TY - BOOK ID - 138004119 TI - Understanding Cairo PY - 2010 SN - 1617973882 1617975052 9781617975059 9789774164040 9774164040 PB - Cairo New York The American University in Cairo Press DB - UniCat KW - Cairo (Egypt) KW - Description and travel. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:138004119 AB - Trying to make sense of the urban giant that is Cairo. "This book moves beyond superficial generalizations about Cairo as a chaotic metropolis in the developing world into an analysis of the ways the city's eighteen million inhabitants have, in the face of a largely neglectful government, built and shaped their own city. Using a wealth of recent studies on Greater Cairo and a deep reading of informal urban processes, the city and its recent history are portrayed and mapped: the huge, spontaneous neighborhoods; housing; traffic and transport; city government; and its people and their enterprises. The book argues that understanding a city such as Cairo is not a daunting task as long as pre-conceived notions are discarded and care is taken to apprehend available information and to assess it with a critical eye. In the case of Cairo, this approach leads to a conclusion that the city can be considered a kind of success story, in spite of everything" -- Cover. ER -