Understanding Cairo
Subtitle: the logic of a city out of control
By: David Sims ; with a foreword by Janet Abu-Lughod
Contributors: Abu-Lughod, Janet L.
Edition: 1st paperback ed.
Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Cairo; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 360
ISBN-13: 9789774165535
Copyright date: 2010
Subjects: Urbanization; Urban Sociology; Description and travel; City planning
Description: Trying to make sense of the urban giant that is Cairo. "This book moves beyond superficial generalizations about Cairo as a chaotic metropolis in the developing world into an analysis of the ways the city's eighteen million inhabitants have, in the face of a largely neglectful government, built and shaped their own city. Using a wealth of recent studies on Greater Cairo and a deep reading of informal urban processes, the city and its recent history are portrayed and mapped: the huge, spontaneous neighborhoods; housing; traffic and transport; city government; and its people and their enterprises. The book argues that understanding a city such as Cairo is not a daunting task as long as pre-conceived notions are discarded and care is taken to apprehend available information and to assess it with a critical eye. In the case of Cairo, this approach leads to a conclusion that the city can be considered a kind of success story, in spite of everything" -- Cover.
Notes: "With a new Postscript: Revolutionary Cairo one year on"-- Cover.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 335-345) and index.
Table of contents: title: Imaging Cairo; title: Cairo is Egypt and Egypt is Cairo; title: A history of modern Cairo : three cities in one; title: Informal Cairo triumphant; title: Housing real and speculative; title: The desert city today; title: Working in the city; title: City on the move : a complementary informality?; title: Governing Cairo; title: Summing up : serendipity?; title: Postscript: revolutionary Cairo one year on.