Can a University Campus Work as a Public Space in the Metropolis of a Developing Country? The Case of Ain-Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

Mona Ali and Youngmin Kim
Additional contact information
Mona Ali: Housing and Building National Research Center, 87 El-Tahrir ST., Dokki, Giza 11511, Egypt
Youngmin Kim: Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Seoul, 163 Seoulsiripdaero, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02504, Korea

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 17, 1-23

Abstract: Even though public open space has been taking more important roles in improving urban environments, most of the metropolises in developing countries suffer from lack of both quantity and quality of parks and green spaces. This research examined the possibility of opening the university campus to the public in order to improve the public space service of the city, focusing on the case of the Ain-Sham University campus in Cairo, Egypt. The study is structured in three steps: (1) Analysis of open space distribution at the district level to find out how the university campus can contribute to improving urban public service, and if it works as an open space; (2) Survey of resident and student groups to find a perception of opening the campus for public use; and (3) Interview with government officials and university faculty members. The level of agreement on opening the campus was neutral from both resident and student groups. However, the result shows some significant acceptance of opening specific places for public use upon employing proper strategies. According to the result, it is not appropriate to fully open the controlled public space of universities in the context of Cairo, following exemplary cases of developed countries. Although sharing privatized open space with adjacent communities can be a good solution for the fast-growing metropolis, lack of proper public spaces, and insufficient resources, the process should be carefully designed with step-by-step implementation strategies.

Keywords: Greater Cairo; public spaces; public space management; open campus plan; university-community relationship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/7229/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/7229/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:17:p:7229-:d:408577

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().