The Inter/Transdisciplinary Framework for Urban Governance Intervention in the Egyptian Informal Settlements

Abstract

There is a need to understand the complex nature of informal settlements to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 11: “Making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable”. Thus, addressing the urban governance of informal settlements requires an inter/trans-disciplinary scope to reach a cross-cutting agenda that combines social/behavioral, economics, and public health with the built environment disciplines. Respectively, this paper aims to establish an integrative framework based upon a blended inter/trans-disciplinary approach of urban governance for informal settlements in Egypt. The study adopts a theoretical analytic methodology to achieve its aim by reviewing the literature on informal settlement policies. It argues that the inter/trans-disciplinarity approach contributes to integrative urban governance agendas that enhance the quality of life of informal settlements. While exploring three bottom-up perspectives of understanding the formation of informal urban settings—socioeconomic, morphological, and sociophysical—an integrative model is developed to allow a contextual perspective for examining informal domains. The model is articulated to guide the purpose of the multidimensional analysis methods for investigating informal contexts. An integrative agenda with six analysis tasks, each involving interdisciplinary group of academics, experts, stakeholders, and authorized representatives, is outlined by the method originated in this paper. Ultimately, and concerning aspects of sustainable urban cities, the paper introduces an integrative agenda that enables overcoming gaps in current upgrading practices when examining the informal settlements of the Egyptian contexts.