Cairo's Downtown in Narratives

Cairo's downtown, through sociopolitical conditions, had been moved from a single city to a hardship one. The authors attempt using a method of multiple readings to provide a new comprehension for the city by using the historical review side by side with several examples from Egyptian literature that describes this dramatic evolution. For this neighborhood, it is considered an active part of Cairo. The period they suggest for scanning the literature begins from Cairo Great Fire in 1952 and its consequences. The year of 1952 and the constitution of the first republic until the dramatic fall of this last by the revolution of January 2011. This chapter aims to articulate the evolution of Downtown Cairo from the singularity to the hardship.

Space Syntax Approach for Articulating Space and Social Life

This chapter sets out to provide a detailed description of the relationship between space and society. It begins by discussing how people co-live in spaces and how such spaces co-live as communities. Understanding the relationship between space and society requires shedding light on how (1) communities emerge and work and (2) people build their social network. The chapter's main premise is that spatial configuration is the container of activities and the way we construct our cities influences our social life. Therefore, the urban environment should be analyzed mathematically using urban models in order to evaluate and predict future urban policies. The chapter reviews a space-people paradigm, Space Syntax. It defines, elaborates, and interprets its main concepts and tools, showing how urban space is modelled and described in terms of various spatial measures including connectivity, integration, depth, choice, and isovist properties.

Theory, Data, and Methods

Land-use change models are tools to support analyses, assessments, and policy decisions concerning the causes and consequences of land-use dynamics, by providing a framework for the analysis of land-use change processes and making projections for the future land-use/cover patterns. There is a variety of modelling approaches that were developed from different disciplinary backgrounds. Following the reviews in the literature, this chapter focuses on various modelling tools and practices that range from pattern-based methods such as machine learning and GIS (Geographic Information System)-based approaches, to process-based methods such as structural economic or agent-based models. For each of these methods, an overview is given for the advances that have been progressed by geographers, natural and economy scientists in developing these models of spatial land-use change. It is noted that further progress is needed in terms of model development, and integration of models operating at various scales that better address the multi-scale characteristics of the land-use system.

Introducing a Conceptual Framework for Spatial Decision SIM

Planning is a time-sensitive process with spatial characteristics as its core. It is effective to formulate spatially-related decisions on an informative background to maximize benefits and minimize risks. Not only decision makers who affect the space, but also users and owners interact with it, affect the related decisions. Thus, it is healthful to widen participation. This chapter introduces a conceptual framework for the Spatial Decision Simulator “SD-SIM.” This work aims to reach a platform that supports spatial decisions made by various stakeholders to provide a capability for integrated modeling of socio-economic, man-made, and natural environmental impacts. It contains four components as a logical target for expressing the evolution of spatial issues and reflecting them into a simulator. These four components are Districts Sub-System, Property Price and Living Cost Simulator, Interventions Sub-System, and Development Scenarios Sub-System. The SD-SIM depends on free-access data sources. Through its sub-systems, the platform integrates different analytical methods and tools.

Q Sensor for the City on the Threshold of Stress

The urban atmosphere evokes several sensory registers that participate in our perception of singular tonalities, of our daily situations. Tunis is, in this chapter, the space-time that would serve as a framework for our hearing. The experimental protocol is threefold. The authors quantify users' feelings through the commented walk method and especially by objective measures of electrodermal activity. The authors conducted in situ metrological work on the sound signal. These measurements were taken using a device “Q sensor.” This device quantifies emotional arousal by measuring electrodermal activity (EDA). The data collected were compared and crossed to identify the links between the architectural configurations of the public space, the sound signals, and the ways in which the feeling of stress appears. The results indicate that urban stress situation seems complex and enjoyable to explore using a multidisciplinary approach. A future direction was presented to the urban settings through the draw on a variety of disciplines, including urban planning, architecture, and psychology.

