A holistic approach to slum reduction: finding gaps in Cairo’s ‘how-to-deal’ model with international collected experience

02.Jan.2022

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, one in eight people worldwide lives in a slum, which amounts to around a billion people. The number of people living in slums continues to grow, and the challenge of slums remains a critical factor in the presence of poverty in the world. Looking for a solution to the slum problem, this paper explores the characteristics of a slum, the reasons for their formation, and worldwide policy issues addressing their prevention. The reasoning for the formation of slums is explained on three levels, namely the national, regional and local level. Likewise, international policies are divided into three enquiries, namely (I) socio-economic activities and policies, (II) architectural and urban tools, and (III) artificial processes modeling for locating urban activities. Applied together, these enquiries introduce a ‘how-to-deal’ collected model of slum reduction. This paper presents a case study of one of the largest slums in the Middle East, ashwa’iyyat in Cairo, reporting what policies, activities, and tools are being insufficiently implemented in the current Egyptian ‘how-to-deal’ model as compared to the collected one. The research encourages built environment practitioners, architects, urban planners, policymakers, sociologists, volunteers, and engineers to follow a holistic approach in dealing with slum reduction and to follow the international ‘how-to-deal’ collected model based on the analysis of a multidisciplinary view of the presence and growth of slums.​

​https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23748834.2020.1735156​