the sites identified in the map. According to scientific research, al-Muqaṭṭam Mount consists of a layer of clay and a layer of limestone. In the absence of official sewage networks, the clay layer absorbs water which makes it swell and push against the limestone layer. This swelling creates conditions for a rockslide. Some experts also suggest that construction work on the mountain may have led to instability.

In March 2008, the local authorities classified the top of the mountain as a highly dangerous area. After two months, the government commissioned a contractor to make the necessary repairs to secure the rocks in place; during the inspection period, some rocks fell, causing injuries to some residents. There are conflicting accounts of the measures the government took to prevent danger. An advisor to the Governor of Cairo said that the government had asked sixty families living at the top of the rock–as well as thirty families living below–to vacate their homes. That account contends that the government offered them housing in the city of al-Nahḍa, but residents refused the offer because of the added 35 km in distance. In contrast, official proclamations do not indicate that the government had offered alternative housing prior to the incident. Rather, the housing minister’s statements indicate that residents were already planning to move to the Suzanne Mubarak Housing Units, which were meant to house them, but the move did not occur soon enough to avert the disaster. According to the Egyptian Center for Housing Rights (ECHR), residents were not in fact offered relocation to the Suzanne Mubarak Housing Units, and moving to al-Nahḍa meant giving up their right to move to the Suzanne Mubarak Housing Units. ECHR Officials expressed their conviction that had the residents been offered a move to the Suzanne Mubarak Housing Units, they would have accepted.

A few days before the rockslide, authorities asked people to evacuate their homes but did not offer any alternative housing options, even though units were available in the Suzanne Mubarak Housing Project. Ultimately, residents refused to evacuate their homes.⁴ On the morning of September 6, 2008, a rockslide killed 120 people and injured many others. In the same month, the Attorney General began an investigation into the rockslide. After six years, some government officials were sentenced to one year in prison, but their sentences were suspended.

Figure 7: Al-Duwayqa rockslide. Source: Shawn Baldwin 2008.

After the rockslide, survivors were given priority to move to the Suzanne Mubarak Housing Units, but were not given the official documents necessary to prove ownership of their new homes. Initially, survivors were placed in a camp run by the local Red Crescent. Some people falsely claimed that they were survivors of the rockslide so they could get apartments in the projects. Additionally, government officials engaged in proven incidents of corruption in the neighborhood, registering names of people from outside the area as survivors so they could get apartments in the projects. Meanwhile, some survivors  were not provided access to apartments, and when they  refused to leave the Red Crescent’s camp, the police violently removed them. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the government moved residents who were living in dangerous locations to a shelter in a youth center without giving them enough time to collect their belongings. The process of moving residents from dangerous areas was under the supervision of a Census Committee which was responsible for registering families who were victims of the rockslide or living in dangerous areas  to ensure they get apartments in the Suzanne Mubarak Housing Project. However, the committee’s work was marred with mistakes in registering families and it lacked clear criteria. The inadequate and flawed process deprived many families of their right to obtain housing, especially those who were not able to provide evidence that they had to evacuate their homes.

The evacuation and apartment distribution processes lacked clear criteria and did little to preserve the residents’ right to housing. In addition, there was no process for documenting ownership and little transparency in providing the residents with information. Corruption in the local administration is partially to blame.

A few years later, some people also took advantage of the chaos in the aftermath of the 2011 revolution, occupying empty apartments in the Suzanne Mubarak Housing Project. Residents of the area reported that thugs attempted to take possession of empty units. The government claims that brokers had seized the empty apartments and sold them to residents of the neighborhood. On the morning of July 3, 2011, police and armed forces stormed the neighborhood to forcefully remove residents, their belongings from the balconies. Those who were forcefully removed had the option of alternative accommodation in Masākin ʿUthmān, Haram City, 6th of October City, and Badr City. Many residents refused to move to these areas due to the distance between these sites and their workplaces as well as the lack of public services and facilities there.

The story of the al-Duwayqa rockslide shows that the Egyptian government does not provide nearly enough information to their citizens. Either the information is incomplete and does not adequately outline citizens’ options, or it comes too late. Amnesty International’s report reveals the corruption among some government officials in the neighborhood, in addition to the Census Committee’s lack of professionalism, which prevented some of the residents who had homes crushed in the rockslide or homes located in highly dangerous locations from receiving housing. The crisis and its aftermath raise doubts about donors’ development projects in the area; while these projects have enhanced the infrastructure in Manshiet Nasser, the al-Duwayqa rockslide shows that they did not enhance the government’s nor local neighborhood authorities’ capability to deal with the crisis, and they did not limit corruption.

There are other approaches to development that work to promote political and administrative reforms rather than a sole focus on infrastructure; these approaches might be best suited for enhancing government capacity and limiting corruption. The al-Duwayqa rockslide was a turning point for the state’s policy toward unplanned areas. After the rockslide, the government established the Informal Settlements Development Facility (ISDF), the first government agency charged with developing these areas. There is debate among urbanists over the ISDF’s effectiveness, but no one denies that it was one of the first steps the government took to deal with unsafe areas.

