Manshiet Nasser, Egypt’s largest slum, is one of many examples of unsustainable and marginalising urban development. The complexity and dynamism of contemporary urbanisation processes are reflected in the contradictory nature of the formal and informal economy of extreme poverty and “bourgeoisisation” projects, and of good practices and environmental risks.
The out-of-control hyper-urbanisation of megacities
Manshiet Nasser (Munsha’ at Nāṣir), with its 1.5 million inhabitants, is among the largest slums in the entire Middle East region and the 4th largest in the world. Greater Cairo (Al Qāhira) itself is ranked 7th most populated city. The population density and overcrowding of Cairo, the country’s main economic engine, represent the very essence of the concept of hyper-urbanisation and of a megalopolis in constant transformation. UN-Habitat reports that 56% of the entire urban population in Egypt resides in the Greater Cairo region. Of this percentage, about 20% live in conditions of social and economic marginality, concentrated in so-called informal areas. In many developing countries, informal housing and slumming are becoming the dominant pattern of urbanisation. It is estimated that around one billion people worldwide reside in what are also called slums or shantytowns. This is mainly due to exoduses from rural areas to large urban centres in search of work and better living conditions. In informal urban areas and slums, however, the right to a sufficient standard of living to ensure health, food security and basic services is seriously threatened by urban decay and social inequalities. Moreover, slums such as Manshiet Nasser arise in the absence of specific urban planning and programming, i.e. without adequate technical features or social and environmental sustainability strategies. One can speak of urban realities that are out of control, non-inclusive and poorly integrated. As with other megalopolises in the southern hemisphere, Manshiet Nasser’s uncontrolled and chaotic urban development is due both to the phenomenon of rural migration, a demographic dynamic that is now irreversible, and above all to a sharp increase in demographic pressure affecting the entire African continent. Suffice it to say that the city of Greater Cairo alone has gone from a population of 4 million to one of almost 21 million in 60 years. Numbers of a population increase that do not correspond, however, to an equivalent economic growth, but rather to an increase in inequality, crime and urban pollution.
New cities in the desert’ and slumming projects
Slumming is not only a phenomenon with a spatial dimension, but also with an identity in which social inequalities take shape. In fact, even though Cairoites use the term Ashwai’yyat interchangeably, informal areas and slums are not synonymous and, moreover, in Cairo they are distinct phenomena even geographically. Although slums are located in informal areas, the latter cannot be considered slums. UN-Habitat makes a clear distinction. Although informal development violates building codes, buildings generally have solid structures, acceptable size, and both potable water and electricity are available despite the population density and urban congestion. While the density of inhabitants in Cairo’s informal areas is among the highest in the world, the density per hectare in Manshiet Nasser is estimated to be about three times higher. In addition, the dwellings are unsuitable for adverse weather conditions, interior spaces are inadequate with more than three people per room, access to drinking water and sanitation is inadequate and there is no security of tenure to prevent forced evictions. According to the UN Agency for Sustainable Urbanisation, any one of these conditions would be enough to fall under the definition of a slum.
The New Cities and Desert Cities projects were launched in the 1970s and 1980s to offer an alternative to informal development and slums, as well as to decongest the Nile Valley. However, the Egyptian government’s attempt to regularise uncontrolled urbanisation through regulatory plans has not been implemented. The causes are similar to those of other countries with accelerated processes of slumming: inefficiency of the bureaucratic apparatus and instrumental alternation between tolerance and intolerance for the illegal occupation of land with low building value because it is peripheral, unhealthy or even environmentally risky. The Manshiet Nasser slum is defined as type “B”: construction of private dwellings in desert areas on unused state land. From a first row of residences, the main al-Naṣir Road stretches up to the slope of the Muqattam (al-Muqaṭṭam) hill area, and the type of soil makes it difficult to extend both water pipes and drainage systems and favours the serious risk of landslides, such as the one in Duwaiqa (al-Duwayqa) in 2008.
Uptown City and Manshiet Nasser: two faces of the same city
The Egyptian blog Tadamun, which seeks to promote the right to social justice and a decent standard of living for all citizens, reports on the testimonies of the inhabitants of Manshiet Nasser. The differences between the various mantiqs (urban areas) are clear, but the problems remain common. For instance, the economic and social marginalisation, the lack of main entrances, the difficulty of getting around in a dense network of narrow streets and alleys, the inadequate services for such a large population and not least the limited educational opportunities for girls. The lack of adequate health services also aggravates the possibility of combating and containing the spread of Covid-19. Moreover, the implementation of the main anti-infection measures is practically impossible: interpersonal distance, frequent hand washing or lockdown. Overcrowded conditions make the risk of outbreaks much higher, while scarce water resources make it impossible to observe minimum prevention. But it is lockdown that is most incompatible with an informal economy and situations on the edge of survival.
Manshiet Nasser is undoubtedly a dynamic and complex economic-social reality, also of proximity between conditions below the poverty line and low and middle income groups. But Cairo, which is a city in continuous transformation, presents extreme contrasts. In 2006, construction began on Uptown Cairo City, atop Muqattam Hill, an exclusive, self-segregating gated community. High walls and guarded entrances, daily services and a large golf course require considerable water resources. Undoubtedly, the contrast with the area below is jarring, if only when one considers the scarce availability of water. Moreover, the entire Manshiet Nasser slum disappears from the advertising images of Uptown City, with the intention of erasing a cumbersome reality of urban decay that instead makes visible the increasing inequalities in the opposition between the “city of the rich” and the “city of the poor”.
The al-Zabbālīn: “people of rubbish”
A symbol of both urban decay and resilience are the Coptic Christian community of the Zabbalin (al-Zabbālīn), the “people of rubbish”, who have created one of the most efficient and sustainable waste collection and recycling systems in the world. Municipal solid waste management is one of the most serious environmental problems in Cairo and a top priority. Until the 1980s, there was no formal waste collection system and this function was carried out by the army of the country’s largest religious minority. The residents of Manshiet Nasser’s Garbage City, between 20,000 and 30,000 residents, with a traditional door-to-door collection system, manage to recycle 80% of the waste produced by a megacity like Cairo. This percentage far exceeds the underperformance of the so-called advanced countries. EJAtlas (Environmental Justice Atlas) underlines the importance of minimal costs for Cairo’s city administration and the lower environmental impact thanks to the work of the “rubbish people”. However, until 2017, the Governorate of Cairo pursued a policy of privatising waste management, with the collaboration of a number of technology-intensive multinationals, thereby seriously damaging the main economic asset of the Zabbalin community. Furthermore, the traditional system of waste collection exposes the community to a higher incidence of infections and diseases linked to environmental risk factors. Here too, unfortunately, a virtuous example has its contradictions. The most desirable solution, from the various actors involved, would be to succeed in integrating the traditional system with the safer system of the multinationals, while also offering an important opportunity for formal employment to the Zabbalin community.
Franco-Tunisian artist eL Seed has created Perception, a beautiful project occupying the façade of almost 50 buildings in the Manshiet Nasser slum, denouncing strict laws on unauthorised artistic expression. Welcomed by the Zabbalins during the creation of the mural, he wanted to challenge the prejudice against a community that “does not live in rubbish, but thanks to rubbish”. From just one view of the Muqattam, one can read the quote by St Athanasius of Alexandria, a 3rd century Coptic bishop, made using anamorphic technique: “Whoever wants to see the light of the sun clearly, must first clean his eyes”. We can conclude that it is, above all, a question of perception: only if the observer places himself in a particular perspective, a highly distorted image acquire its true meaning.
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