الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Informal settlements are one of the biggest urban challenges that face urban planners worldwide. On these grounds, the basic needs for a motivated human community require coherence between the environment and well-being. Thus, various interventions are being implemented to improve informal settlements conditions, through upgrading programs that target one or more sector such as social, economic, political, and physical improvements. Some of these programs adopt the participatory approach to their needs’ assessment, development plan, and later implementation. Others adopt the top-down approach where community involvement is minimal. Participation is claimed to be the solution for the upgrading process. Contrariwise, there have been contraventions on excessive use of the term participation hamstrung its content. Consequently, this research postulates that the participatory approach became lately misused as an objective or a target itself rather than a tool to reach a target. Regarding that, the research passes through three phases to test this hypothesis. The first phase includes reviewing literature: to investigate norms of participatory design and the contraventions on its application in the upgrading process. The second phase contextualizes the upgrading process of informal settlements in Cairo and the issue of participation in this context. The third phase, represent the empirical study, which examined the informal settlement of Manshiet Nasser in Cairo; as this area acquired great attention through upgrading by the participatory approach. The research spots the light on a descriptive analysis for two projects took place in the area where participatory approach is claimed to be adopted. Qualitative methods is followed for tills investigation that are observation, secondary data analysis, and semistructured interviews The first project is the civil society buildings and the second is the youth training project. As a rebuttaJ to this point, the projects are being criticized by assessing the efficiency of the participatory upgrading program through a list of indicators that adheres to the theoretical standards of public participation. |