Essay On Urban Sprawl

Towards the system of integrated policies to deal with the urban sprawl areas in Egyptian large cities

Mahmoud Fouad Mahmoud 1

1 Associate Professor, Faculty of Engineering

Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt. [e-mail] Abstract:

Urban sprawl is any increasing in the number of cities and its size consider a global phenomenon, though it is varies in its severity from one country to another. This phenomenon reflects the positive effects on life and development, but at the same time, it reflects the negative impact on various economic and social aspects.

In particular, seriousness of that is manifested in the Arab Republic of Egypt, when we look at the urban sprawls and extensions within the framework of maintaining the agricultural land.

Cities have extended in every direction swept, on its way, all attempts of guidance or containment. This sprawl has been planned in a few of its parts, but it was not planned in most spaces. Residential and non-residential activities are mixed at random, which ultimately led to the urban and architectural deformation of the contemporary Egyptian city. The rivers, railways and regional roads represent the determinants of urban growth guidance of the valley and the delta cities, but it soon exceeded by extension in the direction of “least resistance" toward agricultural lands which surrounded by cities, so the urban and rural sprawl devour more than 1.5 million acres and still devour 60 thousand acres per year. This sprawl also moved toward the desert of the cities such as Cairo. The sprawl has radiographic circular shape in most cities of the valley and Delta, and has bar shape in some other cities, such as Alexandria, Port Said and Aswan. It has increased during the latter half of the twentieth century four times of the urban structural bloc of city before that in most cases