Accumulation by dispossession and the transformation of property relations in Egypt: housing policy under neoliberalism

This dissertation examines the ways in which workers and peasants access to housing has been shaped under different political regimes over the past two centuries (1805-2011). Up until 1952, Egypt did not have an official housing. policy leaving housing needs to be met locally. The rapid rise in population by mid twentieth century and the rural-urban migration during World War II and after resulted in a rising demand for affordable housing. Under Nasser's regime, workers and peasants experienced the first national housing policy and progressive pro-tenant laws. Under Anwar Sadat's regime, as the private sector's role in housing production increased, access to affordable housing in urban centres became limited leading to the expansion of informal housing, a phenomenon that continued to become a permanent feature of Egypt's urban spaces. In the post 1990s, after the liberalization of the Egyptian economy, the state began dismantling rent control laws and promoting a private sector-led rental housing market supported by private mortgages. The liberalization of land and housing markets through the adoption of Law 96/1992 and Law 4/1996 dismantled tenancy rights and shifted the balance of power in favour of landlords and property developers. These developments expanded the crisis of housing to rural areas as over a million peasants and farmers were forcefully evicted from their houses. Evidence presented here suggests that neoliberal policies in land and housing facilitated capital accumulation through policies of dispossession. The privatization of state enterprises and the agricultural sector resulted in the transfer of land and resources to the private sector. Over the course of two decades of neoliberal policies, property developers and agribusiness experienced a boom as the Egyptian economy became closely integrated with the global economy. Workers and peasants, however, had a fundamentally different experience as unemployment levels continued to rise and an increasing numbers of Egyptians fell into poverty. The crisis of housing that intensified in the 1990s and after reflected a deeper restructuring of power relations and resource redistribution away from workers and peasants and to landlords and developers. The strategy of accumulation by dispossession, however, undermined the fragile legitimacy that the Mubarak regime had experienced leading to the end of his regime in 2011.