Social networks in space of unplanned settlements in Cairo metropolitan area

Transcription

1 Social networks in space of unplanned settlements in Cairo metropolitan area Abdelbaseer A. Mohamed Ain Shams University, Egypt Nabil Mohareb Beirut Arab University, Lebanon Abstract This paper is a comparison between two different typologies of informal housing in the Cairo metropolitan area. Ezbet Bekhit is an example of unplanned areas built on state-owned desert land, while Abu Qatada is a different example built on former privately-owned agricultural land. The paper aims to reveal social divergences through differences in spatial patterns. The challenge is to view settlement community as a spatial system through spatial configuration. Space syntax is used to analyse the spatial configuration of the two areas, in addition to the virtual gate method that is employed to get data on peoples movement. The results show that there is a significant positive relationship between pedestrian movement pattern and spatial accessibility implying that opportunities of social interaction, co-presence, and co-awareness of different groups of people can be predicted through spatial design. In Ezbet Bekhit, the association was found at both scales: the settlement, and citywide scales, while in Abu Qatada it was found only on the citywide context. The findings also show that there are differences in gender movements in both informal settlements spaces. Differences in cultural movement pattern copresence or co-absence of different categories of people (gender, ethnic groups and others) are also observed in both areas, where some categories avoid meeting some other in Ezbet Bekhit or local people intermingle with non-local in Abu Qatada. Moreover, adult men affirmed their existence in both alleyways and on boundaries between settlements indicating territorial behaviour in informal areas. This in turn, influences social issues such as locations of conflict and feeling of safety. Keywords Comparative study, movement pattern, unplanned areas, spatial configuration. 134:1

2 1. Introduction Informal settlements are widely observed in Greater Cairo Region (GCR). Urbanisation usually occurs on the peripheries of the main urban agglomeration on both privately-owned former-agriculture land, and on state-owned desert land. Population growth and migration as well as other socioeconomic forces are the main causes of Cairo's urban growth. At early stages, migrants, mostly young men, shared rented units in old districts. Progressively, some migrants were able to have their own houses situated on the boundaries of the hosting city where land was more affordable than in the central areas (GTZ, 2009). This led to centre-periphery dichotomy. Urban encroachment on agricultural lands began 50 years ago. Gradually, core villages around Cairo were wrapped up by the urban structure of the city due to rapid urbanisation from the villages and the metropolitan itself (GTZ, 2009). Seemingly, the process of disordered absorption is not typically taking place; the metropolitan area is made up of several small to medium-sized agglomerations resulting in complicated agglomeration structure. Some informal areas are relatively well embedded in the city's structure, while others are poorly embedded in their urban context and stand apart from the surrounding urban patterns. The paper studies how far the variation in configuration can explain social differences, and how urban-rural networks are established in disordered urban sprawl. The paper s main premise is that various attributes of spatial accessibility influence peoples movement patterns in and around the quarter. The paper is divided into three sections: first, it analyses the urban layout of two areas (Ezbet Bekhit, in Mansheit Nasser district, and Abu Qatada in Boulaq El Dakrour district) at both a settlement level and a city wider context. Second, it conducts movement observation and explores the relationship of different categories of people in terms of their movement pattern in order to examine the potentiality of co-presence or co-absence of different members of community to learn about their spatial traditions in disadvantaged settlements. Third, it explores the degree of association between movement pattern and spatial aspects to investigate the degree to which spatial design can shape peoples movement pattern. Spatial research argues that when different kinds of people are naturally co-aware of each other and co-present at the same space, a virtual community is defined (Hillier, 1996). If urban layout influences movement flows, then designers and planners can increase opportunities of intermingling of different categories of people through spatial design. According to Hillier (1996), the pattern of probable co-presence influences human behaviour and the level of urban fear (ibid: 145). Similarly, Jacobs (1960) argued that urban safety can be achieved through natural surveillance in which people are eyes on the street. Two primary structures of virtual communities have been defined in a previous space syntax study depending on the shape of the scattergram between different categories (Hillier, 1996; Space Syntax Ltd., 2004; Al-Ghatam, 2012; Can, 2012). The first structure is Multiple Interface, a strong correlation coefficient of a 45-degree regression line, where different kinds of people share the same space and thus have high opportunity of natural interaction (potential natural interfaces) with each other. The second type is L-Shaped scatterplot, a weak relation or a no relation of nearly a horizontal regression line, where a particular group dominates in use of space than the other. The pattern of L-Shaped scattergram has negative impacts on society in terms of crime rate, feeling of safety, sense of community, and other variables related to quality of life (Space Syntax Ltd., 2004). 134:2

