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| An Inforgraphic by EIPR about Social Housing Project in Egypt during four ruling periodsبالأرقام قصة المليون_وحدة عبر أربع فترات من الحكم مصر الإسكان_الاجتماعي |
Recently I have been
a part of a Wohnungsfrage Academy: The Housing System organized and hosted by the The Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin. During
one of the public lectures that followed the daily academy activities one was
presented by Thordis
Arrhenius she spoke about The Million Programme (Swedish: Miljonprogrammet)
which is the common name for an ambitious public housing programme implemented
in Sweden between 1965 and 1974 by the governing Swedish Social Democratic
Party to make sure everyone could have a home at a reasonable price. The aim
was to construct a million new dwellings during the programme's ten-year
period.
C. P. Zilliacus tells us the story of this ambitious
program. It was approved by Sweden’s Parliament in 1965 to remedy what was then
considered an acute shortage of housing. Planners
and architects felt that in order to achieve the desired suburban “new town”
environment, development and densities were to be as concentrated as possible,
and all units were to be within 500 meters of the transit station.
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Zilliacus tells us that the first new homes
in Tensta were delivered to their initial residents in 1967, only two years
after the program was approved. but the subway line, so important to the design
and development of these communities, was not to be opened to traffic until 1975.
In a 2009 and after almost 42 years, Sweden’s
Minister of Integration, Nyamko Sabuni charged that some of the Million
Programme complexes led to “exclusion” of their residents and since many of
them are badly in need of thorough renovation, some should be torn down
instead. Indeed some of these complexes have met their demise with the use of a
wrecking ball.
Zilliacus sees that the aftermath
of Million Programme demonstrates the inability of elected officials and the
planners and architects on their staffs to anticipate the future needs and even
the demographic makeup of their constituent populations, even in a democratic nation
such as Sweden.
Although the subway
system was an integral part in the development of the million
programme, it has not prevented the isolation and economic disadvantage
that the minorities living along the line have always experienced.
This story reminded me of
our famous million programme that was announced by General Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, before resigning as
Egypt’s minister of defense and pursuing his campaign for the presidency, were he announced an agreement with the UAE construction
firm Arabtec to build a million affordable homes for “Egyptian youth.”
Maria Golia reminds us that this was
not the first time for this project to be announced The Social Housing
Project (SHP), initiated in 2011 by then Minister of Housing Mohamed Fathy
el-Baradei, promised a million units for low income households. He also confirmed that the ministry is responsible to deliver this project within five years!
Our 'ambitious' million programme seems to be similar to the Swedish Miljonprogrammet except for just few
differences. First, it is not
yet built although almost 4 years passed since it was announced. As the
infographic shows, since 2011 till 2015
only 57 unit were really delivered! Second, most of
these units are far away in the desert with no connection whatsoever the city
centers they are near to, except for informal transportation! Last but not least, these new
housing complexes are intended from the start to house the marginalized sector
of the community relocated from the high economic value city core.
So I wonder what will be the fate of our million programme?!
Maybe the answer came sooner than we all expected!
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