Street network and home-based business patterns in Cairo's informal areas

Identifying the economic potential of informal urban areas is a topic of increasing interest for policymakers and practitioners in less developed countries, yet little is known of how informal street design influences the type and count of business opportunities. By adapting a space syntax framework, this study aims to quantitatively verify...

Morphological evaluation and regeneration of informal settlements: An experience-based urban design approach

Informal urbanism has been generally studied within social, econmic and political frameworks, yet little is known of how it performs in terms of urban vitality. The aim of this article is to better understand the urban vitality of informal settlements and how they can be improved by using a combined morphological approach that encompasses...

Space and protest: A tale of two Egyptian squares

Protests and revolts take place in public space. How they can be controlled or how protests develop depend on the physical layout of the built environment. This study reveals the relationship between urban space and protest for two Egyptian squares: Tahrir Square and Rabaa Al-Adawiya in Cairo. For analysis, the research uses space syntax method....

Beyond informality: Traders as space experts in their own informal settlements

The spatial layout of built environments influences the distribution of commercial activities. As literature has shown, commercial activities can enhance the process of urban consolidation of informal areas (Hillier et al, 2000; Shafiei, 2007). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the correlation between spatial factors and the...

Understanding urban segregation in Cairo: The social and spatial logic of a fragmented city

As it turns out, social factors are significantly correlated with the spatial structure of the street grid on a metropolitan scale level. On a local scale, disadvantaged areas have a high locally integrated spatial structure, but lack accessibility to the surrounding areas and the whole city. Seemingly, the connection between a main route...

The socio-economic implications of the spatial configuration in greater Cairo metropolitan area