The place and its inhabitants

Figure 8: Urban landmarks in Manshiet Nasser. Source: Tadamun

The Manshiet Nasser neighborhood is distinguished by its location, as it is connected to many different neighborhoods throughout Cairo. Many residents come from the same hometown, creating strong social ties that extend throughout the neighborhood and helping the residents to feel safe, to a certain extent. Yet, the history of the neighborhood shows that the social fabric does not consist of a single group hailing from the same origin. Rather, many groups of people moved to the area successively under different historical circumstances. The neighborhood’s inhabitants adhere to diverse social systems, relationships, and traditions. They also work in various economic fields, although most jobs fall within the informal sector.⁵ The state of houses and infrastructure varies from both within and between areas. During a workshop organized by the Tadamun Initiative, discussions with residents revealed clear differences between the ʿIzbit Bakhīt, al-Duwayqa, and al-Zarāyb areas. Additionally, the residents of any given area could not draw a map of other areas within Manshiet Nasser. The al-Zarāyb area, in particular, seemed like a distinct, separate, and isolated community.

Figure 9: Street in ʿIzbit Bakhīt.’ Source: Tadamun 2015.

Figure 10: A street in the al-Zarāyb/al-Zabbālīn area. Source: Tadamun 2015.

Figure 11: A street in the al-Zarāyb/al-Zabbālīn area. Source: Tadamun 2015.

Figure 12: The al-Ḥirafiyyiin area. One of the government housing areas in Manshiet Nasser. Source: Tadamun 2015.

Figure 13: A street in the al-Razzāz area. Source: Tadamun 2015.

According to Cairo Governorate statistics, 65 percent of the neighborhood’s residents work in crafts and administration, 14 percent work in garbage related activities, and 21 percent work in private vocations.⁶ There are many workshops in the neighborhood. Many homes contain workshops at ground level, while homes in the al-Zabbālīn area often have a place for sorting the trash.

Manshiet Nasser was initially affiliated with the al-Gammāliyya division (qism) and its local government and administrative institutions.  As the trash collectors community arrived in 1970 along with groups of people that migrated from Upper Egypt to the al-Miʿaddasa and al-Khazzān areas, some parts of Manshiet Nasser became affiliated with the al-Darb al-Aḥmar district (ḥayy). The northern part of Manshiet Nasser was affiliated with the al-Wāylī district, until administrative boundaries officially separated them in May 1991. Many people considered this separation to be a positive development given the area’s large area and population as well as the inhabitants’ particular needs. These needs are difficult to understand and address without establishing an independent administrative unit for the district, with an independent budget and enough civil servants to serve the district and its inhabitants.

Over the last few decades, foreign donors have implemented several development projects in the Manshiet Nasser neighborhood, especially in the al-Zabbālīn area–most notably, a World Bank project in the 1970s and a project for German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) from the late 1990s until 2010. There are around 102 development associations and foundations working in the area; most of them are interested in charity work, while a few of them (15-20) are interested in development activities. These associations specialize in implementing small projects and providing employment opportunities, while others concentrate on restoring and painting housing units, and some seek to address issues facing women and youth. Oftentimes, groups of people who hail from the same region (Asyūṭ, Sūhāg, and Luxor) establish agencies to serve their local communities. For instance, there are five associations in the al-Zarāyb area, two of which work on development and education issues. “The Recycling School” is a center that works to combat illiteracy among children who have dropped out of school and teach them computer skills. The school uses the Montessori curriculum to educate children, and pushes the idea that education will lead to higher incomes later in life; children also learn the importance of sorting and recycling trash. The school further develops youth’s creative skills through activities such as drama programs. One such play centered on the narratives of Egyptian trash collectors.

In addition to these formal associations, collective action by groups with common interests also demonstrates the strength of civil society in Manshiet Nasser. For example, trash collectors negotiated with various government agencies to legalize and develop their work in solid waste recycling. We have also seen how young people banded together to successfully lobby authorities to allocate a plot of land to establish a sports field, which is currently managed by the community.

The features of Manshiet Nasser and its development opportunities

The growth of artisanal trades and small industries, as well as the organization of community groups around their interests and trades, distinguish Manshiet Nasser from other areas in the region. The development of the crafts industry is intertwined with urbanization, in which government decisions play a large role. In most cases, groups that were moved to Manshiet Nasser brought their craft with them, or were moved because of their craft. Manshiet Nasser’s story began when the government decided to move the inhabitants of ʿIzbit al-Ṣafīḥ in the al-Gammāliyya neighborhood to the al-Muqaṭṭam hills in the 1960s. Those inhabitants brought their trades and crafts with them, such as recycling metals. Over time, as the danger of eviction subsided, other workers moved from nearby workshops in Old Cairo and settled in Manshiet Nasser, producing carpets, shoes, and other handicrafts.

After the mid-1970s, with global copper prices rising, aluminum became a cheaper alternative. As a result, aluminum cooking utensils soon became an essential component of a bride’s trousseau, and thus, aluminum workshops flourished in old Cairo. As aluminum manufacturing expanded, the government sought a new home for this pollution heavy industry, ultimately deciding that Manshiet Nasser was a suitable host. Seven aluminum workshops moved to the southern side of Manshiet Nasser, and they attracted a new workforce to the neighborhood (Tekçe et al. 1997). Today, many aluminum workshops have expanded their activities and play an integral part in other sectors, such as construction and furniture.

Figure 14: Workshops in the al-Ḥirafiyyiin area. Source: Tadamun 2015.

