Private Initiatives versus State Interventions
in Downtown Cairo: An On-Going Debate
Questioning the Sustainability of Newly
Pedestrianized Streets. The Cases of Kodak
and Al-Alfi Passageways
S. Ashour and B. Braker
Abstract
A walk through Downtown Cairo is a unique experience
any urban planner and architect would appreciate. It is a
district from the 19th century that was dramatically
transformed from an elite neighbourhood into a chaotic
district overrun by street vendors and busy traffic within
its streets. A decayed condition which left the area with
many forgotten urban pockets that caught the attention of
the Egyptian government and some private developers in
the 1990s. Their agenda focused on bringing in new
blood of different activities at the expense of expelling
many residents and small-scale stakeholders. Along this
sprawling gentrification, many private initiatives worked
tirelessly on reclaiming some forgotten pockets and
marginal passages as potential seeds for new urban ideas
and social bonds to re-establish as opposed to gentrifying
the area. This paper focuses on two pilot projects in
Downtown, one is the ongoing experimentation of
‘Kodak’, a narrow service alleyway that was transformed
into a 'public hub' by private entrepreneurs named
‘CLUSTER’. They emphasized a societal method that
would bring in new types of users and promote for a more
engaged interaction with the residents of the area. The
other project is called ‘Al-Alfi’ Street, a project directed
by the governorate in coordination with “Alfi Street
Occupant's Union”. The street went through many
top-down strategical planning since the 1990s, mainly
focusing on refurbishing the pavement, face-lifting the
shop windows, and controlling vendors’ trespassing. This
paper discusses the successes/failures of the collaboration
between urban planners and users in the streets of
Downtown through exploring whereas the two different
strategies of both cases which are still under evaluation.
The paper questions how can we ‘as planners’ make sure
that such transformations would not gentrify the streets as
we know them? What sort of policies would ensure our
social responsibilities toward our societies?
Keywords
Streets Á Public spaces Á Downtown Cairo Á
Entrepreneurs Á Kodak passage Á Al-Alfi
street Á Sustainability Á
Gentrification
1 Introduction
A walk through Downtown Cairo is a unique experience any
urban planner or architect would appreciate. It is a district
from the nineteenth century that has transformed from an elite
neighbourhood once known as the ‘Paris of the Nile’ into a
chaotic district overrun by busy traffic in the main streets and
street vendors in the marginal passageways, Fig. 1.
Such decayed conditions left the area with potential urban
cracks and forgotten pockets that caught the attention of the
Egyptian government as well as the private developers in the
1990s, Fig. 2. Their agenda was based on bringing in new
blood of different types of activities at the expense of expelling
original residents and small-scale stakeholders out of the areas
they had occupied. Along the process, downtown went
through a major gentrification wave in some of its vital zones,
and this rapid change in the area led some private initiatives
and entrepreneurs to act against this sprawling gentrification.
They started reclaiming some forgotten pockets and marginal
passages in Downtown as potential seeds for new urban ideas
to develop and new social bonds to establish.
This paper, therefore, focuses on two pilot projects in
Downtown: one of the projects is an ongoing experimentation of a passage called Kodak, a narrow service alleyway
that was transformed into a ‘public hub’ by an entrepreneur
S. Ashour
Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport,
Cairo, Egypt
e-mail: shaimaa.ashour@aast.edu
B. Braker (&)
Jan Braker Architekt, Hamburg, Germany
e-mail: bedour.braker@janbraker.de
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
M. Mateev and J. Nightingale (eds.), Sustainable Development and Social Responsibility—Volume 1,
Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32922-8_13
131
in Downtown Cairo: An On-Going Debate
Questioning the Sustainability of Newly
Pedestrianized Streets. The Cases of Kodak
and Al-Alfi Passageways
S. Ashour and B. Braker
Abstract
A walk through Downtown Cairo is a unique experience
any urban planner and architect would appreciate. It is a
district from the 19th century that was dramatically
transformed from an elite neighbourhood into a chaotic
district overrun by street vendors and busy traffic within
its streets. A decayed condition which left the area with
many forgotten urban pockets that caught the attention of
the Egyptian government and some private developers in
the 1990s. Their agenda focused on bringing in new
blood of different activities at the expense of expelling
many residents and small-scale stakeholders. Along this
sprawling gentrification, many private initiatives worked
tirelessly on reclaiming some forgotten pockets and
marginal passages as potential seeds for new urban ideas
and social bonds to re-establish as opposed to gentrifying
the area. This paper focuses on two pilot projects in
Downtown, one is the ongoing experimentation of
‘Kodak’, a narrow service alleyway that was transformed
into a 'public hub' by private entrepreneurs named
‘CLUSTER’. They emphasized a societal method that
would bring in new types of users and promote for a more
engaged interaction with the residents of the area. The
other project is called ‘Al-Alfi’ Street, a project directed
by the governorate in coordination with “Alfi Street
Occupant's Union”. The street went through many
top-down strategical planning since the 1990s, mainly
focusing on refurbishing the pavement, face-lifting the
shop windows, and controlling vendors’ trespassing. This
paper discusses the successes/failures of the collaboration
between urban planners and users in the streets of
Downtown through exploring whereas the two different
strategies of both cases which are still under evaluation.
The paper questions how can we ‘as planners’ make sure
that such transformations would not gentrify the streets as
we know them? What sort of policies would ensure our
social responsibilities toward our societies?
Keywords
Streets Á Public spaces Á Downtown Cairo Á
Entrepreneurs Á Kodak passage Á Al-Alfi
street Á Sustainability Á
Gentrification
1 Introduction
A walk through Downtown Cairo is a unique experience any
urban planner or architect would appreciate. It is a district
from the nineteenth century that has transformed from an elite
neighbourhood once known as the ‘Paris of the Nile’ into a
chaotic district overrun by busy traffic in the main streets and
street vendors in the marginal passageways, Fig. 1.
Such decayed conditions left the area with potential urban
cracks and forgotten pockets that caught the attention of the
Egyptian government as well as the private developers in the
1990s, Fig. 2. Their agenda was based on bringing in new
blood of different types of activities at the expense of expelling
original residents and small-scale stakeholders out of the areas
they had occupied. Along the process, downtown went
through a major gentrification wave in some of its vital zones,
and this rapid change in the area led some private initiatives
and entrepreneurs to act against this sprawling gentrification.
They started reclaiming some forgotten pockets and marginal
passages in Downtown as potential seeds for new urban ideas
to develop and new social bonds to establish.
This paper, therefore, focuses on two pilot projects in
Downtown: one of the projects is an ongoing experimentation of a passage called Kodak, a narrow service alleyway
that was transformed into a ‘public hub’ by an entrepreneur
S. Ashour
Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport,
Cairo, Egypt
e-mail: shaimaa.ashour@aast.edu
B. Braker (&)
Jan Braker Architekt, Hamburg, Germany
e-mail: bedour.braker@janbraker.de
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
M. Mateev and J. Nightingale (eds.), Sustainable Development and Social Responsibility—Volume 1,
Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32922-8_13
131