Lower -and middle- income urban communities have borne a disproportionate share of the negative impact of urbanization in Egypt while wealthier communities have accrued the majority of its benefits.¹

A comparison of raqi (middle to upper middle income) neighborhoods like Heliopolis and sha’bi (working class/low-income) neighborhoods like Bulaq al-Dakrur illustrates this disparity perfectly. The differences between the neighborhoods are immediately apparent in the housing stock, the population density, the width and quality of the streets, the amount of public space, and the overall quality of the environment. These inequalities extend to public services such as utility provision and infrastructure, healthcare facilities, community buildings, and access to public transportation. The right to equitable urban development would obligate the state to provide equal levels of services to all Egyptians.
 

What is “the Right of Equitable and Sustainable Urban Development”?

The right to equitable urban development is the right for all citizens to share equally in the benefits and burdens of urban development. City planning, regulation and management should be designed to equitably distribute services and resources among inhabitants, promote social cohesion, and ensure the social function of the city and property is being fulfilled.² Urban development should also be sustainable. All urban development should balance the immediate needs of current residents with the long-term fiscal, environmental, and physical health of communities so that today’s development is not a burden on future generations. Further, urban development should not compromise the historic, architectural, cultural and artistic heritage of any community.³

We recognize that many of the differences between the raqi and sha’bi neighborhoods are a result of discrepancies in private wealth. However, urban development—the effort to improve an urban area by building—has wide-ranging social impact. It is the right of all citizens to benefit equally in public investment in urban areas and to have equal access to public services regardless of where they live.
 

Effects on Our Everyday Life

Public Service Provision

Public service quality in Egypt varies from one city to the next and from one neighborhood to another. Ideally, these disparities should not exist. We recognize that service provision happens in stages; some areas of cities will invariably have higher levels of services than others. However, the disparity in services is not temporary, but systematic, structural, and deliberate. The Egyptian government has chosen not to provide quality public services to large segments of the population in urban areas. For example, this disparity in the level of service provision was evident in the rotating blackouts that occurred on several occasions since 2011 as a result of the shortage of fuel needed for electricity generation. Medium- and low-income and informal areas carried a higher burden of these blackouts, living without electricity sometimes for days at a time, compared to a few hours in more affluent parts of the city. Similar scenarios occur for healthcare facilities, schools, access to public transportation, public space, and infrastructure, among others.

Urbanization and the Inequalities of Space

Over the past few decades Cairo has witnessed the migration of the rich to gated communities, where the government has sold huge parcels of land to private developers to build these communities, and spent millions of dollars on infrastructure serving them. Meanwhile, the poor are further concentrated within informal areas, or suffer from forced relocation to public housing that lack access to necessary transportation means, services, and utilities that make them livable.

Territorial exclusion mirrors this economic disparity. While the rich enjoy a cleaner environment, better housing, services and infrastructure, and green open spaces, the poor are marginalized and suffer from pollution, congested living space, bad roads and inadequate transportation. However this exclusion goes beyond entrenching economic differences to severing and changing the social ties as the rich and poor become more segregated and detached from one another. It exasperates the material deprivation of the poor, as well as the denial of their social rights, including their rights of property ownership, access to basic services, employment, representation, and justice.

Against this backdrop, equitable and sustainable urban development is a prime concern and an urgent need within the Egyptian context. It helps reduce social inequality by providing everyone with equal opportunity to services such as health and education, as well as preventing exclusion and allowing free interchange among members of the local community. This interaction can be reflected and represented in local governance mechanisms such as municipalities that can express residential needs and concerns. It can also contribute to diminishing economic disparities, for example, limited neighborhood sizes with relatively high densities help reduce transportation costs. It is important for people to be able to walk to focal points such as public transportation stops or schools. It also affects the ability to have shops and businesses that in turn generate income, create local job opportunities, and alleviate poverty.⁴

Finally, equitable and sustainable urban development ensures the protection of the natural resources and the public’s right to access green spaces such as parks and reserves. Egyptian cities suffer from high level of soil, water and air pollution affecting the lives of millions of Egyptians. Sustainable development can help reduce pollution by lowering the city’s carbon dioxide emissions or better manage waste, and increase green spaces.
 