The trash collectors’ community also flourished in Manshiet Nasser, as they established one of the best systems in the world for recycling solid waste with traditional tools. Members of this community recycle almost everything to maximize profits. They experiment with various methods to recycle any kind of materials, and sometimes refurbish the scraps into new products, using simple, locally manufactured machines. The neighborhood recycles 85 percent of Cairo’s trash (Fahmi and Sutton 2010). This is a very high recycling rate compared to other countries in the world, exceeding the highest recycling rates in developed countries, including Austria (63 percent) and Germany (62 percent). These rates are taken from official data which calculate recycling activities done by recognized institutions. However, there are no official rates for developing countries, as these activities are done unofficially and without any monitoring, except for individual studies, as in Manshiet Nasser’s case.

It is remarkable that the government has never seen these trades and industries as an opportunity for development and growth, nor have they sought to develop policies and laws that support the owners or improve working conditions. Instead, the government mostly focused on the problems emanating from these informal industries and therefore decided to move these industries and their workers to an area that the government saw as a gathering place for ‘unwanted’ groups of people, hoping that they would fade from the city’s official image. These problems reappear when those ‘unwanted people’ reemerge and cause trouble for the city’s administration and inhabitants. For example, despite the trash collectors’ achievements establishing a successful recycling industry, the government adopted policies that harm their interests. In the 1990s, trash collectors depended on wagons, but the General Authority for Cairo Cleaning and Beautification issued an order requiring the replacement of wagons with trucks for waste removal. However, the trash collectors did not have the funds to purchase trucks (Iskander 2010). The General Authority also contracted private companies to collect trash from residential areas, thus undermining veteran trash collectors who had to adapt to the new situation. The veterans started collecting trash from residential buildings without guarantees that the residents would pay them for their service. Thus, they faced severe difficulties while attempting to cope with ‘progress,’ and they did not receive any support from the appropriate government agencies that are supposed to help them when events or shifts severely affect their trade.

In 2003, the government signed a contract with three European companies to sell Cairo’s trash, claiming that the traditional methods were unsanitary. Instead of collaborating with urban stakeholders and improving trash-collecting methods to protect public health, the government chose to prevent residents from doing their work and deprived them of their livelihood. The service the European companies provided was inferior to that of the traditional trash collectors. The trucks these companies used were too large for the narrow streets. Their contract stipulated that 20 percent of trash should be recycled, but there was no government supervision to ensure the recycling took place, and the contract did not specify the types of materials that should be recycled, nor the recycling method. When the agreement was eventually canceled, the government did not inform citizens about the cancellation’s financial, administrative, and social implications.

In 2009, as the fear of swine flu was increasing, the government slaughtered 300,000 pigs without public consultation. The slaughter financially destabilized 70,000 families in the al-Zabbālīn area, for they depended on raising pigs, which fed on organic waste. However, swine flu does not pass from pigs to humans. The government claimed that the concern was a hybrid virus strain of swine flu and bird flu. Later, however, the government changed its story and claimed that the goal was to clean up the crowded al-Zabbālīn area (Fahmi and Sutton 2010).

The government seems to believe that if it adopts policies that ignore the trash collector community and other groups in informal areas, they will suddenly vanish. It also expects these communities to suddenly find alternative economic activities other than those inherited over generations. Time and time again, the government imposes heavy-handed policies that do not take the affected citizens into consideration. Rather, it is concerned with its own vision of what these communities should be, while leaving them to solve their problems on their own, without any support. Thus, many policies were not and are not based on a vision of these communities as important economic actors, with problems the government has an obligation to solve. Rather, the government’s stance is that the very existence of these communities is the problem.

Figure 15: Using rooftops to sort solid waste in the al-Zabbālīn area. Source: Tadamun 2015.

Conversely, the communities within informal areas consider their economic activities and social networks to be important advantages that deserve further development. During a community meeting organized by the Tadamun Initiative, some participants suggested that the informal economy in Manshiet Nasser should formalize. A formal economy would enable the state to benefit from the area’s projects and products, as well as organize professions and allow the workers to enjoy the privileges of official work. Tadamun observed attempts by groups of trash collectors living in the al-Zarāyb area to gain official recognition from the government for their informal work. They also sought to become active partners in the trash collection process for all of Cairo, instead of the government making their access to waste more difficult and using the services of their foreign competitors. Additionally, these groups are demanding to be key actors in developing the recycling industry and expanding their scope of work, especially since many of their companies already have a commercial registration and a tax card.

The trash collectors offer practical suggestions that seem reasonable. Any decision-maker can easily study, discuss, and negotiate these suggestions as a first step, not only to solve the trash collector community’s problems but also the waste-management problem in Cairo as a whole. The suggestions include dividing trash collection across Cairo into small jurisdictions and commissioning companies from the al-Zabbālīn area to collect the trash. Neighborhoods would monitor the process as their residents are the primary stakeholders. Some other suggestions include contracting Egyptian companies specialized in collecting and recycling waste according to specified arrangements, imposing fines on violators, and monitoring the process by establishing a popular committee in each neighborhood. They also hope for a guarantee of the trash collectors’ ownership of materials they collect and sort, or compensation equal to the cost of the collection and sorting process. They have asked the government to refrain from transferring the al-Zarāyb community to other areas and instead make this region a large intermediate station with recycling workshops. Additionally, some participants demanded that the government establish a large waste dump in a different area to get rid of unwanted materials which cause al-Zarāyb residents to fall ill. The community also demanded that the government take good care of important tourist sites in the area, like the al-’Inbā Simʿān Monastery, and build kiosks and shops near these sites to improve the community’s economic situation. These kiosks and shops could help reduce youth unemployment and make them proud of their area. Some community members suggested that the entrance of al-Muqaṭṭam needs a bridge, which would facilitate tourists’ and visitors’ access to the monastery. Listening to community members, understanding their perceptions of themselves and their role in the wider society, and engaging them in the decision-making process has great potential to achieve better solutions compared to top-down approaches, or decisions that take micro communities into account without paying attention to the overall picture.

