Change is both a glacial process and an overnight phenomenon, as all of us have learned in the past decade. That’s the key thing to keep in mind as we draw our series to a close, asking in our fifth and final installment: When all is said and done, what can we do?

It starts with a change in mindset

It’s not enough to talk about capacity building, regulatory change and intra-agency coordination. If we’re going to make a dent in the average of four hours that each Cairene spends in transit each day and the number of homes needed for them, we need to change how we think about the housing and urban planning policies as well as governance at both the national and municipal levels.

A change in mindset starts with a clear-headed approach to policy, and as with anything, it’s less a case of coming up with a new solution as it is adapting proven strategies to our Egyptian reality. Charles Euchner, editor and writer at the Yale School of Management, is the man who coordinated Boston’s first citywide planning process back in 1965. As he sees it, the three tenets of a good urban plan are strong support from the central authority; a clear definition of the plan; and a rigorous process that involves broad engagement from all stakeholders, including the public and private sectors, civil society and professional organizations.

Boston isn’t Cairo, we all know that. But when it comes to housing policies that can have a transformative effect on cities, the rules of the game are largely universal. Take Mexico, an example very similar to our own emerging-market reality, and you’ll see how transformation in the country’s housing sector began when the authorities took serious steps in 2012 with a new approach to housing and urban policy.

Tap here to learn how Mexico did it in the fifth and final instalment in our series — and find out why embracing your inner Keynesian, finding the “missing middle,” working on pricing and creating a local tax base could be among the solutions we deploy to save our beloved city.

** This is part five of a five-part series by SODIC, a leading real estate developer and proud sponsor of Enterprise, in which the company shares its views on how business and government can work together to save Cairo — doing good for more than 20 mn people and making a reasonable profit at the same time. We hope you’ve enjoyed the series and would welcome comments and feedback on editorial@enterprise.press.

** Read the full series:

• Part 1: Why is your day in Cairo so hard — and what can we do about it?
• Part 2: Egypt’s real housing sector: Market-based informality
• Part 3: There’s a reason middle-income housing doesn’t exist — here’s how the government can fix it
• Part 4: Mythbuster: Land registration has nothing to do with why Egypt doesn’t have a large-scale mortgage system