For the zebbaliin of Cairo, the corps of gleaners who round up, recycle and sell paper, glass, metal and other trash in this teeming city of 12 million people, efforts to replace their chaotic network of overloaded donkey carts and jitneys with a modern solid-waste management system may spell the end of a gritty, if sustaining, lifestyle. We don't want it. The pilot project is part of an attempt to clean up the city and restore basic sanitation. It's also an experiment in rationalizing management in a city where informal networks have developed to do what government can't or won't. With downtown parking space at a premium, for example, side streets get turned into makeshift lots where cars are parked two and three deep and shuffled around for tips by building doormen or enterprising residents.
Mausoleums become affordable housing in a neighborhood graphically named the City of the Dead.
Any empty plot of ground is a candidate for a goat pasture. Reform-minded officials periodically announce solutions to Cairo's problems, and sometimes progress is made. A ban on leaded gasoline has improved air quality. With the help of foreign aid, the city's phone, sewer and electricity systems have been improved. A general economic opening, begun 20 years ago under President Anwar Sadat, has improved supplies of food and other consumer basics.