DETERMINATION OF THE BEST DE ELOPMENT PATH FOR THE EGYPTIAN'S CITY AiND REGION

Abstract

Reflections on Shantytown and Inner City Upgrading

The journey in my thinking about environmental planning and development problems in third World communities has evolved through three distict stages. Initially, my concern was that shantytown improvement

programs had a tendency to emloy strategies from developed counters. e.g. involving expensive infrastructure. I belived thaat by employing technology which was more appropriate for Third World communities, that the •situation could often be significantly improved. This view of development was later frustrated because of the difficulty in achieving an acceptable level of public health on marginal lands. Poor situation is inherent in these situations.

I began to view the situation differently after enroling in the P.S.U.. I asked instead why the poor were located in marginal areas, and whether this situation could be avoided. i.e. a "systems" perspective. I became convinced that improvements in the Third World shantytown areas would be simpler to achieve through a more equitable land resource development policy, for both urban and rural areas (in rural areas land reform may slow the tide of migration). It was my feeling that providing habitable land for the poor was more sensible than attempting to improve conditions in marginal areas by employing expensive infrastructure: I realized that the land policy system was doing exactly what was intended. i.e. sustain the middle and upper class. and that change must come from another level.

In the dissertation , my thinking shifted again to a third perspective, that peoples values must change. Upon closer examination of the shantytown and inner city problem, I realized that the important issues could often be distilled to philosophy questions. The strong correlation between peole's values and their action led me to believe that the most a ppropriate strategy was for a) a nation to more equitably distribute resources and decision making power, requiring a shift in values and b) the government to give new meaning to the concept of community, and allow people at the grassroots level to be masters of their own destiny, I began to view the role of an external development planner as helping community based organizations to "learn how to learn" .

The Special Significance of Community

This role of community leads to a fundamental dichotomy in development, that being the interests of the community in conflict with the vested interests of national and international organizations. A generic conclusion from this position is that freedman's suggestion of a "life space" and "economic space" as representing a basic dichotomy in the Third World is warranted.