The informal housing sector in Egypt has thrived aided by the government's failure to provide an alternative
Driving along the Ring Road that surrounds the Greater Cairo metropolis area, one cannot help but notice the extent of the informal housing sector. Left and right are thousands upon thousands of red brick buildings that fuse with Cairo's more formal neighborhoods. Most of these housing projects are independent housing initiatives without government's involvement. To an outsider, the majority of Cairo's housing complex might seem informal, an observation that is not far from the truth.
THE RISE OF INFORMALITY
In fact over 60% of Cairo urban developments are informal while the national average is just over 50%, according to Khaled Abdelhalim, Executive Director of the Local Development Observatory Unit at the Ministry of Local Development. This serves as a testament to the government's failure in adopting a housing policy that provides Egypt with much needed homes.
"The majority of the urban growth is happening in the informal areas of the city and not in the formal or planned areas," says Abdelhalim.
"All the new settlements or satellite cities are made up of compounds which can only support a very limited amount of growth and mainly target a very high-end consumer," he adds. "Normal neighborhoods like Mohandiseen or Heliopolis simply do not exist there."
This is largely due to the fact that the government did not offer reasonably priced land that can boast the growth of lower-income housing. With no influx of formally planned homes for a growing population, informality became the only alternative.
"The reason behind the uncontrolled informal growth is simply [...] the absence of the formal alternative. People who build on agricultural land are not doing it as a hobby of ruining the land but out of a need for housing that is in close proximity to the city," says Abdelhalim.
He explains that 90% of the informal housing sector is actually built on privately owned land. A farmer who owns an agricultural plot of land will divide it into smaller areas and sell them, giving the buyer a deed of ownership of the land.
"Despite being informal in nature, the approach is very market-based. It suits the economic means of many people like payment on installments and no requirements to build immediately. There are actually middlemen or small scale developers who buy the land from the farmer and then develop it in accordance with demand," Abdelhalim explains.
The ownership deed would typically stipulate that the land is for agricultural purposes however, the buyer will violate this and build on the land. This informal growth is then slowly recognized by the government and becomes a de-facto formal area.
"Nobody -- while driving down Haram or Faisal streets -- would think that these areas are actually informal developments. Back in the day they were surrounded by agricultural land, but with the increase in informal building, these areas were left to grow and eventually the government recognized them and extended the basic infrastructure like electricity and utilities," says Abdelhalim.
The government suffered from a duality in its approach when dealing with the informal areas in that while these buildings were considered illegal, the government failed to take steps to stop the people from building informally. Weakness in regulation, lack of manpower to enforce it and a high level of corruption can all be linked to the uncontrolled growth in these areas.
"I thank God that the government had this duality in its approach because imagine what the situation could be like if they didn't allow the people to build," he says. "We would have a sizable population of street dwellers as in countries like India."
He explains that during the 1980s recognition of the informal areas happened in an informal manner as well. Over time residents would pressure the local council or their representative in parliament to extend a power line, build a pavement or provide the basic services like schools and hospitals.
By 1992 however, the government officially announced that it will recognize all the informal settlements and provide them with the basic infrastructure and necessary services. This led to an acceleration of informal growth as people became more secure and risk of eviction weathered down.
Abdelhalim believes that this dual approach was actually a form of political co-option. "It's not simply a failure on the part of the government but some analysts would argue that this was done intentionally," he says.
"When you build in violation of the law, you will have no right to ask for the basic services. Instead, the government hands them down at will or whenever it feels it can. It was a way of containing people and securing their votes with election promises," says Abdelhalim.
"I consider informal housing to have been part of the political machinery," he notes. "It's a structural phenomenon that has been progressing since the 1970s so it's impossible that the government didn't notice it for 40 years."
EVICTION BLUES
Speaking at the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies (ECES) was Manal Shaheen who is a representative of the Informal Settlement Development Fund (ISDF). Established in 2008, the fund's aim is to develop the informal housing areas with particular emphasis on those that are considered unsafe due to the pressing demand for their removal.
