As Egypt's Housing Crisis Intensifies, Dangers Mount

Modern problems in an ancient land. Cairo’s skyline shows overcrowding that has resulted from unmanaged growth and often nonexistent planning.

While the demand for new housing grows exponentially, brick production thrives. A large kiln on the Cairo-Alexandria highway turns out thousands of bricks a day to feed Egypt’s voracious — and in many cases illegal — building boom.

Dahab Island on the Nile is one of many informal neighborhoods in Cairo where the shortage of homes has prompted many to build without permits and caused many to build on what were fertile, highly productive farmlands along the Nile.

Apartment towers stand in Maadi, an affluent Cairo suburb where riverfront property sells at a premium. For investors, the choice between putting big money into booming real estate and farmland is a no-brainer.

"Omikron" tufayli huvillagan ko'chalar.  London.

Fertile soil along the Nile’s banks that once produced food now yields bricks. The demand has kept kilns like this — one of 1,320 in Egypt — busy.

Ramy, a resident of Shobra, an informal neighborhood in northern Cairo, watches as survivors are sought in a collapsed building. Many buildings have gone up without permits, soil surveys or inspections. Ramy worries the collapse may not stop there and his home could be next. “Buildings are like dominos here.”

With the high demand for housing, some residents are making their homes in the city’s graveyards. Some statistics have close to 70 percent of Cairo’s population living in informal neighborhoods.

Egypt’s ancient pyramids stand as timeless examples of the ultimate in construction design and planning, towering over a much different scenario in Giza’s Nazlet el-Semman neighborhood. Narrow streets and lack of urban planning mean no access for public transportation. Residents rely on three-wheeled motorcycles and animals.

A view of pyramids at Giza from a building under construction. Urban sprawl in Egypt is threatening not only agricultural land but also the country’s cultural heritage. And yet, government figures show the majority of Egypt’s population lives on 6 percent of the land.