Life a strain in over-populated Cairo
NZPA staff correspondent Cairo Cairo is a city strained almost to the limits.
The exploding population and increasing urban drift which has turned the Egyptian capital into one of the world’s biggest cities has also stretched to near breaking point the infrastructure needed by a modern metropolis. Straddling the Nile, Cairo and its twin city of Giza are growing almost uncontrollably. The population is now estimated at up to 12 million and much of Egypt’s annual population growth of 1.2 million is being absorbed by the city.
An accurate count' is impossible. Millions of people live in the ramshackle tenements of the Old City, existing often in the most primitive conditions in a climate where the temperature goes from warm to very hot and it rains only two or three times a year. High-rise blocks of flats are being built everywhere and to the visitor, the grimy, dusty city looks as if the half that is not under construction is falling down. Cairo’s city streets are wide by New Zealand standards, often taking as many as four cars abreast in a single direction, but there are many hundreds of thousands of cars and traffic is perpetually jammed, pumping out exhaust fumes to mix with the heat and the dust, and 'drivers continually toot their frustrations.
Tales of the vagaries of the telephone system are legion. It is simply overstretched.
Numbers and lines are unobtainable, conversations can be broken off by a disconnection in mid-sen-tence and many Cairo businesses resorted to messenger services instead.
The mail has similar problems.
But there are other, more essential, areas of strain. Sewage and power services are prone to break down and there are some food shortages from time to time. Public transport, with people hanging out windows and doors of buses and trams, is impossible to timetable because of the perpetual traffic jams. Mass reliance on cars only makes an already bad situation worse.
Some long-term answers are being found. The population explosion is at the root of the capital’s problems as it is of those of Egypt as a whole. The more the population grows, the more of the country’s economic resources have to be channelled into importing food to feed it and the less money there is for anything else. The Camp David accords which brought peace between Egypt and Israel have had a big impact, reducing the huge burden of military spending and bringing in increased United States and other foreign aid. But slowing down the baby-boom is now the No. 1 priority. The State has launched a big programme aimed at convincing people that families should be limited to two children and early indications are that it is having some success.
Experts have been called in to find passages from the Muslim Koranic “bible” to support the State’s contention that family planning is not against Islam and religious opposition is reportedly waning.
“We still have lots of problems,” one official said. “Many peasants especially are less interested in the concept of reducing the strain on the country's limited resources than in getting an extra pair of hands.
“But people are beginning to understand that reducing the growth in the population is good for everyone. You cannot force them, you have to convince them.”
Efforts are also being made to resite people in eight “new cities” spread out in the Nile delta about 50 km from the capital. The cities are being specifically designed to overcome the problems facing Cairo and people are being encouraged there by the prospect of reasonable housing and education facilities, and by jobs in the new industrial centres.
By the next century, the new cities are expected to have reduced the capital's population by nearly four million people. Inside Cairo, French aid and expertise is being used in the construction of an underground railway to help commuter traffic. "In the end it all comes down to money,” one official said. “We know the problems and we’re dealing with them as our resources allow.”
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Press, 27 October 1982, Page 39
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673Life a strain in over-populated Cairo Press, 27 October 1982, Page 39
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