Shaheen broadly divides the informal housing sector into two categories namely unplanned and unsafe. Unplanned housing, which represents 60% of all urban development in Egypt, consists of informal areas mostly built on privately owned land. Areas like Al Haram, Faisal, Al Warak, Al Basateen and in fact most of Cairo fall within the unplanned category.
Another 1% of urban development is categorized as unsafe or inhabitable. Shaheen says that as of May 2011 there were a total of 383 unsafe areas that are classified into four degrees according to danger level. The first degree pertains to the areas that are life-threatening to their inhabitants due to the risk of land slides, floods or railway accidents.
The second degree consists of areas where buildings are not structurally solid due to being built using scrap material or due to poor architecture. The third degree is areas that are exposed to health hazards such as industrial pollution or that lack proper drainage and sewage networks. Finally the fourth degree areas are those built on government land.
"Unsafe areas represent 1% of total urban development in Egypt. The average population density is 200 persons per acre with building rising only one or two floors. These areas require immediate intervention," says Shaheen.
The problem with government intervention however, is that it rarely considers the socio-economic factors at play. Residents of informal housing, whether unplanned or unsafe, will usually resist being relocated due to the advantages of being in close proximity to the city and their jobs.
In September 2008 a landslide in Al Duweiqa district had flattened most of the neighborhood claiming the lives of 119 people. The government then evicted the surviving residents albeit in a manner that only increased the people's hardships.
"They told us that we had to leave our homes and that they will compensate us with apartments in a near by area called Al Wahayed," says Amal who is a housemaid and a former resident of the disaster stricken neighborhood.
"We later found out that NDP member of parliament, Heidar Boghdady, was handing out these apartments to his personal acquaintances," Amal recalls. "When the revolution erupted, we decided to move into the apartments since our homes were deemed unsafe and these apartments were rightfully ours."
She says that army officers later came and assured them that these apartments were theirs and that they could legally stay in them. It wasn't until six months later that tanks rolled in and the army decided to evict them.
"They told us to leave but we refused and fights broke out. They fired live ammunition and threatened us with beatings and prison time. The media would come and sympathize with us, but the next day they would write that we are thugs [and] we had stolen these apartments," she says.
Out of fear for their lives, Amal and her family along side 130 others left the apartments and decided to camp in front of them. For three months they camped and protested at the local council as well as the Cairo governorate.
Eventually the government offered to relocate them to the edges of 6th of October city in an area called Masaken Osman. The problem however was that this area is isolated and lacks any form of basic services. There are no schools, hospitals and most importantly no jobs.
"When we were living in Duweiqa, my two eldest sons were working in a shop that makes prayer rosaries. Since there were no jobs in Sixth of October [city], Mohamed -- the eldest -- had to go back to work in Duweiqa. He spends around LE 20 a day in transportation while his weekly wage ranges between LE 75 to LE 100," says Amal.
Most of the evicted residents have actually moved back to Duweiqa with no option but to rent the apartments that were originally supposed to be theirs. For Amal however, the LE 300 a month for rent as well as a LE 5,000 insurance is far beyond her family's reach.
Stories like hers only provide a glimpse into the complexity of the problems associated with the removal of informal housing. Socioeconomic factors must be included in all of the government's decisions when dealing with such areas.
RECOGNIZE AND UPGRADE
The size of the informal housing phenomenon leaves no option other than to recognize and upgrade them to the level of formal housing. Resorting to removal and relocation of inhabitants is an approach destined to fail. Projects like the previous regime's Cairo 2050 proposal, which aimed to turn Cairo into a "global city" and entailed the relocation of millions of inhabitants, have to be scrapped altogether.
Abdelhalim says that Cairo 2050 project was very provocative to all the professionals in the field. "I think the revolution erupted in the right time in order to scrap this nonsense," he says. "The solution now is that all the consolidated unplanned informal areas need to be recognized and upgraded."
