Fearing the bulldozers

Residents of Egypt’s shantytowns fear a new government urban renewal campaign, Jano Charbel reports for Al-Masry Al-Youm English Edition:

For more than 30 years, Atef Owais’ life has revolved around the building at 1 Mataar St, next to the now-disused Imbaba airport. He moved into the building in 1978, and has worked since then in the El Madina el-Munawarra furniture workshop downstairs.
Now Owais and his neighbors in the Ezbet el-Mataar neighborhood are worried. A government campaign to clean up dozens of informal districts around the country has prompted concern they’ll be caught up in a massive urban renewal plan that could threaten their homes.
Residents here have dozens of questions, but no clear answers. They complain they know nothing about the government’s plan, except that it seems to be gaining momentum.
“We have no idea what the government plans to do with the airport. We’ve heard so many conflicting accounts,” Owais said. “If they tear down this building they will render me both homeless and jobless.”
Known as ashwiyaat in Arabic, Egypt’s informal districts have long been a target for government rhetoric about renovation and urban renewal. Now the plans seem to be moving to the front burner.
Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif announced on July 31 a new governmental strategy for the development of shantytowns, slums, and informal housing quarters across the country. Al Masry Al Youm reported that this campaign would be a joint effort between the ministries of housing and finance, the governorates and local councils, along with civil society groups.
According to the Egyptian State Information Service, the government has ambitious urban renovation plans for the area of Northern Giza, including the establishment of four large public gardens along with 60 schools and hospitals. That includes the transformation of more than 200 feddans (over 207 acres) on which Imbaba Airport is built. Approximately 70% of this area is allegedly to be set aside for the creation of a large public park with another 20% designated for the construction of residential buildings, a mall, and commercial offices while the remaining 10% or so are said to be designated for the construction of educational and health-care facilities.
The plan is proceeding alongside the even-more-ambitious Cairo 2050 campaign, a Ministry of Housing initiative that intends to redistribute the city’s population, create 50,000 feddans of green area, move industry outside city limits and add 15 metro lines and two new railway stations to the capital.
In Ezbet el-Mataar and the neighboring Madinet el-Amal district, the plans have triggered fears that their homes would be torn down and the land sold to private investors. They’re awaiting word on their fates and wondering whether there will be compensation offered if necessary—either a payout or suitable replacement housing.
“Local authorities must provide us with maps indicating exactly what they intend on doing with this piece of land,” said Owais, saying he would prefer a replacement apartment to monetary compensation. “We’re left here in the dark; we have no idea as to what’s going to become of us and our children.”
In light of the fears and the looming threats of planned demolitions and relocations, housing rights lawyers and activists have sprung into action. The recently formed Popular Committee for the Defense of the Land of Imbaba Airport, has launched an awareness campaign dubbed, “Prove your (Ownership) Rights Before You Are Evicted.”
The growth of shantytowns across Egypt has been attributed to the ongoing rural-urban migrations which commenced in the 1960s. According to the findings of Ashoka Arab World – an independent regional civil sector organization that works on housing initiatives in coordination with governments, aid agencies, and private entrepreneurs – the primary cause behind the emergence of shantytowns is a housing crisis fueled by a lack of affordable apartments in Egypt.
Advocates of urban renewal say uncontrolled urbanization is said to have resulted in the loss of 600,000 feddans (622,800 acres) worth of agricultural lands along the Nile Valley over the past 20 years. This in turn has led to decreased agricultural production and increased levels of unemployment within the traditional agricultural sectors, with an estimated 100,000 job opportunities lost annually.
According to estimates provided by Ashoka Arab World, more than 11 million people in Egypt live in “slum areas.” Manal el-Tibi, the Director of the independent Egyptian Center for Housing Rights, puts that figure as high as 12 million.
Conditions in these ashwiyaat are often harsh and hazardous. Many of the housing units, “are built with shoddy materials prone to collapse, while other (residents) live in canvas tents and wooden shacks which are flammable,” el-Tibi said. “There are numerous illnesses combined with a lack of hospitals and clinics in these areas; plus the problems of unemployment, substance abuse, and violent crime.”
Given these dangers, el-Tibi said she agrees conditions in many informal districts need to change. But she fears the impending government campaign is taking place with minimal input from either residents or civil society organizations and will be guided by private interests rather than the well-being of the residents.
“They talk about governmental cooperation with civil society and local NGOs, but no governmental figure has ever contacted us regarding any of their so-called development projects or relocation efforts. They have never provided us with maps for these informal housing quarters or directly informed us of their plans. There is simply no transparency in these plans,” she said. “In reality this is a plan to attract and concentrate investors in Cairo while simultaneously expelling slum-dwellers.”
Typically, el-Tibi said, the government only acts to help slum dwellers when motivated by a specific crisis, most recently in el-Doweiqa, a shantytown at the base of southern Cairo’s Muqattam cliffs. On September 6, 2008 a massive rockslide killed some 200 slum-dwellers. Authorities demolished the houses and relocated around 900 local families to the nearby Suzanne Mubarak Housing Project (which was fully-operational, yet virtually uninhabited prior to the disaster) and to isolated and ill-equipped housing projects in the satellite cities around Cairo, el-Tibi said.
In his announcement, Nazif said one of the first priorities will be preventing the further spread of the ashwiyaat by mapping out and enforcing their current borders. Prime Ministerial Spokesman, Magdy Rady, added that this development strategy would include efforts for the provision of new job opportunities, commercial stores, schools, hospitals, and sports facilities.
Ali el-Faramawy, director of the government’s Fund for the Development of Informal Areas, said the campaign would begin with 29 areas in different governorates that have been judged unsafe to live in. But el-Faramawy declined to specify which districts have received that designation, and efforts to obtain further comment from the Ministry of Housing were unsuccessful.
El-Tibi, of the housing rights NGO, complained that even she can’t figure out just which neighborhoods the government is targeting.
“There is no transparency regarding the government’s plans for demolitions, evictions, and relocations. It’s a secretive business,” she said.
“All these plans are merely beautification projects, not development projects. Their real intention is to keep the impoverished slum-dwellers out of view and to mask, or wall-off their shantytowns. If these urban planners wanted to engage in genuine development projects they would construct proper roads, safe housing units, provide adequate infrastructure and utilities; but most importantly they should work on providing job opportunities to help the unemployed find a means to tend to their families needs and to help lift them out of poverty.”