The crucible of the unfinished master plans for Cairo and a plan for the new administrative capital city
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to examine Cairo's master plans during the past 70 years, including the establishment of the New Administrative Capital City—which is based on two fundamental courses on the phenomenon of urbanisation—and other initiatives to address Cairo's Plans based on the thoughts of three planning schools—Chicago, Los Angeles and Liverpool. The aim is to determine if the right time to relocate Egypt's capital to a different place makes sense.
Design/methodology/approach
Cairo has experienced significant urban challenges throughout its millennial history due to the continually shifting socioeconomic and political changes. This research uses prospective and retrospective methods to examine how planning theories have historically influenced building Cairo’s urban fabric and provides insight into the city’s master plans from the July Revolution of 1952.
Findings
It is assumed that Cairo's socio-spatial transitions over time were caused by scattered expansion, leading to contemporary Cairo's socio-spatial evolution. The paper ends with some questions about the future of the city. Should planning policies change to cope with socioeconomic, spatial and political transitions?
Originality/value
The article's significance stems from the necessity of adaptable and considerate ideas that move Cairo's communities towards a better setting and provide a crucial route for enhancing their environments. Using digital technologies to implement new capital while creating platform urbanism may be accomplished even with constrained budgets and short course lengths.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors are very grateful to Prof. Abeer Elshater of Ain Shams University for her time, energy and support during the various drafts of the research and her constructive comments throughout the final paper. The authors are also grateful to Prof. Ashraf Salama, the Journal’s editor, for his continuous support and encouragement throughout the various drafts of this article. The two anonymous reviewers' comments helped improve the paper, and we appreciate their valuable comments. Prof. David Satterthwaite's valuable comments and positive support are very much appreciated.
Citation
Soliman, A., Soliman, Y.A., Hassan, G.F. and Afifi, S. (2023), "The crucible of the unfinished master plans for Cairo and a plan for the new administrative capital city", Archnet-IJAR, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/ARCH-10-2023-0269
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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