This may have been asked before, and I have seen similar solutions… Perhaps I am thinking about this incorrectly.
I would like to have one link called user/edit if the user is an admin it should route to admin_ if they are a basic user it should route to user_ etc… Is there a way to do this in a slick way?
I have seen solutions that kind of do the opposite like type in user/admin_edit and it takes you to user/edit…
You will want to take a look at prefix routing.
http://book.cakephp.org/view/544/Prefix-Routing
Combine this with Cakes built in Auth/ACL and you should have no problem.