3 Figure 1: The two informal settlements location. The yellow dot represents Ezbet Bekhit informal settlement (east side of the river Nile); while the blue dot shows the location of Abu Qatada (west side of the river Nile). 2. Theoretical Foundations Space syntax, originated and developed in the 1970s at the Bartlett Unit for Architectural studies, University College, London (Hillier et al., 1983; Hillier & Hanson1984; Space Syntax Ltd., 2004), attempts to define society, through space. In other words, it attempts to define peoples relations through relations between street segments in urban grid. The human movement pattern is produced based on the spatial configuration, the relation between two spaces taking into account at least a third space and at most all other spaces in the system, of space (Hillier & Hanson, 1984). Space syntax found a consistency between the pattern of social relations and the pattern of relations created by the spatial formations (Netto, 2007). Hillier and Hanson (1984) studied the implications of the physical dimension of space. They criticised the descriptions of the city depending on simplified linguistic concepts such as, hierarchies and regularised geometries (Hillier, 2009a). These descriptions may be from the lack of the means to describe complexities of the urban environments. According to Hillier and Hanson (1984) movement is generated naturally by the spatial configuration of the urban environment. In other words, natural movement is generated automatically depending on the underlying degree of accessibility (Hillier et al., 1993). Previous studies of space syntax found that about 60-80% of the differences in movement pattern can be predicted by spatial configuration of street network (Hillier, 1996; Al Ghatam, 2012). Movement occurs at different scales from more localised to more globalised. Understanding the interchangeable movement between local and global scales, parts and whole, indicates the quality of an environment in terms of way-finding and orientation. In a comparative study of space and movement patterns in ten villages engulfed by Manama and Muharraq cities in Bahrain, Al Ghatam (2012) found that villages that are perfectly embedded in the city's structure usually have a mixture of local and non-local people, whilst poorly embedded villages are prioritised by local residents. In other words, social interaction in well embedded villages will be 134:3