Figure 16: The grand theater in Al-ʾinbā Simʿān Monastery. Source: Tadamun 2015.

The problems facing the residents of Manshiet Nasser

The most important problems in Manshiet Nasser include the economic and social marginalization of the area’s residents; crowdedness and high population density; a lack of main entrances to the area; difficulties moving around within the neighborhood due to the narrow streets; and streets of different elevations which are linked by steps, limiting mobility for many people, including the elderly, children, and persons with disabilities. The area also suffers from a lack of services compared with many other informal areas; meanwhile, the available services are often inefficient and inadequate for such a large population.

In our community meeting, Manshiet Nasser’s residents complained about the lack of health services in the neighborhood despite the availability of medical centers in the district and the recent construction of Shaykh Zāyd Hospital. The residents explained that the hospital and the medical centers do not provide the services they actually need, and that there is a large medical center in the al-Masākin area, but it is not functioning yet. In the al-Zabbālīn area, residents asserted that the medical centers are not qualified to deal with the health issues they face as a result of their work sorting trash. The residents also complained about the low-quality educational services, despite the availability of schools in the area. There is no secondary school for girls in the area, severely limiting their educational opportunities. There is also a lack of civil protection services (police, fire-fighting, ambulances) and the narrowness of the roads impedes emergency vehicles when they do respond to accidents. Due to the many workshops in the neighborhood, the practice of sorting trash inside homes, and the total absence of green space, pollution levels are extremely high.

Figure 17: Thousands of Manshiet Nasser’s residents have to climb many stairs to reach places outside their homes, which limits accessibility for the elderly and people with disabilities. In addition to that, these stairs are built by the residents, and many of them are unsafe. Source: Tadamun 2015.

According to a 2005 GIZ field survey, the rate of access to water in Manshiet Nasser ranges from 85 percent to 99 percent in seven out of nine areas. However, in the other two areas, the rate of access to water is just 23 percent in one area and one percent in the other. During a community meeting organized by the Tadamun Initiative, residents explained that people living on side streets in al-Razzāz still get their water from street vendors because the public water supply is only available for residents of the main street. Rates of access to the sanitation network reach 98 percent in three areas, 70 percent in five others, and only five percent in the ninth area.

Some people still live in at-risk buildings, and the process of moving people to safe houses still needs a lot of improvement. People should be asked where they want to live and houses should be distributed accordingly. Additionally, the government should legalize residents’ ownership of their new apartments, thus heightening their sense of security and reducing the number of residents returning to live in informal areas. We have observed many cases of residents returning to Manshiet Nasser due to difficulties that they faced in their new neighborhoods; these residents tend to rent a place or build a new one, leading to extra spending and growth in informal areas. Finally, during two community meetings organized by the Tadamun Initiative, residents talked extensively about the consequences of social stigmatization and the spread of stereotypes regarding them and their region. Many expressed a belief and concern that the government utilizes Manshiet Nasser to carry out punishments, moving underperforming civil servants to the neighborhood. This is but another way the government curtails access to quality health, educational, and social services for residents of the neighborhood. Like the residents of ʿIzbit al-Haggāna, the people of Manshiet Nasser are trying to fight this stigma by changing the name of the “al-Zabbālīn” [trash collectors] area to “al-Zahrāʾ” or “al-Muqaṭṭam.” However, this has not yet occurred, and a name change will not necessarily lead to less stigmatization of the community.

Extreme contrasts: Manshiet Nasser and ‘Uptown Cairo’

In 2006, ʾIʿmār Miṣr Company began construction on Uptown Cairo City, a gated community on top of al-Muqaṭṭam Mount that overlooks Manshiet Nasser and al-Duwayqa. As its name and image suggest, this city is marketed to the rich minority, and amenities include a large golf course that surrounds the residential area. Golf courses require large quantities of water, and due to the high elevation of the al-Muqaṭṭam area, it will cost more to pump the water.  Simultaneously, however, the area below the new development, Wādy Farʿoun, is not connected to the official water network, suffers from water scarcity, and its residents buy limited amounts of water informally. In commercials for Uptown Cairo and on its website, Manshiet Nasser does not appear in the images of views from the city. As a result, some residents from al-Razzāz, al-Shahba, and Wādy Farʿoun see plans to demolish their homes and move them to housing units in 6th of October City as evidence of the government’s desire to erase their neighborhoods for the purpose of beautifying the view from Uptown Cairo. The residents have linked what is happening to them to the commercials they see in television channels promoting the new, luxurious, gated community as a place that is close to Cairo but detached from its problems. Some of those residents think that it is possible to remove risk of rockslides by flattening some parts of the mountain and rebuilding homes in other areas, which will provide large areas for services if there is funding and political will to develop the area. The residents said that they would be willing to contribute to such projects to rebuild their own homes. They will not object if the state sold some of the land to ʾIʿimār Miṣr Company as long as the company contributes to the development of the area. In the end, it remains dependent on the government’s decisions and its perception of its role in the management of land and housing projects for all segments of society from rich to poor. There is still no sustainable mechanism in Egyptian law that allows citizens, or the development associations working with them, to intervene and participate in their cities’ decision-making processes.

