Amid all the debates about the future of the Middle East there's one issue of fundamental importance to millions of Arabs that hardly ever gets discussed. The issue is housing.

Housing is a thoroughly mundane topic and even when writers turn their attention to the built environment of Arab cities they are much more likely to focus on the futuristic architecture of the Gulf than the places where ordinary people actually live.

But housing is far more relevant to the politics of the Arab awakening than is often realised. It's prime example of the dysfunctional relationship between governments and the people they govern. Over half a century or so, authoritarian regimes have produced authoritarian housing plans that mostly didn't work and, in the meantime, people have found their own solutions, building homes wherever they could – and often with little regard for rules set by the authorities.

It's perhaps worth recalling that some of the preliminary skirmishes in the Libyan uprising against Colonel Gadafy were specifically about housing. Protesters in al-Bayda attacked government attacked government offices demanding "decent housing and dignified life". In Bani Walid, hundreds broke into empty apartments and occupied them.

"Bani Walid has no basic services," they said. "Thousands of people are without houses and the local authority is corrupted, it only delivers services with bribes. Nothing will make Bani Walid calm but freedom, justice and transparency."

Informal development – outside the regulatory framework set by the authorities – is a growing phenomenon in many of the world's cities, and the Middle East is no exception. Writing in the latest issue of the Cairo Review, David Sims says:

"In some of the larger urban agglomerations in non oil-dependent Arab countries, informal urban development now accommodates at least half the resident population, and in many others it represents a sizable minority of the total population. 

"Informal settlements, which have existed at least since the 1970s, have tended to establish themselves on the urban fringes or around existing satellite towns and villages, and these have been absorbing both rural migrants and lower-income households decamping from poor conditions in the city centres."

Homes in these areas are usually more substantial than those in the shanty towns of Asia and Latin America. People acquire some land and then construct the property bit by bit over a period of years, often using informal labour to save on costs.

Although these informal areas do often have some rudimentary infrastructure and services, "coverage and standards are everywhere much lower than in the established formal parts of cities", Sims says. Unemployment and poor transportation add to their problems, along with "the taint of illegality" which causes condescending attitudes among some of their fellow citizens.

Chaotic and inadequate as this may be, Sims (an economist and urban planner) does not view informal development as entirely negative. In some ways it is almost admirable – a sign of people's spontaneity and resourcefulness. 

In his book, "Understanding Cairo: The Logic of a City Out of Control", Sims describes the Egyptian capital as a kind of perverse success story where people have built and shaped their own city in the face of a largely neglectful government.

The real question, then, is how to harness the energy and vitality of informal development and include it – formally and legally – in the Arab future. But it's not a question that governments, aid donors or NGOs have been able to address with much degree of success.

As far as Arab governments are concerned, their attention seems to be elsewhere. Sims writes:

"Most Arab governments are preoccupied, even mesmerised, by the physical appearances of modernity and look to western cities or to dazzling Dubai, Singapore and Shanghai for inspiration and emulation. 

"In the past some may have looked at the ordered regimentation of socialist cityscapes as models, but now all faith is put in the miracle of the corporate real estate sector – both domestic and transnational – to build and transform their cities, especially if such transformation is bankrolled by Gulf Arabs ...

"Better to ignore or wish away the phenomenon [of informal development] and concentrate on what can be controlled: formal, mainly corporate modes of urban planning and development. And better to frame urban informality as simply the product of those who are ignorant, uneducated and backward ...

"After all, the real decision-makers are either non-professionals – usually former generals, successful businessmen and parliamentarians – or engineers who are already members of the ruling political elites. It is precisely these people whose accumulation of power depends upon their obedience to the modernist ethic and the conviction that only the corporate system, sometimes in combination with the army or super-state agencies, can deliver it. 

"One needs only to look at the hyper-modern urban makeover schemes and mega projects that have been advanced for Cairo, Tunis, Amman, and Damascus to see where most attention of those in power is placed."

    
Posted by Brian Whitaker
Wednesday, 27 November 2013