American U. in Cairo Press
Understanding Cairo; the logic of a city out of control.
This volume describes the urban development of the Egyptian city of Cairo over the past half century, concentrating on issues of land and housing use and development, as well as intersecting issues of economic organization, transport, and governance. The central theme that arises in nearly every aspect of the proceedings is the contradiction between the authoritarian (but often ineffective) state and the vast areas of informality that make Cairo what it is today, although particularly in the arena of housing and land, where, for example, urban extensions planned by the state often remain devoid of inhabitants while two-thirds of the city's inhabitants live in unplanned neighborhoods that have sprung up since 1950 in contravention of state policies and laws. Distributed in North America by Oxford University Press. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
