2 nd Conference on Municipal Action from Legislation to Implementation 24-25 April 2007 Ajman UAE 1 Urban sustainability: Assessment of resources mobilization potentials for informal areas upgrading, case study Alexandria Egypt Mohamed A. Abdrabo )*( and Mahmood A. Hassaan )**( Abstract The concept of sustainability has moved from the realm of the environment and natural resources into the arena of urban areas management. Such a move meant that sustainability, from the urban areas management perspective, represents a general framework within which urban areas management would operate in a way ensuring harmonization between economic, social and environmental aspects in these areas. It is well known that all developing countries are suffering, with varying magnitude, from rapid rates of informal areas expansion in their main urban centers. The magnitude of informal areas and their problems are considered to be a real threat to urban sustainability. Therefore, one of the MDGs, proposed as means to ensure sustainability, states that noticeable improvement in the living conditions of no less than 100 million inhabitants of the informal areas should be attained by the year 2015. It could be argued that, taking into account the limited resources available to governments of developing countries and the considerably deteriorated conditions in informal areas, such an objective can not be attained. Therefore there is an urgent need to explore the potentials for mobilizing local resources, i.e. of those to benefit from such improvements, for the purpose of supporting possible upgrading schemes in these areas. This would also mean that local government agencies have to carefully consider the need for changing their role from a provider into an enabler. In Egypt, the problem of informal areas has reached a massive magnitude with a total of 1034 areas, covering by 1995, an area of about 344 km 2 , accommodating 11.56 million inhabitants, representing about 37% of total urban population. Accordingly, the government has attempted, since the early 1990s, to deal with these areas either by removal of areas that could not be upgraded or upgrading those of reasonable housing and living conditions. Such upgrading programs usually involved massive costs and substantial technical work and has constrained by the patterns and nature of these settlements. This paper intends to assess, from sustainable urbanization, the potential for local resources mobilization as one of the means to deal with the issue of informal areas. For this purpose, it begins by reviewing demographic change experienced in Alexandria governorate. This is followed by assessing the status of informal areas there, and then examining the impact of government actions on informal areas in terms of both controlling their growth and improving their socioeconomic and environmental conditions. It was found that, the unsolicited characteristics of these areas, including deteriorated housing conditions, which are compounded by overcrowding and exposure to urban wastes and pollution, did not experience any marked improvements with current upgrading programs conducted by the government. It was also found that there is a potential local resources mobilization for upgrading schemes, which, it could be argued, could be enhanced if coupled with a legalization program for the area. )*( Associate Professor, Department of Environmental studies, Institute of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Alexandria mabdarbo@cedare.org.eg )**( Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts (Damanhour Branch), Alexandria University mhassaan@hotmail.eg