Bøger af Dalia Wahdan

This book analyzes passenger transport in Sitta October, Egypt and Gurgaon, India - two suburban cities near Cairo and Delhi linked to global flows of capital and labor. It conceives of passenger transport as a ¿window'' to understand the nature of urban livelihoods that are emerging with privatization of road infrastructures, the shift from predominantly governmental to ¿private'' provision of passenger transport and the scalar changes within the matrices of power and decision-making brought about by macroeconomic reforms. It focuses on the dynamic interactions between local government and policing agencies on one hand and transport operators on the other, as critical nexus in understanding the nature of urban governance, defined as the mode of functioning of local governments as they execute shifting state strategies and policies. It contextualizes this dynamic within four overlapping forces: a) existing institutions of local government, b) global capital and labor flows, c) emerging regional administrative and institutional changes, and most importantly, d) the ardent will of transport operators to have a stake in - and carve out - their own livelihoods against the odds.

This study critically analyzes the paradigms and practices of planning in Egypt since 1952. Based on primary and secondary data, the study argues that under Nasser, plans often diverged from their blueprints and revealed the myth of 'technical objectivity' that underpinned the planning industry. Under Sadat, the systematic exclusion of planners from decision-making apparatuses accompanied 'profit-opportunism' in favor of private interests. The study then demonstrates the decline of planning under Mubarak and its emergence into a 'special purpose vehicle' in service of real estate developments skewed toward resource and privilege concentration in the hands of a few thus further exacerbating uneven spatial morphologies.