Living or dead city?
20 million people live in Cairo’s metro area, making it one of the largest cities in the entire world. It also has a massive population living in abject poverty, which has forced many people into the City of the Dead. Stretching for four miles on the outskirts of Cairo, the row housing for the deceased has evolved into a deathly slum.
As people moved out of agricultural centers, or were displaced by natural disasters, they took up residences in old mausoleums, and around the tombs of the necropolis. In total, 500,000 people occupy the necropolis, filling the gaps around the final resting places of 7th century Egyptians.
Although there are plans to relocate people out of the living cemetery, the population has grown so large that there is almost nowhere to move residents. Like so many other slums across the world, the City of the Dead is greatly populated by children, who must face fears and live in and around tombs, and make do with their morbid surroundings.
History
The City of the Dead, or Cairo Necropolis, Cairo, Egypt (Qarafa, el-Arafa), is an Islamic necropolis and cemetery below the Mokattam Hills in southeastern Cairo, Egypt. The people of Cairo, the Cairenes, and most Egyptians, call it el'arafa (trans. 'the cemetery'). It is a 4 miles (6.4 km) long (north-south) dense grid of tomb and mausoleum structures, where some people live and work amongst the dead.
Some reside here to be near ancestors, of recent to ancient lineage. Some live here after being forced from central Cairo due to urban renewal demolitions and urbanization pressures, that increased from the Gamal Abdel Nasser era in the 1950s and forward. Other residents immigrated in from the agricultural countryside, looking for work — an example of rural to urban migration in an LEDC (least economically developed country).
The poorest live in the City of the Dead slum, and Manshiyat Naser, which is also known as Garbage City, a center of recycling and reuse Zabbaleen vendors. The City of the Dead has been frequented by visitors throughout history. Ibn Battuta is among the notable travelers who made it here, giving a brief description of the City of the Dead in his travelogue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW7uP8edfhM
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