Red bricks and small concrete blocks intertwined in the construction of a public building in the Fayoum Oasis, May 2022.
Unveiling military-led urbanization through its productive peripheries
This paper by Corten Pérez-Houis, published in Geographica Helvetica, examines the decline of red brick factories in Greater Cairo (Egypt). It offers an analysis of rapid urbanization from the perspective of productive peripheries and construction materials, which sheds light on the militarization of urban development.
In the context of demographic and urban growth, Cairo’s urbanization is mainly approached in terms of housing and development. By focusing on the Egyptian capital from the point of view of one of its main building materials – red brick – this article calls for a politicization of the planetary urbanization theory and for better analysis of productive peripheries’ diverse trajectories. Despite the omnipresence of this material in urban spaces, red brick production has been declining since the late 2010s.
Using a qualitative methodology based on interviews conducted throughout the red brick supply chain and the analysis of satellite images, this article aims to examine the contemporary transformations of the Egyptian capital from its industrial peripheries. This round trip between brick factories and the city, centred on red brick, allows us to explore and politicize the entanglement between production practices, technical standards and planning policies, which underpin the capitalist and military-led urbanization of Cairo.
Excerpt
The direct involvement of public actors in the promotion of concrete blocks, to the detriment of red brick, is finally visible in the role played by military institutions. Egypt has the particularity of an army that is strongly involved in the domestic economy, as it has been analysed in various works (Abul-Magd, 2017; Amar, 2018; Sayigh, 2019). The construction and building materials sectors are no exception. While the army has invested particularly in the inauguration of cement factories (Boukhari, 2018), it is also directly involved in the production of concrete blocks. Without having factories the size of the large concrete block company, military players sometimes set up production units directly on the sites they supervise.
Pérez-Houis, C.: Declining red brick factories in Greater Cairo (Egypt): unveiling military-led urbanization through its productive peripheries, Geogr. Helv., 81, 207–222, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-207-2026, 2026.