Internet of Things Interpreting a Myth

The livability standard still has not considered the chaos city that may stem from or lead to cities of hardship. This chapter rectifies this by making the phenomena of chaos and hardship the centerpiece of the analysis. It depends on the internally displaced persons (IDPs) to display the characteristics of liability and the hardship of living and be the indicators of chaos city. This chapter addresses the non-perceptible processes of the IDPs from outside and inside Cairo in Egypt. This internal displacement supposes the lead-in to chaotic changes in the lifestyles of the cities; it can even be said that they become cities of hardship. The theoretical reading depends on conventional and digital methods (content analysis and the internet of things) to follow these changes, which occur not only due to migrations but also due to ignoring decentralization. The outcomes provide an action plan to create cities free from hardship, displacement, and chaos.

BigGIS With Hadoop in MapReduce Environment

BigGIS is a new product that resulted from developing GIS in the “Big Data” area, which is used in storing and processing big geographical data and helps in solving its issues. This chapter describes an optimized Big GIS framework in Map Reduce Environment M2BG. The suggested framework has been integrated into Map Reduce Environment in order to solve the storage issues and get the benefit of the Hadoop environment. M2BG include two steps: Big GIS warehouse and Big GIS Map Reduce. The first step contains three main layers: Data Source and Storage Layer (DSSL), Data Processing Layer (DPL), and Data Analysis Layer (DAL). The second layer is responsible for clustering using swarms as inputs for the Hadoop phase. Then it is scheduled in the mapping part with the use of a preempted priority scheduling algorithm; some data types are classified as critical and some others are ordinary data type; the reduce part used, merge sort algorithm M2BG, should solve security and be implemented with real data in the simulated environment and later in the real world.

A Crowdsourcing Approach in Urban Design

This chapter examines the problem of excessive similarity when designing new cities. It focuses on the generating of innovative ideas through urban design paradigms. The purpose of this work is to support the efforts of planners and designers toward the creation of new cities based on the concept of cities of singularity. This chapter is a bibliographic review of some conventional Western paradigms in urban planning and design. Based on this work, the three initial singularities of cities can be sketched as being architecturally singular (artwork-like/artistic and organic), societally singular (social, economic, and transcultural), or technologically and informationally singular (smart) in nature. The analytical reading depends on content analysis—which follows the potentiality of exploring the meaning of singularity and its characteristics, indicators, and principles. It collects the interrelationships of the old and new paradigms. The outcomes provide a framework for creating ‘cities of singularity' based on a crowdsourcing approach.

Rethinking Cairo's Informal Settlement in the Light of Hardships

This chapter aims at understanding and interpreting the informal urban growth in Cairo as a physical objection act against the failing radical ways in managing the city. Accordingly, this chapter tries to analyze both informal physical actions and the formal policies and approaches adopted, and reach reasons for the successes and failures. The chapter first investigates briefly the evolution of Cairo's informal settlements and the hardship conditions behind. Then it examines these settlements through analyzing their two main types. Afterward, it discusses the reasons behind the success of these informal actions. Then it reviews policies and approaches. Consequently, it tries to discover the reasons behind the failure of formal policies and approaches. Thereafter, it discusses briefly using geospatial digital research methods in Cairo's informal settlements. Finally, the chapter ends with a concluded discussion tries to figure out how to reach the right path in dealing with Cairo's informal settlements.

An Argumentative Review Between Urban Morphology and Energy-Efficient Mobility

Urban settlements are recognized in literature to be a significant energy consumer. Among the primary contributors of such consumption is the transportation system. Recent literature that discusses the relation between energy efficient mobility and urban form has been continually branching and growing. However, as it grew, it becomes more specialized, less self-conscious, and to some extent contradicting. After adopting Conzen's approach to urban morphology, this chapter discusses through an argumentative review the relationship between energy efficient mobility and buildings density, land use, and streets networks. In addition to providing a snapshot to critical studies in the last three decades, two arguments are refuted. First, the residents' behavior resulting from socio-economic factors or individuals' choice has more impact than urban morphology characteristics on energy-efficient mobility. Second, morphological characteristics of urban settlements that lead to energy efficient mobility do not vary with the variation of context.