Cairos billboard epidemic

Anyone can put anything anywhere, said Tarek Waly,an architecture and heritage specialist who has worked with the government to write guidelines to restrict outdoor advertising. You have to control it to save the image of the city.

The billboards have sharply altered the landscape of a city once defined by mosque domes and minarets and historic architecture. They have bred new landmarks,like the Coca-Cola building in Tahrir Square. The helter-skelter scene has underscored some of the fundamental problems this nation faces,including a growing class divide between the rich and the poor,where the rich can pretty much do whatever their money will buy,no matter how it affects the poor.

The billboard epidemic,which has grown acute in the past two years,is at least one of the unintended consequences of the macroeconomic growth Egypt has experienced in recent years. The problem surged as money and ambition coursed through streets where rules are generally seen as obstacles to be circumvented,and rights are proportional to power,connections and money.

It is all done in such a chaotic and arbitrary manner because everything now is for saleso why not stick a billboard everywhere? said Belal Fadl,a scriptwriter and social commentator.

That is pretty much what has happened. Every five metres you have a billboard, said Nabih Mansour,a longtime resident of the Maadi neighbourhood,south of the citys centre.

The roads leading out of the city are heavy with signage aimed at the well-to-do who have increasingly moved into walled compounds isolated from the disorder of the centre. But pick a neighbourhood in town,and the billboards are likely to overwhelm,too. Start in Mohandeseen,a middle-class area with tall buildings,wide roads,shops and cafes. Entering from the May 15th Bridge,drivers are greeted by a billboard promoting a new exclusive community: New Giza,where life begins. The message is simple: Live better,leave the city.

Inevitably,traffic grinds to a horn-honking halt on Ahmed Oraby Street. And there,on this day,Nadia Abdel Hadi,38,stepped into traffic because the sidewalk was blocked with six-foot-tall billboards about every 25 feet. They dont care if I walk,if I dont walk,they dont care, Hadi said as she made her way home. For the government,as long as it brings in money,they dont care.

The government definitely realises that something needs to be done. A few years ago President Hosni Mubarak issued a decree aimed at restoring some semblance of order to the city by creating the National Organisation for Urban Harmony,a name offered without any sense of irony. As is often the case here,even with the best of intentions,there was virtually no follow-up.

Instead,billboard mania took off. Officials said that governors of Egypts regions control what spaces were sold for advertisements. All over greater Cairo,government officials issued licences permitting advertisers to mount billboards all around.

In 2009,Parliament adopted a unified building code,including a provision for the harmony group to issue legally binding billboard guidelines. A manual was completed a few months ago and now,according to the guidelines,an awful lot of what is out there is technically illegal.

But then it is also illegal to smoke in public places.