Figure 18: An example of the images promoting Uptown Cairo, where the real image of Manshiet Nasser was replaced by a phantom, unidentified city. Source: Uptown Cairo website.

Donors’ projects in Manshiet Nasser

Poverty and urban deterioration in Manshiet Nasser are the direct consequences of bad urban management, governmental bias against particular social groups, and the state’s failure to perform its role in development, planning, and management. Manshiet Nasser’s residents are often portrayed as infringing on state land even though it was the government that had moved most of the residents to the area. The idea that Manshiet Nasser’s residents were simply occupying the area illegally delayed connecting the neighborhood to the water and sanitation networks for more than 20 years. When the government evicted these groups from the city, sending them to al-Muqaṭṭam Mount, the state did not plan in advance, provide services, oversee the sale and purchase of land, or ensure that land would be available at affordable prices for those who wished to live in this new urban community (or those who had no choice but to move there). Only after people completed the construction of their communities would the state intervene in modest, and often ineffective, attempts to improve conditions. These interventions lacked a long-term vision of the future, and they often failed to take socioeconomic conditions, the natural extension of urban areas, and the need for adequate housing into account.

Grants and foreign aid to Egypt increased after the adoption of the Infitāḥ (Open Door Policy) in the 1970s. A grant from the World Bank to develop Manshiet Nasser helped the area gain recognition from President al-Sādāt. The grant aimed to develop the al-Zarāyb and ʿArab al-Muḥammady areas. The project, in which the government was a key player, began in 1977 and aimed to develop existing poor communities rather than construct new cities around Cairo. Initially, the project planned to sell state land to Manshiet Nasser’s residents and provide them with basic services (Tekçe et al. 1997). However, the government refrained from transferring land ownership to the residents, fearing that this process would legitimize what it viewed as an essentially illegal act. As a result, the project failed in organizing land ownership, but it did succeed in extending the sewage network to Manshiet Nasser. However, the network did not reach many individual homes, and some residents had to bear the cost of connecting their homes to the main sewage network in the area. The connections to homes that did exist were low-quality, which led to sewage leaking down into communities at the bottom of al-Muqaṭṭam Mount, causing people to fall ill, especially children (Tekçe et al. 1997). Additionally, the project managed to construct a water treatment station and a water storage facility at the highest point in the neighborhood, providing water to nearly half of the residents. The community also developed an internal system to deliver water by wagons which carried small barrels of water to homes for an affordable price (Tekçe et al. 1997).

Although the Open Door Policy (1974) led to an influx of foreign aid into Egypt, they also deepened the gap between the poor and rich. Once again, the government focused their support on investment while cutting subsidies for basic goods and services, including housing. Land prices increased substantially, and the poor could not find affordable housing in planned cities. Informal housing became their only option. This accelerated the growth of informal areas, growth that continued for decades, especially in Manshiet Nasser—the largest informal area in Cairo.

In 1998, the government implemented two important plans in Manshiet Nasser. The first was a large housing project in the al-Duwayqa area. The government funded the first phase of the project while the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development financed the subsequent phases, at a total cost of $180 million. The project aimed to move residents from at-risk areas in al-Duwayqa to new housing units and then demolish their original homes. The Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities was responsible for constructing the new apartments, while the official administration of the Manshiet Nasser neighborhood was responsible for distributing the new apartments to beneficiaries. The second plan was a multi-stage project for the development of other areas in Manshiet Nasser, and the government invited the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) to manage it. The project included waste removal, opening new traffic lines, constructing three pedestrian bridges over the highway (al-ʾAutustrād Road), and connecting the neighborhood to water and sewage networks. The ultimate goal was to reduce poverty and enhance the living conditions of the residents (Piffero 2009).

Many government agencies collaborated on the project to develop the al-Duwayqa area, named after Suzanne Mubarak. The Ministry of Social Affairs and the Cairo Governorate conducted social and environmental studies; the National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (NARSS) and the Ministry of Housing conducted the geological studies. The General Organization for Physical Planning (GOPP) prepared the initial planning for the area; while the Housing and Building National Research Center, universities, and consulting engineering offices produced the soil analysis, the designs, and the master plan in addition to supervising the implementation of the project. Nine-thousand seven-hundred and sixty housing units were constructed to accommodate fifty thousand people, in addition to services and utilities. The project also involved building a medical center, three mosques which accommodated 300 people each, a grand mosque accommodating 800 people, a hall for social events, two health units, three kindergartens, a post office, a civil registry office, a police station, a car registration office, large water tanks, a craft center with seventy-eight workshops, and 234 shops. An elementary school and a high school for industrial education were built as well (Ministry of Housing n.d.).

Of course, it is rare that funding is available for such projects and their focus is often too narrow. Despite the scope of the project, it was still very limited if we take into consideration the population of Manshiet Nasser, which reaches one million according to some estimates. We should question planning criteria’s  effectiveness in maximizing the benefits of available resources for the largest number of people. Increasing the density of construction may have served a larger number of people. Additionally, the state could have shared some of the construction costs with residents, increasing the funds available to provide services to all residents of the neighborhood.