4 transpatial (independent of the settlement boundaries); then, the social fabric crosses space, and then we get what is known as non-correspondence society. On the other hand, in weakly embedded villages, aspects of social structure are projected into space then the produced society is called correspondence society, where local identities tend to be strengthened (Hillier, 2009b). Although countless urban studies were conducted in informal areas in Cairo, little is done regarding quantitative analysis that reflects the spatial implications on communities living in Egyptian informal settlements. This paper attempts to understand the relationship between space structure and movement patterns in Egyptian urban informal settlements considering the Al Ghatam (2012) findings. 3. Methodology In order to analyse the spatial configuration of the two urban systems, an axial map composed of the longest and the least axial lines of street network is established. There are measuring terms used in the analysis that should be highlighted: Integration shows how a segment relates to all other segments in the system and Choice shows the importance of a segment as a part of the shortest path between each potential origin and destination pairs of segments in the system. The analysis covers all segments in the system (global measure, Rn), also confines to a particular distance (local measure, Rxxx). Distance can be topological (fewest intervening lines), geometric (least angle) or metric (physical distance). The virtual gate method is expedient for noting patterns of pedestrian and vehicular movement (Grajewski, 2001). The gates ranging from busy to lightly used routes are selected to count people. Observation is done for 6 hours distributed along three different periods; morning, afternoon and evening. Due to safety cautions, workforce limitations, and time availability, only 10 gates are considered for each case of this research. Pedestrians are classified into five categories: moving children, moving teenagers, moving men, moving women, and elderly. Statistical comparisons of people-people analysis are employed to investigate the relationship between movement patterns of different categories, and the study of configuration in order to understand the behaviour of disadvantaged communities as a spatial system. That is to understand how likely different observed categories can intermingle or avoid each other. Seven sets of movement have been set up: gender (adult males vs. adult females) juvenile movement (children vs. teenagers), kids-adults movement (children vs. adults), young-old movement (children vs. elderly), adults-elderly (adults vs. elderly), teen female-adult female movement (teen females vs. adult females), and teen female-adult male movement (teen females vs. adult males). In order to study people-space relations, movement rates are linked with syntactic attributes of both local and global angular integration and choice through the Geographical Information System (GIS), and they are analysed through statistical packages in order to check association between both movement and spatial patterns. If urban space influences movement patterns and the degree of copresence or co-absence of community members, then urban restructuring can be done to increase opportunities of social interaction, hence urban safety and sense of community. 4. Interpreting Segment Maps As angular choice and Integration analyses shown in Figure 1, Ezbet Bekhit is connected to an integrated main route, Al-Nasr Street, at a city wider context. The area has an optimal location for shops since it is accessible to local dwellers as well as the random through travellers on the integrated main route. However, the internal streets of the area are poorly connected to that integrated route. Moreover, the main route itself loses its integration at local scale analyses. Simultaneously, the neighbourhood has high values on the spatial analyses with a low metrical radius. Likewise, Abu Qatada is located along two definable edges, which tend to be inner-city highways. Expressed differently, the routes on which Abu Qatada is situated have the highest global choice and integration values. They also represent a part of Cairo s overall main spatial structure. 134:4

5 a. Angular Choice Rn analysis of Ezbet Bekhit (left) and Abu Qatada (right) b. Angular Choice R1200m analysis of Ezbet Bekhit (left) and Abu Qatada (right) c. Angular integration Rn analysis of Ezbet Bekhit (left) and Abu Qatada (right) d. Angular Integration R1200m analysis of Ezbet Bekhit (left) and Abu Qatada (right) Figure 2 (from (a) to (d)) illustrates Global and local syntactic measures in Ezbet Bekhit (left row) and Abu Qatada (right row), considering that red colours indicates higher accessible values while blue ones represent lower values. Source: authors 134:5

6 5. Movement Observation The virtual gate method is employed to study pedestrian movement pattern in order to reflect a more precise picture of the relationship between human behaviour and spatial configuration in Ezbet Bekhit and Abu Qatada. Important junctions were investigated as well as other less likely used alleyways. The field study was carried out on the 24 th and 26 th of February Both days had moderate weather conditions. Movement observation in Ezbet Bekhit shows that movement rates are typically higher in main streets than alleyways, which are mainly for single residential usages, (see Figure 3). Notably, shops are concentrated along highly accessible streets in order to get the optimum benefit from the movement. The large size of the area facilitates the emergence of commercial activity not only along the settlement s outward facing edges but the most accessible internal streets as well. Streets are mostly dominated by children and adults rather than teenagers and elderly people (see Table 1). Furthermore, elderly people are hardly noticed in the streets during the day. At the evening time, the number of observed males is higher than that of females. As noticed, the number of adult males is as much as of adult females. Also, observed categories, except children and elderly, rise relatively by the evening. From observation, people usually walk in groups, whereas children are frequently in company of their relatives. (a) Pedestrian movement observed on a weekday overlapped with angular integration Rn 134:6

