EGYPT
Egypt is made up of 27 governorates that are divided into cities (municipalities), towns, and
villages. The governance in Egypt is highly centralised and almost everything is decided in the
capital. The government has one known definition for urban areas; areas that do not meet the
criteria to be classified as “rural”. Rural areas are defined as the areas in which the majority of
people work in agriculture, herding or fishing. To the North (Lower Egypt) governorates along the
costal line are more urban than they are rural; with most of them having limited arable land and
a very few of them with none at all. In the Nile Delta, the governorates are more rural in their
composition given the fertility of the land. Along the Nile basin heading south or towards Upper
Egypt, governorates become more rural, more detached from the capital, and also poorer.
Egypt’s high population growth has had implications on the sustainability of urban growth.
In the 1990s and 2000s both the urban and rural populations increased equally by 2.1%. As a
result of its scale, Cairo’s share of the population reached a plateau early on, stabilising the
general urbanisation level of the country at large. Fertility in rural areas remains higher than
that of urban areas mainly because children are either used as workers on self-owned farms and
livestock enterprises or sent to work on other farms to generate income for the family.
Egypt is still defined as a rural country, with an average ratio of 60-40%. Although the
migration rate from the rural areas to the urban cities such as Ismailia, Port Said, Suez and Cairo
is high, rural towns and villages still score higher than urban ones in terms of population growth.
It is forecast that the urbanisation rate will not change drastically until 2030, reaching 42%.
In Egypt, there is only one prime governorate which is Cairo, with a population of about
19 million followed by the secondary governorates Giza, Alexandria and Sharkeya that range
between 6 million and 10 million. Third tier cities have populations ranging from 500 000 to
1 million inhabitants, such as Tanta, Ismailia, and Port Said, followed by fourth tier cities with
populations between 100 000 and 500 000 inhabitants such as Damanhour, Marsa Matrouh and
Damietta. The majority of the financing of the informal urban settlements in Cairo and in formal
rural areas comes from remittances from Egyptians living in the diaspora. Alternatively, it may
come from farmers selling their lands in rural areas and building housing in informal settlements.
Part of the new cabinet’s mandate is to urbanise and economically develop Upper Egypt first
by enhancing the infrastructure and second by encouraging FDI to be poured into the area. So far,
the development process has been slow, while the focus has also shifted to development of new
cities and urban areas along the new Suez Canal. The main entity involved in urban development
included the Ministry of Urban Renewal and Informal Settlement which was established in 2014
but later merged in 2015 with the Ministry of Housing. Its main mandate was to put in place a
strategy for the urban slum upgrade. Another entity is the New Urban Communities Authority
(NUCA) which is now the main entity responsible for issuing land permits for new housing
projects.
Urbanisation is at the core of Egypt’s social and economic transformation and it has a direct
impact on Egypt’s food security. The extension of cities has very often taken over arable land,
especially after the 2011 revolution when about 34 000 hectares of agricultural land were lost to
slums. Egypt is a net food importer and with the existing population growth rate and the urban
expansion rate, agricultural land is expected to shrink further. Urban communities in Egypt are
mostly involved in the service sector while only a few cities are industrial or have an industrial
part.
Urban development in Egypt is financed by the private sector, mostly real estate development
companies. About 77% of the demand on units in Cairo comes from middle-income families
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while the market operates at an almost 500 000 unit shortage in middle income and low cost
housing. Investors are discouraged from operating in middle and low-income housing and prefer
working in the luxury housing segment that composes 2% of total demand as a result of the
high cost of land and the high cost of building and their reluctance to opt for a lower margin.
The construction of new high-end urban cities or extensions of cities in Cairo (“New Cairo”; “6th
October”; Sheik Zayed City) and on the north and Red Sea coasts in on the rise both with local
and foreign investment. This has been one of the main GDP growth sectors contributing to job
creation but also at the same time causing strains on transportation and service delivery (water,
sewage and waste water treatment plants).
New urban developments that lie within the perimeters of other cities take the name of the
city with the prefix “new” (such as New Cairo) and are considered neighbourhoods, sometimes
with their own administration (municipalities) depending on their size. Most of these new cities/
developments have mixed residential and commercial zones
Rural areas, with very few exceptions, are connected to the country’s supply chain by
providing agricultural products and labour. Exceptions are clusters where some villages are
known to produce authentic products like coloured textiles, carpets, marble and glass. In those
rare cases, the products are transported to big cities to be sold there or to be exported. Rural areas
are self-sufficient in terms of food consumption, bearing in mind that their consumption is low
compared to urban inhabitants. The food produced by the rural areas does not cover the urban
needs hence the rising food imports especially of fruits.
Inequality is more obvious in a city like Cairo and less obvious in southern cities like El Menia
or Assiut. In Cairo, poor slum areas lie adjacent to upper class neighbourhoods and the contrast
there reflects the high level of income inequality. In the rural areas, where farmers have their
lands adjacent to each other, it is less likely to see income inequality but it can be a function of
the size of the inherited land.
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