Figure 19: Masākin Suzanne Mubarak. Source.

In 2008, the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) implemented a comprehensive planning project for the whole neighborhood. The GIZ divided the neighborhood into nine planning areas: MN1 referring to ʿIzbit Bakhīt; MN2, al-Masākin; MN3, ʾsfal al-Razzāz; MN4, the mosque and the cultural center; MN5, the shiyākha of al-Miʿaddasa; MN6, al-Khazzān; MN7, al-Zarāyb; MN8, ʾAʿlā al-Razzāz; and MN9, Wādy Farʿoun. This division aimed to identify which area will be included in the project and at what phase. The GIZ adopted a participatory development approach that aimed to enhance services and maximize the benefits government agencies provided to the neighborhood. The plan was that the program would support the government and local administration in developing policies and raise the administrative efficiency of the staff to serve the needs of the neighborhood and facilitate networking between residents, the government, civil society, and the private sector. The project began in the ʿIzbit Bakhīt area and later extended to other zones. The project included two parts: the first was the development of the neighborhood’s infrastructure, which included improving the water and sanitation networks and widening the roads. The initial plan was to first transfer land ownership to the residents, and then start developing the neighborhood’s infrastructure. 28 percent of the funding for the infrastructure’s development came from selling the land to the residents, while the government provided 19 percent of the funds and the German Construction Bank 53 percent (Piffero 2009). The second part of the project, funded wholly by the GIZ, focused on providing technical support to the local administration, as well as encouraging and supporting community participation in all phases of the planning and implementation of project activities. The project was named “Urban Development Through Participation in Manshiet Nasser.”

It is important to focus on the legalization of land tenure that took place during this project for several reasons. Legalizing land tenure is often considered a panacea for the problems of informal areas. However, the process of legalizing land tenure has only taken place in a few places in Egypt, among them Manshiet Nasser. Hence, we should evaluate this experiment. Researchers (Rankel 2009; Piffero 2009) have pointed out that the Ministry of Housing was hesitant from the beginning but eventually promised all residents ownership deeds by the year 2000. It took several years to complete issuing decisions and approvals and attempting to create a database. During these years, the governor and donor-appointed project manager changed. In 2006, residents began applying to buy the land on which their homes were built. Applications came in very slowly; the project’s management worked with local leaders to encourage people to apply. However, by 2008, the Ministry had only received 200 applications. There are several explanations for the low demand to legalize land tenure, and for the government and donors’ failure to implement their plan within ten years: 1) the high price of land; 2) the lack of interest among residents in legally owning the land, whatever the price was, because they did not feel that their ownership was truly threatened; and 3) because they had the minimum services they needed, they did not see the real benefit that they would receive by legalizing their ownership. After the Duwayqa rockslide, all legalization procedures ended, and the primary goal of the project shifted to surveying the area geologically to ensure the safety of the inhabitants.⁷

Land ownership was not transferred to the people, which delayed the project, along with other operational difficulties. Consequently, the project team did not achieve the goal of the first phase: building confidence within the community. The project’s management adopted smaller initiatives to enhance participation and build trust between the community and local leadership. However, GIZ struggled to build trust with the neighborhood’s residents because local administration leaders were replaced frequently, and the trust-building process began anew with each new leader.

The power relationships between the parties involved also impeded the project. The parties that were commissioned to plan and implement the project did not have much influence on decision-making as opposed to the government and project donors.. The government also did not welcome resident participation in the decision-making process due to sensitive political issues (Piffero 2009). Resident participation was mostly informal and dealt with issues that did not constitute a political threat to the government’s authority. Furthermore, GIZ was not satisfied with the local leadership or that of the governorate, as both of these parties lacked the necessary skills and resources to implement the project, according to a report issued by GIZ in 2002 (Piffero 2009). In the second and the third phases of the project, the participation of people and NGOs in the decision-making process remained limited or was often absent (Piffero 2009).

NGOs in the region did not become key partners. Although the Manshiet Nasser area contains many registered NGOs—maybe exceeding 100 associations—the majority of these associations are charities. As for the few development associations in the area, they were not qualified to lead social change on the ground. This is in part due to the legal constraints associations in Egypt face, and because donors’ agendas guide and finance the activities of associations. Sometimes, this inhibits them from meeting the real needs of the community and creates a climate of competition for funding between associations, which impedes possibilities for cooperation.

In this context, the meaning of “participation” as advocated by GIZ was not clear; residents’ participation was informal to a large extent, due to the government’s political sensitivities. The government and civil society were not able to be partners in the development process for political reasons and administrative difficulties. The participation during the second and third phases of the project did not change much, and participation of the people and NGOs in the decision-making process remained limited or often absent (Piffero 2009).

State plans for the development of Manshiet Nasser neighborhood

In 2007, the government announced the Cairo 2050 project, which involved moving residents out of dangerous areas and cemeteries to the outskirts of Cairo, and converting their former neighborhoods into gardens. However, this plan was not implemented. In April 2014, work started on the al-ʾAsmarāt Housing Project in al-Muqaṭṭam Mount. It includes 6,300 housing units that will be dedicated to relocated residents of dangerous areas in al-Duwayqa and Manshiet Nasser. In November 2014, the President of the Republic issued a decree establishing the “Taḥya Miṣr” Fund, which is responsible for the second phase of the al-ʾAsmarāt Project. Both phases will provide a total of 11,300 housing units on land belonging to the Cairo Governorate. The Ministry of State for Urban Renewal and Informal Settlements (formed in 2014 by combining the the Informal Settlements Development Fund [ISDF] and the solid waste management portfolio) contributed 195 million EGP for the project. According to statements by Dr. Layla Iskandar, the former Minister of State for Urban Renewal and Informal Settlements, a number of units of this project will be allocated to residents of al-Duwayqa and Manshiet Nasser.

