Transforming Cairo's downtown with tactical urbanism: Translating informal activities into formal enhancements for a thriving urban life

Abstract

Cairo's overcrowded streets highlight the decline of Egypt's street life, with informal activities resulting from uncontrolled commercial and mixed-use developments. Tactical Urbanism can help fulfill basic human needs in public spaces by converting informal activities to formal ones that meet user needs. This study aims to investigate informal activities in Downtown Cairo's main streets and measure their impact on public space users using a Likert-scale questionnaire. Then, the research proposes suitable tactics and tools based on tactical urbanism principles that were validated through conducting a second Likert-scale questionnaire. Both questionnaires were analyzed and compared via Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) through descriptive and inferential methods. The findings indicate that well-organizing informal activities following the tactical urbanism principles with low cost and in a short period of time, fulfill people's aspirations and requirements and positively affect the quality attributes of the public spaces in Downtown, Cairo.