7 (b) Pedestrian flows are categorised to recognise children, teens and adults dressed in suits. (c) Graph analysis of different pedstrian flows of different kinds of people on a weekday Figure 3 (from (a) to (c)) highlights movement observation in Ezbet Bekhit. Source: authors. Children Teenager M Teenager F Adult M Adult F Elderly M Elderly F Morning (8-10am) Midday (14-16pm) Evening (18-20pm) Table 1: Ezbet Bekhit's weekday observed pedestrian movement 134:7

8 In Abu Qatada, movement observation shows that there are more people in El-Zumour Canal Street (the eastern border) than in the rest of the area due to the existence of the metro station of Cairo University, (see Figure 4). Accordingly, through travellers (bypass movements) are frequently depicted. Relatively, this provides urban safety to the streets and to the surrounding urban pockets. Meanwhile, it indicates territorial behaviour through affirming co-presence of local and non-local residents on the boundaries of the area. In terms of movement, after El-Zumour Canal Street, Hussein Mansour Street (the main commercial street, south) is busier especially in the weekday midday. The development of commerce can be observed in the borders and inside the settlement along the most accessible streets in order to catch passers through. Similar to the situation in Ezbet Bekhit, there are more adults than other categories of people, see table 2. The ratio of adult males to adult females is approximately 2 to 1 in the three time periods. Generally, the existence of males, as in Ezbet Bekhit, is higher than that of females all over the weekday. Besides, the ratio of elderly people is slightly changing during different time periods of the day. Eventually, as in Ezbet Bekhit, the number of children decreases remarkably by the evening, whilst the number of women decreases by the evening only in Abu Qatada. (a) Pedestrian movement observed on a weekday overlapped with angular integration Rn 134:8

9 (b) Pedestrian flows are categorised to recognise children, teens and adults dressed in suits. (c) A graph of different pedstrian flows of different kinds of people on a weekday. Figure 4 (from (a) to (c) highlights movement observation in Abu Qatada. Source: authors. Children Teenager M Teenager F Adult M Adult F Elderly M Elderly F Morning (8-10am) Midday (14-16pm) Evening (18-20pm) Table 2: Abu Qatada's weekday observed pedestrian movement. 134:9

10 6. People-People Analysis Figure 5 and Table 3 show that the relationship between the total weekday movement (the sum of movement observations of the three considered time periods) of adult males and that of adult females is somehow normal; however other graphs are more L-Shaped oriented, especially the relationship between adult males and teen females in Ezbet Bekhit. It can also be noted that, in urban spaces, priority is given to adults rather than other groups. In other words, spaces dominated by adults are usually poorly used by other categories of people especially teen females. Accordingly, potential natural mingling between different categories of people is broken; In fact, as argued by a number of researchers, this leads to anti-social outcomes such as high crime rate and less sense of safety (see Space Syntax Limited, 2004). Further, rerunning people-people analysis considering only movement recorded during the evening period shows that regression lines with Y axis in all scatter plots are more L-Shaped, and it confirms the lack of interface between different categories of people (see Figure 6 and Table 3). This explains, to a certain extent, the existence of social pathologies during the evening time. Figure 5 illustrates the correlations between different kinds of people in Ezbet Bekhit. The scatters are more L- Shaped. 134:10

11 Figure 6 shows the correlations between different kinds of people during evening period in Ezbet Bekhit Movement WD R2 Movement WD (Evening) R2 Adult m.& adult F. Children & Adult Children & Teenagers Children & Elderly Adult & Elderly Adult F.& Teen F. Adult M.& Teen F E Table 3 demonstrates the correlations of people-people analysis in Ezbet Bekhit. Conducting people-people analysis along the accumulative movement of three time periods (morning, midday, and evening) of a weekday in Abu Qatada shows that the visual picture of the scattergrams is generally normal. According to Space Syntax Limited (2004), a normal urban space facilitates intermingling of different groups of people especially between men and women; and the potential degree of natural interface between different categories of people is relatively high. Briefly, Abu Qatada is characterized by multiple interfaces (see Figure 7). On the other hand, analysing interfaces during evening shows a slight decrease in the coefficient of determination (see Figure 8 and Table 4) unlike Ezbet Bekhit where the R square values were relatively low indicating the existence of L-Shaped problem. The probabilistic pattern of interface between the inhabitants and passers-by or strangers in Abu Qatada provides natural surveillance; hence safety, as the mix of different categories is a key element of urban safety (Hillier, 1996: 146). 134:11

