Yahia Shawkat - Egypt’s Housing Crisis

EGYPTS
HOUSING
CRISIS

EGYPTS HOUSING CRISIS

The Shaping of Urban Space

Yahia Shawkat

Foreword by

David Sims

First published in 2020 by

The American University in Cairo Press

113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt

One Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020

www.aucpress.com

Copyright 2020 by Yahia Shawkat

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Dar el Kutub No. 10611/19

ISBN 978 977 416 957 1

Dar el Kutub Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Shawkat, Yahia

Egypts Housing Crisis: The Shaping of Urban Space / Yahia Shawkat.Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2020.

p.cm.

ISBN 978 977 416 957 1

1. Housing

2. Political Science

3. Public Administration

363.5

1 2 3 4 5 24 23 22 21 20

Designed by Adam el-Sehemy

Printed in the United States of America

In memory of my father, Ezzeldin Shawkat

To my wife, Alia Mossallam

To my children, Taya, Rawi, and Nura

CONTENTS

Index

FIGURES

Share of urban housing production by provider, 19602017.

Number of urban housing units produced by provider, 19602017.

Change of household tenure for urban Egypt, 19762017.

Comparing housing production to population in selected countries.

Extended family home in a mature part of the informally self-built Izbit al-Haggana, Cairo, December 2011.

A row of shacks built under high voltage cables in Izbit al-Haggana, Cairo, March 2012.

Three stages of development in the formally planned self-built neighborhood of Muqattam, Cairo, November 2016.

A row of Ibni Baytak (Build Your Home) houses in various stages of development in Badr New City, February 2013.

Comparison between household connection to infrastructure in Egypt and informal housing production, 19762017.

The revered hadida (metal plaque) proclaiming a formal electricity connection hangs on a crumbling mudbrick village home in Qaranfil, Qalubiya, March 2012.

A new informal developer tower stands falsely demolished in Maryutiya, Giza, December 2018.

One of the neater examples of the addition of two floors to this 1950s rent-controlled building in Zamalek.

A mostly vacant and decaying building in Downtown Cairo, with occupied rent-controlled shops on the ground floor preventing demolition.

Comparison between new urban households living in Old Rent to total households formed, and total new housing built in the intercensal periods 197686 and 198696.

Change of household tenure for urban Egypt, 19762017.

Comparison between the number of rental households in urban Egypt by type, 19762017.

A caricature in the leading state-owned daily parodying the public debates around rent control as being unimportant to the poor and homeless, February 1996.

The model village of Gezzaye, designed by Joseph Hekekyan in 1852.

Aerial view of the izba of Mustafa Bey Fuda in Daqahliya, built in 1927.

One of the original sandstone houses in Izbit Tunis in Fayoum, December 2018.

Plan of the al-Marg muhagirin (migrants) model village showing U-shaped clusters of houses opening onto a clean street for people and a dirty street for livestock.

Second image: Six decades later, only traces of the model village remain.

Recent aerial view of the former royal estate in Kafr Sad, showing the names of the model villages built there from 1947.

Original plan of Umm Saber model village in Mudiriyat al-Tahrir.

Second image: Aerial view of the model village sixty-one years after it was built.

Houses in Sayyidna al-Khidr, a kharigin model village in Wadi al-Rayyan, Fayoum, November 2015.

Ghost villageone of the larger al-zahir al-sahrawi villages, Wadi al-Rayyan in Fayoum, standing empty six years after being built, July 2016.

The izba reincarnateda large workers compound, one of many, on a super farm in East Uwaynat, December 2014.

A row of old single-story railway housing near Aswan, January 2018.

Two commemorative stamps issued by King Fouad to mark the inauguration of Port Fouad in 1926.

One of the villas in Port Fouads European Quarter housing Suez Canal Company employees, October 2010.

Originally built as a village for muhagirin displaced by the Second World War in 1941, these houses in al-Mahalla formed one of the earliest modern workers colonies in Egypt.

Kima Fertilizer Companys workers colony built in the 1960s in Aswan, January 2018.

One of the villas in the Sahari colony built for Soviet and Egyptian engineers working on the High Dam in the 1960s in Aswan, January 2018.

Government versus private production of formal urban housing, 1960/611970/71.

Government versus private formal urban housing production, 1971/721981/82.

Plaque commemorating the inauguration of 130 new housing units in the workers colony in al-Mahalla on the occasion of the Mahalla Spinning and Weaving Companys golden jubilee, May 1978.

Comparison between rent and installment values for a two-bedroom economic housing unit and median incomes in the late 1960s and 1978.

Government housing production by agency, 1982/831991/92.

Urban housing production by sector, 19762017.

Future Housing blocks, New Cairo, February 2013.

Typical NHP Tamlik blocks, Sixth of October City, December 2013.

Original SHP advertisement, as it appeared ten days after Mubarak was deposed, and before it was officially named as the Social Housing Project, February 2011.

The first SHP advertisement after it was relaunched in 2014.

Brand new SHP blocks, New Cairo, January 2019.

A fenced-in villa in Haram City, a low-income publicprivate development part of the NHP, Sixth of October City, Giza, December 2013.

Inflation of SHP prices relative to income, 2014/152018/19.

Comparison between unit targets, completions, and deliveries for the SHP, 2011/12-2017/18.

The Izzawi mansion, inundated by the shacks of Ramlit Bulaq, Cairo, February 2015.

Private agricultural land that is informally subdivided and built on, Mansuriya Canal, Giza, April 2012.

Aerial image showing sanctioned agriculture reclamation, in addition to borderline low-density second homes on large plots.

Second image: An illegal higher-density neighborhood that is part of the Suleimaniya Golf development on the CairoAlexandria highway, later designated New Sphinx City.

Demolition of two illegal floors in al-Hadaba al-Wusta, Muqattam, Cairo, February 2015.

Banner proclaims ownership of entire building by Mona Elias Nashed, as per a registered contract and a court ruling.

Second image: Banner proclaims partial ownership of someone else according to a preliminary contract, Port Said, January 2016.

TABLES

Sorting contradictory figures in the 1976 census.

Residential housing stock in the census years, 19602017.

Housing production in Egypt by provider in units, 19602017.

Highlights of rent legislation between 1920 and 1947.

Highlights of rent legislation between 1952 and 1969.

Highlights of rent legislation between 1971 and 1981.

Share of major repairs and regular maintenance after the first ten years of construction.

Highlights of rent legislation from 1996.

Rural land ownership and izba population estimates in 1952.

Imbaba housing rents in 1950.

Monthly rents for a range of government-built homes in Cairo in 1969.