Abdelhalim explains that each area suffers from a different type of informality which needs to be identified first in order to adopt the right solution. If the informal area suffers from a lack of services, then these have to be increased.
"In Boulaq Al Dakrour for example, there is a severe shortage of basic services such as schools. From 2008 till 2017 there is a need to build 20 schools in order to bring down the number of students per class to the national average of 30," says Abdelhalim.
Another important factor in delivering the right kind of development is to involve the residents in the process in order to match their needs. Abdelhalim advocates the development by participation approach which he asserts the government had been largely unfamiliar with.
"The local council in Boulaq Al Dakrour was very happy to find an empty plot of land which he turned into a garden. He was very surprised that the kids were destroying it until we discovered that they had used the empty plot to play football and where not happy with the new garden. So there must be participation with the people in order to spend on the services most needed," says Abdelhalim.
Part of the ISDF's mandate to develop the informal areas classified as unsafe is a set of social and economic programs. These initiatives are not only aimed at involving the people in the development process, but also providing them with means by which to alleviate their hardships.
Shaheen explained that apart from the fund's urban development programs, the ISDF also boasts social and economic programs such as providing employment for the youth and supporting vocational training, raising the level of health services for women and providing means for micro-finance to promote economic growth.
She asserts that it is very important not to infringe on the informal economies that exist within the informal housing areas whilst working to develop them.
Recognition and the consequent upgrade of the informal settlements seem to be the ideal solution when fixing the mistakes of the past. However, going forward the government must not repeat the same mistakes in order to avert falling in a worse situation 20 or 30 years from today.
THE FORMAL ALTERNATIVE
Limiting the growth of the informal housing sector will ultimately require the creation of a formal alternative. The government needs to encourage the development of formal affordable houses through the supply of cheap land.
"There must be an influx of land into the market targeted at low income people," says Abdelhalim. "The government gave land that was almost free albeit only for large developers that took hundreds of thousand of square meters. Why don't they divide this into much smaller plots and give them directly to the people?" he asks.
Abdelhalim explains that we need to imitate the incremental housing development process that exists in the informal sector. Instead of having the influx of affordable land come from individual farmers dividing up their private plots and promoting informality, the government should supply the same types of land albeit in a planned, formal manner.
"Roads and infrastructure should be laid out by the government and certain plots of land should be annexed from the beginning for the basic and commercial services," Abdelhalim says.
In the satellite cities such as New Cairo and 6th of October, the high-end buyers were given the chance to purchase land on which they built three of four story houses. Abdelhalim hopes that the government would do the same on a much smaller scale. He asserts that there will be no need for example for wide roads or lots of green spaces.
"In a formally planned low-income development, I won't need wide roads because car ownership is limited. I can build a main road with commercial activities and smaller side streets with residential building, perhaps ending at a small garden," he explains.
"In any land that was given in the new cities, the local administration would not give construction permits for lands smaller than 250 sqm which is too big for low income people. The ministry of housing changed this in Ebny Beitak and bought it down to 150 sqm instead," says the director.
The problem with Ebny Beitak however, was that it is located at the edge of Sixth of October with no means of transportation. Lack of cheap public transportation is actually one of the main obstacles to growth in any new development.
"When they [government] told Hosni Mubarak that they will build a metro line the middle of 26th of July corridor, he ordered them not to do it because he didn't want the people in Sixth of October coming back to Cairo. His decision was not based on any theoretical thinking. You must have a very strong network of public transport that is affordable in order for these satellite cities to be successful," says Abdelhalim.
He explains that there is a need for a restart of all the old fashioned thinking within the various government departments. "Government officials must be aligned with the international trends and acquired wisdom," he says.
The introduction of new ideas is not only needed to fix the informal housing phenomenon, but to restructure the entire housing market.
© Business Today Egypt 2012