12 Figure 7 shows correlations between different age groups in terms of total weekday movement in Abu Qatada. Figure 8 highlights the correlations between movement rates of different age groups during evening period (18-20pm) of a weekday in Abu Qatada. 134:12

13 Movement WD R2 Movement WD (Evening) R2 Adult m.& adult F. Children & Adult Children & Teenagers Children & Elderly Adult & Elderly Adult F.& Teen F. Adult M.& Teen F Table 4 shows the correlations of people-people analysis in Abu Qatada. 7. Space-People Analysis In order to investigate the effect of spatial configuration on natural movement pattern, correlations were examined between movement pattern and different global and local syntactic measures. In Ezbet Bekhit, the results show that movement rate is correlated positively with different radii of angular integration. Furthermore, a significant positive correlation was found between movement pattern and angular choice at different radii except at R800m and R400m. As a conclusion, movement pattern in Ezbet Bekhit is more correlated with angular integration than with angular choice (see Table 5). In Abu Qatada, exploring the relationship between pedestrian movement pattern and spatial parameters shows a significant positive association with different radii of angular integration (Rn, R2000m and R1200m). In short, movement in Abu Qatada is more globalised or a larger-scale movement since global integration is the best predictor of it (see Table 6). Comparing both case studies with each other demonstrates different relationships between pedestrian movement pattern and different radii of angular integration. In Ezbet Bekhit, movement is related to both local and global integration, while in Abu Qatada movement is related only to global integration. Movement pattern Movement pattern R R2 p-value R R2 p-value Integration Rn ** Choice Rn * Integration R2000m ** Choice R2000m * Integration R1200m ** Choice R1200m * Integration R800m ** Choice R800m Integration R400m * Choice R400m **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). Table 5 shows the correlations of movement rate and syntactic parameters in Ezbet Bekhit. Movement pattern Movement pattern R R 2 p-value R R 2 p-value Integration Rn * Choice Rn Integration R2000m * Choice R2000m Integration R1200m * Choice R1200m Integration R800m Choice R800m Integration R400m Choice R400m *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). Table 6 shows the correlations of movement rate and syntactic parameters in Abu Qatada. 134:13

14 Figure 9 highlights the relationship between different categories of people and angular syntactic attributes at global and local levels in Ezbet Bekhit. Plotting syntactic parameters against movement pattern of different groups of people shows some interesting space-people relations. In Ezbet Bekhit, women movement pattern correlates positively with angular integration and angular choice at radius Rn, 2000m and 1200m, while men movement pattern correlates positively only with angular integration R800. On the other hand, teen-female movement correlates inversely with angular choice at local measures (R2000m, R1200 and R400) 134:14

15 and only with angular integration R400 (see Figure 9). It can be inferred that teen females tend to be present in spaces that are poorly used by elder women. This structured no-relation results in L- shaped problem. Furthermore, women might prefer integrated spaces for more sense of safety. As for adult males, elderly, children, and teen males, no significant relations were found between any of them and syntactic attributes neither on global nor on local level. They are relatively neutral in terms of the space they cross. As residents, people use space as an instrument for everyday goals and do not need to discover it. This might explain why movement rate of some age groups is not in a statistical correlation with spatial parameters. In Abu Qatada, both children and women are correlated positively with angular integration at radius Rn, 2000m and 1200m, while men are associated positively at radius 2000m and 1200m as well. Finally, male teenagers are related positively to radius 1200m of angular integration, see Figure 10. This means two things: first, movement in Abu Qatada is less localised; second, children, adults (men and women) and teen males are more or less likely to be co-present in the same urban space. In other words, intermingling or multiple interfaces between different categories of people will probably be created. Comparing the above results with those from Ezbet Bekhit shows some differences: structured relations of interface can be found in Abu Qatada, while structured norelations can be noticed in Ezbet Bekhit. Moreover, the strongest degree of probabilistic natural interface is in Abu Qatada, while the lowest probabilistic co-presence is in Ezbet Bekhit. Apparently, the community in Ezbet Bekhit (state-owned desert land) is more conservative than in Abu Qatada (former privately-owned agricultural land). In conclusion, social and spatial patterns are closely interlinked. Figure 10 shows the relationship between angular integration and different kinds of people in Abu Qatada. 134:15

