Between the 4th and the 8th of November 2024, Massimo Vittorio, professor of Philosophical Anthropology and Communication Ethics at the University of Catania (Italy) and Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Urban Ethics at the University of Notre Dame (USA), participated in the 12th World Urban Forum (WUF), organized by the United Nations agency for Human Settlements, UN-Habitat, in Cairo. Here is a report of this visit, written by Prof. Vittorio, for the readers of EITW.
Among the numerous activities scheduled at the Forum, organized in sessions, debates, artistic installations, and musical performances, Professor Vittorio joined a visit to Al Asmarat, a major urban regeneration project in Cairo’s Makattam district, southeast of Cairo, not far from the new capital city, New Cairo. The project, which aims to address Cairo’s housing crisis by relocating families from informal settlements, raises ethical questions relevant to urban planners worldwide, including in Europe, where similar regeneration efforts often grapple with issues of social integration, inclusivity, and sustainability.
Al Asmarat’s development, driven by the ‘Cairo 2050’ plan, aims to relocate thousands of families from extensive degraded areas of Cairo (slums) to the new Al Asmarat area, enabling the subsequent demolition of these areas, following the directives of the Egyptian government’s Slums Development Fund. The plan echoes urban regeneration efforts across Europe aimed at revitalizing neglected neighborhoods and addressing housing shortages, such as the social housing projects in France’s banlieues or Germany’s efforts to rehabilitate former industrial districts. However, Al Asmarat’s structure and planning reflect a rapid expansion model, often lacking in essential social infrastructure—a scenario that contrasts with Europe’s urban planning emphasis on mixed-use spaces, walkability, and green areas. The development of Al Asmarat, initiated in 2014, exemplifies urban sprawl, characterized by extensive residential blocks with minimal communal spaces and services.
Support a Sustainable Community through Urban Planning
Key concerns raised during the visit included whether the urban structure of Al Asmarat can support a sustainable community. In Europe, urban planners increasingly strive to incorporate sustainable design principles in line with the SDGs, emphasizing accessibility to educational, welfare, and recreational facilities. However, Al Asmarat’s configuration represents a clear example of urban sprawl, a widespread urban phenomenon characterized by rapid, disorganized expansion dominated by residential construction, often lacking adequate associated services such as educational, welfare, and social facilities: schools, post offices, police stations, medical clinics, recreational centers, and gathering spaces. Furthermore, the urban structure of Al Asmarat follows the classic ‘ribbon’ layout, developing along a few main roadways that also indicate potential future directions of expansion. Much like U.S. cities that grew along railway lines in the past, Al Asmarat stretches endlessly along vast road axes that carve strips of asphalt into the yellow, arid desert.
This urban structure, which emerges from a network of roads covering increasingly large distances, directly results in reliance on motorized traffic, exacerbated by the absence of bike paths and, often, pedestrian walkways. Green spaces are almost nonexistent. The spaces intended for public use are extensively paved and essentially reduced to serving as traffic corridors. The residential buildings, generally structured in 6-8 stories, are separated only by internal paved roads, often no wider than 4 meters, and lack any green areas. This contrasts with new urban regeneration plans in European cities, which promote a community-centered approach to urban living and where green areas, bike paths, pedestrian areas, and restricted traffic zones are essential components. European initiatives like the ‘15-minute city’ model, championed in Paris, or the ‘grey to green’ model, promoted in Rotterdam, highlight the value of compact, inclusive urban spaces, demonstrating a stark contrast to Al Asmarat’s sparse communal infrastructure.
Engaging with the Community
The visit concluded at an elementary school, where Professor Vittorio met students – talented girls and boys – and teachers engaged in both traditional and creative activities, symbolizing the power of education as a tool for social change. This resonates with Europe’s strong educational traditions, which often view schools as central to community building and cultural identity. The students’ hopeful smiles and the teachers’ dedication reinforced a universal message of civic and ethical commitment to education—a value shared across cultures and integral to urban ethics in both Europe and beyond, also making the visit an unforgettable memory and an experience of profound human significance. Tradition as a means to foster creativity is a reliable refuge and a powerful tool in under-resourced educational contexts. Most importantly, they all conveyed a shared sentiment and a universal need: education as an ethical and civic commitment, emphasizing that real changes always collectively start from the grassroots and require participation and effort. Government plans do not build cities; they build only buildings and roads. It is up to citizens to inhabit the former and cross the latter, creating what a city truly is: a community of people.
Participation is the crucial step
This visit to Al Asmarat underscores a broader, universal truth:
Urban regeneration calls for citizenship regeneration
Without citizens’ participation, no plans can achieve the goal of regenerating urban dwellings. This insight, particularly relevant to discussions about sustainable and inclusive cities, is what Al Asmarat should take into account as a common root with any urban regeneration experience: a goal that Europe continues to pursue within the framework of the SDGs.
Many of the issues personally observed and experienced on the ground in Al Asmarat will be the subject of the Urban Ethics course that the professor will lecture at the University of Notre Dame starting in January 2025 as Fulbright Distinguished Chair. Some of these topics have already been explored in depth in several of his studies, such as his work on precarious urban conditions and conflict dynamics (Precariousness of Urban Life: Sowing the Seeds of Conflict, 2020), on the relationship between urban ethics and environmental ethics (Urban Ethics: Territorial Planning and Environmental Sustainability, 2018), and most recently, developed further in the Italian Urban Ethics handbook published by Franco Angeli (Etica Urbanistica: Antropologia e Morale dell’Uomo Urbano, 2024).
On the Author
Massimo Vittorio is a Research Professor in Moral Philosophy at the University of Catania, Italy, where he teaches Philosophical Anthropology and Communication Ethics. Over the years he has also taught Social Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, and Political Philosophy, both at undergraduate and graduate levels. His research interests focus on contemporary ethics, particularly on the role of technology and emotions in shaping human nature and action, and draws influence from the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset. Professor Vittorio's most recent research is grounded in Urban Ethics, with a focus on the role of space. During the spring 2025 semester, he served as a visiting scholar with the Nanovic Institute and the Center for Italian Studies.
Originally published by at eitw.nd.edu on April 07, 2025.