The Constitutional Right to Equitable and Sustainable Urban Development in Egypt

The 1971 constitution emphasized the state’s role in decreasing income differences (articles 4, 23), and committed the state to providing social services to all citizens (article 16). The 2014 constitution emphasized the need for the national economic system to ensure economic rights to all citizens and reduces economic inequality (article 27). It emphasized the equal rights of all citizens including equal access to education (article 19) and healthcare (article 18).

The 2014 constitution also committed the state to the development of rural areas to improve the lives of people dwelling in them (article 29). It clearly stipulated that the government must adopt a national plan for housing based on social equality. To this end, it encouraged the use of public land for urbanization that serves the public good and preserves the rights of future generations. Finally, it guaranteed the necessary technical, administrative, and financial assistance to local districts, as well as a fair distribution of facilities, services, and resources, and obligated the state, in accordance with the law, to even out disparities in development and living standards among local administrative districts (article 177). These new articles were a step forward towards enshrining the right for equitable development in the constitution, as well as for encouraging the realization of the social function of property, that is to make full and productive use of all property to serve the community.
 

Global Examples

Constitutions across the globe pay attention to the right of equitable and sustainable urban development. Many constitutions such as that of Angola 1991 (Article 9), Brazil 1988 (Article 174), Cape Verde 1992 (Article 192), and East Timor 2002 (Article 6) guarantee the right to balanced growth and development of all regions of the country. Eritrea’s 1997 constitution (Article 8.2) specified sustainable development of all regions, and enabled citizens to improve their livelihood in a sustainable manner through participation. The constitutions of Gambia 1996 (Article 215.3.c), and Ghana 1992 (Article 36.2.d) particularly emphasized the need for readdressing the imbalance between rural and urban communities.

The role of different branches and levels of government were also addressed in some of the constitutions. For example, the role of parliament was highlighted in Argentina’s 1994 constitution (Article 75) to promote equal development of provinces and regions, while others such as that of Bhutan 1998 (Article 22) tasked the executive with securing ecologically balanced sustainable development while promoting justifiable economic and social development. Local government was also tasked with ensuring sustainable development as in the case of Bhutan’s 1998 constitution (Article 22) that committed the national government to support local government to promote holistic and integrated area-based development planning.

Equitable and sustainable development is a daunting task and cannot be achieved by one actor alone. Delineating the roles and responsibilities of the different state bodies in the constitution ensures that this responsibility is shouldered by all: the executive is responsible for putting forth development plans and implementing them, the legislature is responsible for creating and adopting relevant laws, while local government bodies serve to sensitize citizens to development needs and priorities, as well as implement local development projects. In addition to bringing the attention of those bodies to their developmental duties, clearly stipulating their roles in the constitution allows for holding them accountable to deliver accordingly.
 

The Way Forward

Equitable and sustainable urban development is an urgent priority for improving the lives of citizens and protecting the environment. The Constitution can be amended using the following principles to move towards achieving this goal.

• Establish a legal framework that protects and promotes equitable and sustainable urban government and specifies the role of each branch of government in implementing such goals.
• Recognize the role of local governance and municipalities in urban development. Local bodies that encourage participation and representation such as municipalities are usually the most aware of development needs and priorities. They also enjoy greater outreach to the local community which helps to articulate and respond to residents’ demands. Thus local bodies of governance need to be empowered, including widening their scope of authority and building their financial, technical, and human capacities to meet the needs of sustainable urban development.
• Require that legislators and government officials consider social inequality and environmental sustainability when creating policies, laws, and development plans.
• Adopt mechanisms to make urban development a more inclusive process based on deliberation and participation.

^{2. The social function of the city and urban property is to make full and productive use of all city infrastructure, facilities, services, as well as public and private property to serve the community.↩}

^{3. World Charter on the Right to the City, Article 5.↩}

^{4. Choguill, Charles L. 2008. Developing Sustainable Neighborhoods. Habitat International 32 (1): 41-8.↩}

^{5. 2012 constitution available here.↩}