STRATEGIC PLANNING OF THE EGYPTIAN CITY BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE

Abstract

In the area of urban planning history, many planning Methodologies have been developed, where systematic systems were done to plan the new cities or to re-plan the existing cities. In the mid-fifties, there were approaches based on the involvement of the society and civic sectors in the planning process. All these approaches were modified and fine-tuned until Strategic planning in the 1960s was appeared and confirmed as a planning approach. Egypt is one of the countries that have followed specific rules in urban planning since the beginning of the 19th century which include the implementation of the comprehensive planning methodology. This was done under the Urban Planning Law No. 3 of 1982 and its executive regulations until 2008, where the strategic planning methodology was confirmed as governmental system for planning. This paper aims to discuss the issue of applying the strategic planning Methodology for Egyptian cities in terms of the incompatibility between the society organization structures and the current Egyptian social culture, as well as the ways of addressing them. Despite the implementation of this type of planning in some European countries had a lot of success. To achieve this aim a case study were done for three Egyptian cities in which Researcher was participated. A questionnaire sheet was designed to survey the opinion of the some consultants which participated in the preparation of the strategic plans for some Egyptian cities. The questionnaire shows the problems and issues that faced the planning Methodology implementation during the planning application process. Therefore a clear vision to avoid these problems is achieved. The paper also try to organize coordination between planning consultants and society civil sectors requirements to overcome problems due to incompatibility between theory and practice in planning methodology for Egyptian cities.A lot of Problems & challenges have appeared when applying the strategic plan approach to the Egyptian city in case of current political, administrative and cultural environment.