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Skirting the Outskirts
by Ryan Bahry
As I drove through the deserts of Egypt, I stared out the
window of the
motor coach and gazed at the vast, expansive wasteland, the dunes of
sand that stretched forever. Suddenly, the city of Cairo appears
in the distance, and it seems to rise up from the nothingness—one
second, desert as far as the eye can see and the next, the sprawl of
the city. One of the most striking first impressions I had while
encroaching upon Cairo was the fact that the buildings I observed
seemed to be large numbers of apartment buildings or housing units,
many of which seemed only half-completed. It was easy to observe
the emptiness of many of these buildings through the gaping windows,
and in some cases, there were furniture and other items located on the
rooftops.
In Mike Davis’ article, “The Prevalence of Slums”,
he discusses the phenomena of slums in urban settings, their
developmental patterns and how they are reinforced by social
institutions. As opposed to American cities where the slums are
typically concentrated in the centers or cores, Davis discusses the way
in which European cities more commonly concentrate the slum areas in
the outskirts of the city. Cairo appeared to follow a much more
European pattern in this regard. When I went to the areas that
seemed to comprise much of the core of the city, I observed an
extremely transnational atmosphere, one that seemed to retain a certain
level of vernacular in order to create an ethnic appeal. The Nile
river was lined with beautiful ships that would take tourists out on
the famous body of water, while others served as upscale
restaurants. The downtown shopping area, although not necessarily
offering such recurring labels as Prada or Lacoste, was definitely
composed of modern clothing stores, electronics, and resembled most of
the other shopping centers we had seen throughout the various
countries. Located a short distance from the more modern shopping
centers was the city’s largest bazaar, the Khan-el Khalili. Even
this bazaar, though it still wound through the narrow, twisting streets
and offered a vernacular environment, still felt like a
tourist-inspired destination. In Cairo’s downtown region, I
observed little in the way of slums or tenements, most likely in large
part to the efforts to create an elite and tourist-friendly urban
center.
On the other hand, when I finally went off on my
own, I was able to take a taxi ride through the outskirts of the city,
and I was able to observe more of the buildings that I witnessed the
first day arriving into Cairo. Vast expanses of these housing
buildings stretched through the city, many of them appearing desolate
and devoid of life. It was interesting to observe the ways in
which a city such as Cairo, while trying to preserve a vernacular
atmosphere in order to entice tourism, moves the local people out of
the core of the city. It suggests that while we want to
experience the vernacular, we tend to desire the transnational,
comfortable norms and a vernacular that is custom-made.
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