In the wake of Egypt’s 2011 uprising, Cairo witnessed a remarkable fluorescence of research, activism, and intervention, much of it undertaken by newly empowered “professional elites” working in the creative industries. These non-state actors seized on the post-uprising farāgha–or opening–created by the country’s ongoing political turmoil to launch a range of urban initiatives that would have once been impossible to pursue given the government’s labyrinthine bureaucracy and systematic repression of “civil society.” Although these interventions took myriad forms–from street festivals and walking tours to heritage conservation projects and public art installations–many were committed to engaging local residents through a framework of “participatory urbanism.” This paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Cairo since 2014 to explore the sociopolitical valences of this interest in “community participation.” I focus on a workshop organized by Megawra, an Egyptian NGO tackling issues of urban upgrading in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Historic Cairo, and Cairo Urban Sketchers, a group of architects who host sketching tours across the city and who have been Megawra’s frequent collaborators. Held in 2016, this collaborative event brought together graphic designers, architects, and local residents in an attempt to generate mural designs for an empty lot that Megawra was converting into a community football pitch. Through an analysis of the workshop’s meetings, I demonstrate how urban-focused “creative practices” built around the concept of participatory urbanism attempt to engender new ways of “being in common” among Cairo’s residents. Such activities thus enable their organizers to “imagine and enact radically different futures” in the present–even amidst the Egyptian government’s aggressive efforts to crush political activism and dissent (Larner 2014). My paper thus offers an ethnographically¬–grounded exploration of creative urbanism as a “site of politics” and a field of action that attempts to challenge entrenched political structures and transform political subjectivities.