government housing projects and the drive to establish major industries in the suburbs, intensified Cairo's over-urbanization. But when, in the late 1960s, Nasser began to concentrate the nation's resources on the war with Israel (and other aspects of Nasser's Pan-Arab aspirations) "Cairo's infrastructure was not properly maintained, let alone expanded to keep up with continuing population growth" (Ibrahim 214). Anwar Sadat's de-socialization of Egypt "let loose private developers and speculators" in Cairo and the "rapid and frantic urbanization in Cairo" continued under an alliance of "the old bourgeoisie and landlords; the nouveau rich [sic] who made their fortunes in Arab countries or from shady activities; and leaders of public sector corporations" (Ibrahim 215). The dominance of this group led to the decline in the fortunes of the "vast lower middle class, junior bureaucrats and urban working class" whose increasing struggle to survive has only been exacerbated by continuing privatization and neglect of the public sector under Hosni Mubarak (since 1981) who has concentrated a large percentage of public resources on the suppression of militant, often terrorist, Islamic groups who wish to overthrow the state.
Cairo's unchecked growth was encouraged by the socialized state that held out a promise of support that has seldom been met. Yet because the principal source of power and opportunity in Egypt continued to be Cairo, the population continued to grow. This resulted in the classic dilemma of over-urbanization in which "urban labor supply tends to expand more rapidly than urban labor demand [which] limits the growth of urban wages and incomes, especially for unskilled workers" and "the demand for urban services expands more rapidly than their supply" (Sobhi 227). Thus Cairo's development, based on a combination of rural migration and natural growth, has taken place in an environment where basic needs--such as fresh water, ...