16 8. Conclusion The main purpose of this paper was to study the influence of spatial factors on movement flows in two informal settlements Ezbet Bekhit and Abu Qatada. The selected neighbourhoods constitute the main typologies of spontaneous settlements in Egypt. Abu Qatada is built on a former private agricultural land, while land tenure in Ezbet Bekhit is mainly under the hand claims. Urban layout in Ezbet Bekhit is relatively organic, whilst linear or a semi-grid urban fabric following the former subdivisions of agricultural basin lines can be seen in Abu Qatada. Research findings showed that both case study areas are different in terms of socio-spatial patterns and people-people relations. Analysis of pedestrian movement pattern showed that the main streets especially external ones have higher rates than the alleys and dead ends. For example, in Abu Qatada, important junctions of streets nearby Cairo University metro station as well as those comprising Hussein Mansour Street witnessed high flows of people. Seemingly, residents of informal areas have strong territorial behaviour through affirming their existence on the boundaries of their neighbourhoods. Such boundaries seem also to be locations of conflict between different residential areas. On the other hand, people-people analysis indicated that urban spaces in the neighbourhoods have different probabilistic interfaces. In Ezbet Bekhit, urban space priorities adults than other different kinds of people leading to the L-shaped problem. In other words, the probability of natural copresence between people of different categories is relatively weak, and this in turn leads to antisocial outcomes such as lack of urban safety. Unlike Ezbet Bekhit, people-people analysis in Abu Qatada showed good probabilistic interfaces between different categories and each other. The reason Abu Qatada has this advantage over Ezbet Bekhit might be that the surrounding urban context of each area is significantly different from the other. To illustrate, Ezbet Bekhit is wholly divorced from its wider context due to existence of strong physical barriers, cemeteries (The City of The Dead) and Mokattam hills. Unlike Ezbet Bekhit, Abu Qatada is adjacent to Cairo University campus, which is likely to add new movement patterns that will draw in a new culture and economies. In this instance, the social fabric in Abu Qatada might be different from that in Ezbet Bekhit. Comparing both case studies with each other shows that movement pattern in each case relates to a different level of integration. In Ezbet Bekhit, the association was found at both local and global scales (Rn, R2000m, R1200m, R800 and R400m). In addition, Abu Qatada is more related to global scale (Rn and R2000m) rather than to local one (significant only at R1200m). Observation showed that movement in Abu Qatada has a mixture of local and non-local people. This might be due to existence of the major node of Cairo University metro station which works as an origin and a destination and, thus, used by those not local to the area. However, further field survey including more numbers of observed virtual gates within the internal routes of the area will provide more accurate results. To sum things up, it seems that spatial configuration of a settlement and the way it is embedded in the city's structure shapes cultural movement pattern. The findings of this paper showed that the urban grid configurations affect movement pattern in informal settlements. Moreover, the social patterns of interaction can be understood and measured through interpreting the scattergrams of people-people analysis. Normal urban spaces will increase the degree of natural co-presence of different kinds of people. Once sharing the same space, different categories of people become coaware of each other. On the other hand, a space that is dominated by a particular group of people rather than another will result in L-Shaped social structures, therefore lack of safety. 134:16

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