Why is cairo a megacity

After having been an established capital, Cairo became only an administrative base for foreign rulers interested in exploring the country's resources. The city witnessed notable out-migration to other parts of the country, with the result that by A.

However, with Mohammed Ali's rule , Cairo began its modernization, an era that reached its peak between and in the western part of the city. The extravagant cost of this expansion led to many problems, beginning with high foreign debts and political unrest and ending with the British colonization of Egypt in Eddie Ibrahim, During the colonial period Cairo grew as the ruling centre, to which thousands of foreigners and nationals migrated looking for wealth and power.

New districts were built in the west Garden City and Zamalek , in the north Heliopolis , and in the south Maadi see fig.

The old city was left undeveloped to face tremendous problems of high densities, lack of infrastructure, and deterioration in living conditions. At the beginning of the twentieth century the newly formed upper middle class launched a reform strategy in most fields, such as education, banking, industries, and recreation, and migrated to the new districts.

Cairo expanded rapidly. Interclass inequalities widened in the following decades leading to major social, economic, and political problems and laying the foundations for the revolution against British colonization and the royal regime. Subsequently, massive industrial and housing projects were undertaken by the new government, particularly in the Cairo zone. New districts appeared in the northern, southern, and western parts of the city.

The Cairo metropolitan area emerged, with a population of 5 million in El Shakhs, ; Moselhi, After the war, the policy of the government moved from a socialist, centrally planned, and public-sector-dominated economy to the so-called "open-door" policy. The latter aimed at encouraging the private sector and attracting international and Arab investment. A large part of such investment was directed to Cairo and its region, fostering further rapid urban development. By the population of Greater Cairo was 8 million.

Informal and illegal housing appeared in this period in many areas on the outskirts of the city and in the City of the Dead. Such trends continued in the s and s. It is estimated that in more than 4 million people were living in illegal settlements in the Greater Cairo Region GCR. The efforts of the government to control the growth of the city have not been sufficient and it kept growing in most directions, particularly to the west and north, to reach an estimated population of over 12 million in Urbanization in Egypt and the development of the Greater Cairo Region.

The process of urbanization itself is a result of rural-urban migration. Moreover, in Egypt, high rates of natural increase partly account for rapid urban growth rates. In the inhabitants of urban areas accounted for 19 per cent of the total Egyptian population, rising to 33 per cent in , 43 per cent in , and 44 per cent in UN studies suggest that the urban population in Egypt will exceed 50 per cent of the total population by the year UN, However, such figures should be treated with care.

On the one hand, the census showed that around 2. On the other hand, the growth rates in rural areas in the late s and s exceeded those of urban areas. High rates of natural increase in rural areas may be attributed to the fact that the adoption rates for birth control and family planning procedures have not been as high as in urban areas, while growth has also occurred because of the sharp increase in urban land prices, which has driven many to build on cheaper land in rural areas surrounding the cities.

Within the urban sector, large centres, particularly Cairo, have witnessed higher rates of growth than medium- and small-sized centres. Thus, whereas the population of Egypt has increased by more than 5 times in the twentieth century, Cairo's population has increased by nearly 16 times table 4.

It is clear that the real demographic change in Cairo's modern history began in the nineteenth century when death rates began to decline while birth rates stayed constant. The figures in table 4. More stories. South Africa. By using this website, you agree with our use of cookies to improve its performance and enhance your user experience.

More info in our Cookies policy page. It is part of the Greater Cairo, but it is managed by an entirely different bureaucracy since it is a totally different governorate.

Giza is a largely informal part of the city. But there has always been a part that was not urbanized quite as densely, which is the part that faces the Pyramids—between the Ring Road and the Pyramids themselves. In the last several years, it has started to be urbanized more and more. Land started to be sold. All of this building is not responding to a market need.

Can you talk more about this dynamism? This is a very particular kind of business venture by people who are abusing the fact that land is cheap and is available, and the state apparatus has been weakened or distracted by focusing on the political situation.

Therefore, they are using this opportunity to maximize potential profit. This is one form of informal urbanization. There are other [examples] that are more positive, like communities that actually occupy the buildings that they were built. Informality here basically means that they were not part of the state plan. There are some of the initiatives that have happened, such as people coming together to pave streets, to provide basic forms of infrastructure.

The famous example is Ard El-Lewa, a community-driven initiative where people came together and collected money, and built an access ramp onto a highway that is nearby. Of course the highways of Cairo are not designed to serve everybody, they are designed to serve a very particular minority. Therefore the placement of on-ramps and off-ramps is very particular. Some people have almost fetishized this development [in Ard El-Lewa]. Basically as a way of critiquing the failures of state planning, they emphasize the positive value in this kind of initiative.

But others are very critical because it means, they think, it gives the state a free pass. What will it look like in five, ten, fifteen years? It is going to cost like 1. The thing that Tahrir offers as an example, as a case study, is a couple of things. Sometimes these fantasies have more to do with aesthetics, and sometimes it has to do more with politics. The present potentials that are offered, such as the erection of these metal gates, build on that reality.

Cairo has an estimated population as high as 12 million, with a metropolitan population of Cairo and other major regions of the country are some of the most densely populated in the world. While the population of Cairo is 12 million, the Greater Cairo area has over 20 million people. It is the 3rd largest urban area in the Islamic World behind Jakarta and Karachi. Cairo is a very homogeneous city with very few minority communities. Those that do exist are very small and are not concentrated in specific neighborhoods.

The few ethnic minorities include Nubians and northern Sudanese, along with refugees from other parts of Africa. Arabic is the most widely spoken language in Cairo, although many educated Cairenes speak English, Italian or French.

Egypt has a very young population. Cairo has a literacy rate of While its infant mortality rate of