Contrary to all modern urban-planning requirements, the dictates of Islam, public hygiene rules and social conventions, people continue to live in Cairo’s cemeteries. The cities have expanded feverishly in recent decades and the number of dwellings in the cemeteries has peaked. They are stigmatised by the politicians as places of refuge for criminals, chosen by cinema and literature as fabled locations for stories of marginalisation and degradation, declared as areas in need of protection by UNESCO, and viewed by the big property developers as fertile terrain for new expansion.
Living in the cemeteries represents both the malaise and the cure of the new conurbations. The indiscriminate use of cemetery space, considered irrational by planners, has provided an effective and pragmatic answer to overcrowding. The most interesting element is the ability of a space, which was exiled by the city more than 300 years ago because it was deemed impure, to be re-used and transformed for indiscriminate uses.