Planning for Low-Carbon Urban Futures in Greater Cairo Region

Rapidly urbanizing regions in the Global South face a critical challenge: balancing development with sustainability amidst institutional fragmentation and data scarcity. Static, blueprint-style master planning has proven inadequate for navigating this complexity. This paper addresses this challenge in Giza Governorate, a core component of the Greater Cairo Metropolitan Region, where decades of planned decentralization have paradoxically intensified greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and spatial inequities. This study develops and applies an integrated, participatory scenario-planning framework to evaluate three distinct 2050 growth strategies: Centralized Intensification, Strategic Desert Expansion, and Transportation Corridor Development. The framework integrates geospatial analysis (Support Vector Machine-based Land Use/Land Cover classification, K-means clustering), stakeholder co-production of scenarios, and a multi-criteria evaluation using a Planning Support System (INDEX 4.0) and Multi-Attribute Utility Analysis (MAUA) to assess impacts on GHG emissions, land use efficiency, and travel behavior. The analysis provides robust evidence that the Centralized Intensification scenario, which prioritizes compact, infill development, is the superior strategy for minimizing GHG emissions and maximizing spatial efficiency. Conversely, the Strategic Desert Expansion model, despite its policy prevalence, performs worst on environmental metrics due to its low-density, auto-dependent urban form. The findings present a clear, evidence-based rationale for policymakers in Greater Cairo and similar metropolitan regions to shift from peripheral expansion towards strategic densification. More broadly, this research demonstrates a transferable, adaptive planning methodology that can effectively navigate uncertainty and data limitations to guide cities toward more resilient and sustainable futures.