Part of the Cairo 2050 plans.

Part of the Cairo 2050 plans.

On the other hand, the state has engaged in developing the area for more than three decades. It cooperated with international donors and allocated large sums of money to extend services and utilities–including educational, health, and social facilities–to the residents of Manshiet Nasser in several stages. The cost of these facilities runs in the millions, and some of them were well built, like the youth center which opened in 2014. The soccer field alone cost more than two million EGP, according to a source in the Cairo Governorate. There are plans to build more sports facilities and youth centers in the area.

The soccer field that cost 2 million EGP, according to a source in the Cairo Governorate. Source: Tadamun 2015.

While some state plans aim to relocate residents, other projects to develop the neighborhood still exist. In 2015, the government allocated 500 million EGP to develop the Manshiet Nasser neighborhood. The project was announced by Dr. Iskandar.⁸ Similar to the GIZ project, one of the goals is to legalize land ownership; the project will also consult and negotiate with residents to develop the neighborhood and  their homes’ facades. The ministry has painted the facades of 211 buildings along al-ʾAutustrād Road. But other areas still face demolition and eviction.

Building facades along al-’Autustrād Road after painting them. Source: Tadamun 2015.

Conclusion

Contrary to stereotypes, Manshiet Nasser is a vibrant and strong community that has succeeded in establishing social and economic ties on mountainous land without services. The pioneers of this community saw trash and oil barrels as an opportunity for investment. It is a community that was able to survive even under policies that were hostile to its existence. There are many problems in the neighborhood, but there are also many questions we should ask before we buy into stereotypes or start new development projects in the area. Among these questions: to whom does state land belong? What is the state’s idea of development? For whom are the new cities are built? Who bears the cost of constructing these new cities? Why do the problems of informal areas persist despite implementing development projects in them? These questions may help us think about alternative solutions for the area, and they may help us see the place and its inhabitants more clearly and fairly.

We cannot think of Manshiet Nasser as one homogenous neighborhood. Each area of the neighborhood has its own history and a relatively distinct social and urban fabric. The economic situation, the level of services, and the quality of infrastructure vary between—and sometimes within—different areas. But we can see a repeating pattern that accompanied the arrival of different groups to Manshiet Nasser. The poor were often displaced from one place to another without the luxury of time to prepare, without documents of ownership, and without public access to public facilities in the new neighborhoods. Yet, they still found a way to live. All the while state policies amplified their poverty and made them confront a more severe reality in their daily lives compared to other citizens in the same city.

If there are lessons about the development and growth of a city that stem from the experience of Manshiet Nasser, the first is that housing projects, which are built by the state and come at a high price, are not a viable solution for housing the poor. These projects serve a very small number of the poor and the middle class, and there are strong doubts regarding the way they are allocated and targeted. What is necessary is the provision of planned land for the poor so that they can build on their own but with appropriate standards that respect their humanity.

It is also vital to plan areas to accommodate the increasing need for housing as the city expands as expected, either due to natural population growth or the increasing internal migration within the capital. This migration is a result of economic and social conditions and the concentration of investments, employment opportunities, and services in a specific province within the republic. If the state does not plan for growth in a timely manner, the people will not wait until plans are ready. They will go to brokers and developers in formal and informal areas (whether the brokers and developers have ownership of building sites they offer or not), to buy or rent housing units that provide shelter and minimal living conditions. Planned cities usually reject and alienate migrants and the poor in many ways, primarily through housing prices that are far outside of their range. What is noteworthy in the case of Manshiet Nasser is that the state remains indecisive as to whether it should recognize the area and its inhabitants, or insist on the illegality of their status. This is despite the fact that the state itself put many of the residents there in the first place and built homes to accommodate them. Additionally, the state has intervened several times in Manshiet Nasser over the course of the last four decades to develop it, in cooperation with international and national experts. It has spent large sums of money in the area but still classifies Manshiet Nasser as an informal area that was built outside of the eyes of the state and the law.

When the state intervened to address the situation, officials should have planned for the expansion of the existing area and allocated resources to develop it. It is not surprising that existing cities expand and attract new inhabitants who seek jobs and affordable housing. It was the responsibility of the state and its local agencies to identify dangerous areas and to make these areas suitable for construction, or to forbid construction in them while allowing construction in safe areas. There are cities around the world that are built on mountains, so it is possible with proper planning and expertise. However, when the government built Masākin al-Ḥirafiyyīn it did not take the location’s geological characteristics into consideration (according to an official report identifying dangerous sites in the area). The government constructed these buildings in a way that increased the pressure on the rocks, and it did not maintain these structures adequately, which endangered private homes built on Al-Razzāz Street, located under the hill. In the end, residents of the area bear the brunt of the losses caused by the government’s mistakes.

