“We buy everything” is a phrase that has been displayed on banners throughout Egypt’s streets, and below the phrase is a phone number to contact the advertiser. Behind all of these advertisements lies the massive used goods industry, known locally as “robabekia”, which has its well-known mega-markets such as the Friday Market. However, the reference to “everything” in the context of this edited volume is used in an ironic sense, while raising the question: Can everything truly be bought?
It is from this starting point that the book delves into an analysis of the social, economic, and political transformations that have been taking place within Cairo’s housing and built environment from the late Nineteenth Century until today. These transformations are explained through a set of case-studies on the processes of building, buying, selling, and renting housing, as well as the changing methods of providing drinking water services, and the governance of public spaces. These studies are based on legislative, theoretical, and historical analyses, as well as eyewitness accounts of these transformations.
Yahia Shawkat and Shehab Fakhry Ismail eds, Nashtari Kul shay’ (We Buy Everything: Housing and Urban Changes in Cairo – Arabic), Dar Al Maraya 2022
Contents
Introduction – Yahia Shawkat and Shehab Fakhry Ismail
Chapter One – Drinking by the Milli and Centi: The Commodification of Water and the Manufacturing of Scarcity in the City – Shehab Fakhry Ismail
Chapter Two – Sidi Mudin: The history of a Waqf Building in the Bab al-Shiria Neighbourhood – Abdel Rahman al-Taliawi
Chapter Three – An Introduction to the Commodification of Space in Middle Class Neighbourhoods: The Case of Mohandessin – Khaled Adham
Chapter Four – The City’s Popular Neighbourhoods: Flexible Governance in the Provision of Drinking Water – Dina Khalil
Chapter Five – Everything is Owned by God: The Exercise of Tenure Against the Commodification of Housing – Yahia Shawkat
Chapter Six – The Economic Life of Vacant Housing: The Case of Badr City – Ibrahim Abdo
Chapter Seven – From Private Property to Public Property: A Reading of the Transformation of Public Spaces in the City – Ahmed Zaazaa
Chapter Eight – The Commodification of Violence in the Geography of Wekalat al-Balah – Omnia Khalil
Reviews
Saleh Elghamrawi & Noura Wahby. IJURR
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