An ‘alternative framework for development:’ state-citizen relations, urban revitalization, and Downtown Cairo’s passageways

ABSTRACT

In the years since the ‘January 25th Revolution’ of 2011, Egypt has fallen on hard times, wracked by ongoing state instability and the unraveling of its economy. Against the backdrop of this political and economic turmoil, Cairo has emerged as an object of renewed interest and attention. The resulting sociospatial interventions have ranged from restoration projects targeting Cairo’s numerous architectural legacies to mapping and documentation initiatives intended to generate reliable urban data. This article queries the reconstitution of the urban landscape via an exploration of the work of the Cairo Lab for Urban Studies, Training and Environmental Research (CLUSTER), an independent urban research group established after January 25th. I begin by locating the organization’s work in the broader context of sociospatial transformations in Downtown Cairo, a neighborhood that has long played an important role in the urban and national landscapes and which is currently undergoing rapid change. I then unpack the group’s activities in the district–especially those pertaining to the neighborhood’s so-called passageways–and the political ideologies underpinning them. I conclude by suggesting that CLUSTER's interventions are vulnerable to appropriation by other actors working in the area.

KEYWORDS:

• Heritage-making
• gentrification
• neoliberal urbanism
• architecture
• Arab Spring
• Cairo
• Egypt

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In 2008, after years of construction and an investment of some $400 million, the university relocated to a massive new campus in New Cairo, a satellite city located on the outskirts of the capital. (For a history of the university, see Murphy 1987.)

2. The bulk of my fieldwork was conducted from 2014–2016, a period of acute instability in Egypt and a very difficult moment for Egyptian and non-Egyptian scholars attempting to undertake research. Fieldwork conditions were less than ideal and my own work was significantly constrained by concerns about security–both my own and that of my interlocutors.

3. It is worth noting Michael Herzfeld and Chiara De Cesari’s critique of the ‘affinities between neoliberal techniques and rhetoric on the one hand and some forms of progressive politics on the other.’ As they rightly point out, government officials, policy makers, and local activists are all liable to invoke a discourse of ‘community involvement’ and ‘participation’ as a means of shoring up legitimacy for their respective heritage-making projects (2015, 172).

4. For an overview of the district’s construction and early history, see Abu-Lughod (1971) and Raymond (2001). For critiques of popular narratives about the neighborhood, see Fahmy (2005) and Farouk Ahmed (2005).

5. This deterioration was magnified by the rise of state-sponsored satellite cities and gated communities (Kuppinger 2004; Sims 2010). Located on the capital’s periphery, these newly developed areas were carefully marketed to lure affluent Cairenes away from the city center, promising privatized services and a permanent escape from the noise, pollution, traffic, and crowds that had come to define the Egyptian capital. Though largely developed by the private sector, these cities occupied much of the government’s attention and resources, leading to widespread neglect of the urban core.

6. Government legislation from the 1980s also facilitated the official recognition of Downtown Cairo’s buildings as ‘heritage.’ Law 117, which was passed in 1983, set a ‘moratorium period’ of 100 years for any object or structure to be considered an ‘antiquity,’ thereby establishing a new–and expanding–temporal framework for the conception of ‘Egyptian heritage’ as well as its protection (Volait 2013; Awatta 2015, 48).

7. For more on the development of Downtown Cairo's art scene, see Elshahed (2015, 131–135). For more on media interest in the district, see El Kadi and ElKerdany (2006) and Volait (2013). Finally, for more on contemporary Egyptian literature’s interest in the neighborhood, see Naaman (2011).

8. While many of these buildings are listed as ‘protected’ in the NOUH registry, this designation does not prevent the firm from purchasing the properties. Instead, Al Ismaelia must simply obtain the NOUH’s approval for any renovation work.

9. For a comprehensive discussion of Al Ismaelia’s work in the neighborhood, see Awatta (2015, 78–88). For a critique of their work, see Berger (2014).

10. The parking ban coincided with the completion, in 2015, of a massive parking lot under Midan al-Tahrir (Kotb 2014).

11. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes in this and the following sections come from meetings with CLUSTER in 2014 and 2016.

12. In talks given at the AUC in 2015 and 2016, Nagati explained that the project required approval from seven government agencies–including the governorate. Not only was this process laborious, it also required ‘tactical’ framing of their project such that the benefits to the state (e.g., urban ‘upgrading’) would be clear and the ‘risks’ (e.g., ‘more democratic’ public space) minimized.

13. At the state level, such heritage-making efforts are gaining momentum: in 2016, the Cairo Heritage Development Committee (CHDC) was founded by presidential decree. Comprised of members from several government agencies, including the NOUH, the committee has been charged with developing a plan that will ‘balance the area’s historic preservation with its economic growth potential’ (Shahine 2018).

Additional information

Funding

The research on which this article is based was supported by an International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council as well as a Provost’s Summer Research award and two Doctoral Student Research Grants from the CUNY Graduate Center.

Notes on contributors

Claire Panetta

Claire Panetta is a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her research is based in Egypt and explores the sociospatial transformation of Cairo after the political upheaval of 2011. She is the co-editor of Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings (Terreform, 2016).