We should look at how to rebuild with residents of informal settlements and benefit from the positives that their communities created, not try to demolish their homes, a controversial video from Mind’s Eye suggests (runtime: 3:30). Our view of informal settlements is “classist” and “elitist,” and people living in informal settlements have a right to the city, the video argues. It notes that informal settlements house two-thirds of Cairo’s residents. The majority of those settlements are not shanty towns, but rather building blocks that remain informal because of issues surrounding real estate ownership. Those settlements did not account for population density, building codes, or health standards generally but they remain pedestrian-friendly, provide quick access to economic centres, and have low consumption of energy. “We are trying to run away from them … to marginalise and ignore those residents until we can move them to housing projects in the desert” without paying attention to their family networks and economic livelihoods, the video posits. H/t Cairobserver.