Urban regeneration has been an accepted strategy for reviving city centers around the globe in Western Developed settings and in developing cities for decades. In Cairo, post January 25th Revolution, the Egyptian government sought an approach to upgrade several sites in downtown classical Cairo, to set new conditions for use of public space, to redistribute the power of authority and re-define the rules for the claim of public space of the city. The Cairo Governorate officially launched many projects within the same period; mainly focusing on refurbishing squares and streets, facades face lifting, controlling vendors' trespassing and regulating car parking space among other regulations within Downtown area. However, having accepted and acknowledged the governmental intentions of the regeneration projects a question poses itself as to 'How the community perceives and cherishes those initiatives?' More important questions are raised regarding the regeneration of Al Alfi Street, the case study that addresses the governmental attempt in down town Cairo in 2015. It brings to light the dynamics enacted between different stakeholders. A research is conducted by adopting participant observations, surveys, questionnaires, and interviews with the local community and different stakeholders to understand their perception and appreciation to the '2015' urban regeneration attempt. The findings of the paper set the urban regeneration principles in a discussion aiming at assessing the stakeholders' involvement versus their goals and measuring their satisfaction with the outcome of the project, while still posing the question of the meaning of urban regeneration to the local community and to alternative scenarios that could yield more successful outcomes.

No abstract

The paper demonstrates how co-working spaces, with their openness ideologies that are not only manifested in sharing space, but also sharing knowledge and generating access to nonhierarchical productive opportunities, are being subsumed into reinforcing neoliberal exclusiveness. The paper questions the openness of co-working spaces that reconciled with the dominant ideologies of 2011 Cairo, setting the stage to the mushrooming of co-working spaces inside Cairo’s apartment buildings as zones of relative freedom. Through space-time mapping of the emergence of co-working spaces in Cairo, in addition to interviews with co-workers, co-founders, and managers of co-working spaces, the spatial appropriation and accessibility of co-working spaces are demonstrated. Using content analysis and space syntax analysis, the study differentiates between two paradigmatic shifts in the spatial appropriation of co-working spaces—from democratizing digital infrastructure in the aftermath of 2011, to being subsumed by technological capitalist ventures by the end of 2015 into a closed paradigm, they originally emerged to defy—and compares between the spatial accessibility, visual accessibility, and social diversity of the two waves of co-working spaces. Using Cairo’s co-working spaces as a case study, this paper shows how ideologies of openness “neutral” as they may seem, can serve to legitimize exclusiveness, emphasizing how ideas—as men—can be socially located, and serve to legitimize a particular social situation.

This paper aims to question the level of success of one of Egypt's contemporary architectural milestones which is the Aga-Khan Award winning project of the Child Park in Sayyeda Zeinab-designed by the Egyptian architect Abdel-Halim Ibrahim; from a community participation perspective. Stemming from the fact that the level of successful community participation in architecture and urban design projects affects the sustainability of the added value, this paper tackles the current process of operation of the Park and the adjacent pedestrian street, as complimentary aspects of a community participatory process, and evaluates the social sustainability of the project as well. The study sheds light on the operation of the park after twenty eight years of the initiation of the project, it explores its functional and social role in the district of Sayyeda, located at the center of Cairo city. However, the project has to be revised and analysed from a critical perspective to evaluate the degree of its success in affecting the local community, and the level to which it contributes to the approach of local community participation. In order to achieve this end, the paper adopts a twofold methodology. The first is a literature review of the initial ceremonial participatory process of building the Park and the initial role intended by the architect whether related to the park itself or to the adjacent Abu-ElDahab Street. The second methodology is a qualitative analysis of the current state of the park and adjacent street, based on site investigations, behavioural mapping of the current status, analysis of the roles of the beneficiaries, interviews conducted with different stakeholders about the present challenges of the role of the park in the district. Based on those two main research approaches, the paper concludes with a framework and several guidelines to enhance the social sustenance of the place through rephrasing the park's role in relation to the changing needs of the community.

PurposeFew public places are designed with due consideration to the needs and preferences of teens. Teens in public spaces are often viewed with apprehension from other user groups. Teens hanging out in public spaces are always observed with caution and are sometimes associated with negative behaviour by other community members. In designing public spaces that are suitable for the teens and not alienating them to other members of the community, it is necessary to understand how teens perceive their environment and what they expect from it. The psychological, social and emotional development determines the teens’ preferences regarding public spaces. This research attempts to understand how teens perceive and value those places and the factors that influence teens’ preferences in public spaces. This study aims to deduce some factors that influence teens’ preferences and behaviour from an environmental psychology perspective and then test these factors on a sample of teenagers in an Egyptian setting.Design/methodology/approachAn empirical study was conducted with teens in two districts in Cairo, Egypt: “Dokki” and “Sheikh Zayed,” to understand how teens perceive their neighbourhoods, identify preferred places and discern factors that influence their preferences. A sample of 67 teens, aged between 13 and 19 years old, in which 31 were males, and 36 were females, completed a survey that allowed teens to identify and rate their experiences. This occurred using a map-based mobile application to foster more active engagement by participants, in which they identified their favourite places, the behaviour associated with these places, what teens do there – when, and with whom, as well as their rating of the place.FindingsThe most important conclusion drawn from this study was that teens’ preferences are linked to their cognitive, emotional and social development. They influence and are associated with essential aspects such as the sense of freedom, sense of safety, self-identity, enjoyment, thrill-seeking and peer relationships. Therefore, it is important to adopt a new perspective to the design of public spaces to create teen-friendly places.Originality/valueAdopt a new perspective to public space design to create teen-friendly places by adopting an environmental psychology lens to shed light on the social and psychological dimensions of the built environment.