Comprehension: Egypt's 'Terrace Society' Flourishes on Cairo Rooftops

On the roof of a once-grand apartment block overlooking Cairo's Tahrir Square, Shukri Mahmud's father built a humble shack high above, the din, congestion and the worst of the notorious pollution in Africa's biggest metropolis eight floors below.

Watch the video and answer the questions below.  Decide if the statements are True or False.

1. The English and Greeks once owned the building where Shukri lives.
a. True
b. False

2. Shukri's father used to own one of the apartments below.
a. True
b. False

3. 65% of Cairo’s urban development is planned.
a. True
b. False

For transcript and answers see below.

Transcript and Answers:

Cairo congestion is notorious. 
Africa's biggest metropolis is polluted, noisy, and densely populated. 
But you can rise above it. 
Shukri Mahmud lives and sleeps in a parallel world above Egypt's capital city. A world romanticized in the nation's literature as the 'Terrace Society.' 
He has watched generations of residents in the posh apartments below come and go. 
“This place, we didn’t choose it, we were working in it with the first English and Greek owners of this place, I was born here, I grew up here, I got married here, I had my children here, my whole life is here.”
Shukri's father was a doorkeeper for the building and was given a plot on the roof where he could build. 
Other rooftop dwellers are often poor migrants from the countryside who inhabit spaces abandoned by residents moving out to the suburbs. 
Vertical growth has boomed as the capital's population has swelled to what is now a staggering 18 million.
According to researchers, the strain has meant that as much as sixty-five per cent of Cairo's urban development is unplanned.
 “The rooftop inhabitant is very symptomatic of the housing crisis in Egypt, especially in Cairo, but we can also say that it’s an answer to this crisis, it’s an answer to this housing crisis, which is linked to the withdrawal of the state of the urban issues of the urban policies etc."
While it may be common, it certainly isn't an easy life.
 “In winter it rains down on us, and during the summer the sun is very hard, but I have to live here, it wasn’t my choice.”
For now, the perch offers a prime view of a city in the throes of political and economic turmoil.  

Answers:
1. a
2. b
3. b

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