The government’s and donors’ interventions led to some infrastructure improvements. However, these improvements were reactionary and centered on what had already begun to deteriorate rather than planning in a way that prepares for problems that will arise from further urban expansion. The people’s participation in the decision-making process about their neighborhood has remained limited. The government did not treat residents or NGOs as real partners in the development process and did not share enough information about available housing alternatives or their neighborhood development plans with them. The government also did not put serious mechanisms in place that prevented the local government from neglecting its duty to maintain utility networks, pave roads, and manage waste management, amongst other municipal projects. The government’s decisions with regards to informal areas are characterized by confusion. While the government sometimes acknowledges these areas and makes moves towards legalizing them, at other times it retreats on its promises. In some cases, state plans sought to develop a particular area, only to then move its inhabitants to distant parts of the city without taking into consideration the economic activities of the neighborhood nor consulting residents. Often, people decided to return to their original homes where they have social networks and job opportunities. This increases the unplanned growth of informal areas. What we learn from the experience of Manshiet Nasser is that no development project will succeed and prove itself effective if it does not integrate the various factors that make the urban population prefer living in a particular site over another. It is crucial to recognize local inhabitants’ knowledge, seriously consider their needs, and involve them in decision-making through genuine participatory processes in which residents are treated as people who have rights and not as recipients of aid or charity.

In a more comprehensive perspective, we learn a very important lesson concerning not only the Manshiet Nasser area but the general policy of classification systems. Defining areas as formal versus informal does not reflect the true conditions of these areas and their actual needs. Of course, it is imperative to identify unsafe areas and buildings to protect residents from threats, but declaring whole neighborhoods as unplanned or informal does not tell us what these areas actually need. For instance, there are areas like Dar al-Salam that are not considered “informal,” but their situation is very similar to that in Manshiet Nasser which is classified as “informal.” Indeed, the lack of education services in Dar al-Salam is more severe than in Manshiet Nasser. However, because Manshiet Nasser is classified as an informal area, it receives development funds more frequently than Dar al-Salam and many other formal areas. However, despite allocating funds to the area all these years, we see confusion regarding the future and planning of Manshiet Nasser.

Two takeaways emerge for more effective urban planning. In addition to accurately identifying existing resources in informal areas, planners need to conduct serious participatory studies of priorities so that the available financial resources are put to their best use. Only then might we see a broad and inclusive system of equitable planning and prudent management.

References

بيفيرو، إيلينا (2009). ما الذي جرى للمشاركة؟ التطور العمراني والنهوض الاستبدادي للأحياء غير الرسمية في القاهرة.

Piffero, Elena (2009). What happened to participation? Urban development and authoritarian upgrading in Cairo’s informal neighborhoods.

إسكندر، ليلى (2010). مديرو النفايات في القاهرة. شركة (CID) للاستشارات.

Iskander, Laila (2010). Cairo’s waste managers. CID Consulting.

هوبنكنز، نيكولاس؛ إبراهيم، سعد الدين (1997). المجتمع العربي: الطبقة، والنوع الاجتماعية، والسلطة، والتنمية. مطبعة الجامعة الأمريكية بالقاهرة.

Tekçe, Belgin; Oldham, Linda; and Shorter, Frederic C. (1997.) “Manshiet Nasser: A Cairo Neighborhood,” in Arab Society: Class, Gender, Power, and Development. ed. by Hopkins, Nicholas and Ibrahim, Saad Eddin. Cairo, The American University in Cairo Press.

فهمي، وائل؛ سوتون، كيث (2010). نفايات القاهرة المتناز عليها: الإدارة المستدامة للنفايات الصلبة وحق الزبالين في المدينة. مجلة (Sustainability) العلمية، 2010، 2، 1765-1783.

Fahmi, Wael; Sutton, Keith (2010). Cairo’s Contested Garbage: Sustainable Solid Waste Management and the Zabaleen’s Right to the City. Sustainability 2010, 2, 1765-1783. Link.

الوكالة الألمانية للتعاون الدولي (2009). المناطق غير الرسمية في القاهرة ما بين التحديات العمرانية والإمكانات الخفية. GTZ. يونيو/ حزيران 2019.

German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) (2009). Cairo’s Informal Areas Between Urban Challenges and Hidden Potentials. GTZ. June 2009.

نعمة الله، منير (1998). مشروع منشورات المدن الكبرى (MCP-018D)ـ البيئة وبرامج التنمية في منطقة الزبالين في القاهرة، مصر.

Neamatalla, Mounir. (1998). The Mega-Cities Project Publication MCP-018D. The Mega-Cities Project Ó. 1998. Zabbaleen Environment & Development Program. Cairo, Egypt.

<sup>1. ʿIzbit al-Ṣafīḥ that we refer to in this article was in al-Gammāleyya, and it is different than the current ʿIzbit al-Ṣafīḥ in Rowḍ al-Farag.
2. To learn the full story of building the monastery, read more here.
3. The report pointed to the excavation work related to the construction of Suzanne Mubarak State Housing, which began in 1998.
4. To read the full story of the al-Duwayqa rockslide, see Amnesty International’s report, 2009, pp. 14-36.
5. The informal sector generally refers to economic activity that is unregulated, unenumerated, or unrecognized by the government but shaped by local, communal and norms and structures.
6. These statistics include the whole administrative district of Manshiet Nasser, including the Qāytbāī Cemeteries.
7. For more information about the project, and about this issue in general, read Tadamun’s article “`Izbit Khayrallah and the Struggle for Land: Security of Land Tenure”
8. This Ministry was established in July 2014, and was abolished in September 2015.</sup>