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Egypt unveils plans to build new capital east of Cairo

Egypt unveils plans to build new capital east of Cairo

13 March 2015

Read More: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31874886

Quote:

The Egyptian government has announced plans to build a new capital to the east of the present one, Cairo. Housing Minister Mostafa Madbouly said the project would cost $45bn (£30bn) and take five to seven years to complete. He said the aim was to ease congestion and overpopulation in Cairo over the next 40 years.

- Mr Madbouly said the population of greater Cairo, estimated at about 18 million, was expected to double within 40 years. The Egyptian parliament and its government departments and ministries, as well as foreign embassies, would move to the new metropolis, he said. "We are talking about a world capital," he added. --- Developers say the new city - the name of which has not been revealed - would include almost 2,000 schools and colleges and more than 600 health care facilities. They say the project will create more than a million jobs. It is planned to be built over 700 sq km (270 sq miles) and house about five million residents.

- Planners say the proposed city's site "is situated along the corridor between Cairo and the Red Sea, providing linkages to significant shipping routes. It will be built by Capital City Partners, a private real estate investment fund led by Emirati Mohamed Alabbar. Dubai businessman Mr Alabbar built the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. --- "It is a natural extension for the city of Cairo," Mr Alabbar told the BBC, saying that the new development would sit on the edge of the existing city.

- The new capital is as yet unnamed, but it sounds like an Egyptian version of Shangri La. It's being billed as a smart sustainable city, on a grand scale. If and when it's completed - and that could take years - it will be about the size of Singapore, with an airport larger than Heathrow. The idea is to lure Egyptians away from the chaotic sprawl of Cairo - where congestion and pollution seem as constant as the waters of the Nile. --- The authorities say it will spark a renaissance in the economy. Perhaps, but many here recall other flagship projects - which stalled in the past. Egyptian bureaucracy can be as enduring as the pyramids.

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http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...7_81639436.jpg

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image..._026305494.jpg

Cairo's a fascinating place... massively dense, highrises everywhere, like a Saharan Sao Paulo.

If you're going to build a city from scratch you think you'd do something more innovative and worthwhile.

It's the problem with Dubai, for all the money that was spent, the planning of the city is terrible.

The article says the new capital will sit on the "edge" of Cairo. In other words, it won't really be a new city at all but an extension of the Cairo urban area.

I know it seems like a good strategy for alleviating congestion and pollution, but doesn't relocating a capital—at least in this day and age—counterintuitively increase those problems? If the new capital is built to both 1) better accommodate the automobile and 2) reduce population density (out of the misbegotten belief that crowded cities are worse for one's health, the environment, etc.), they might be able to achieve more "personal space" for the individual but at the expense of transit congestion (at least when the city reaches maximum capacity) and pollution created by goods and services traveling longer distances to reach the same number of people that they did in Cairo—not to mention the other inefficiencies created by decentralization.

Wouldn't Egypt be better off taking the money that they would spend on building a new city from scratch and using it to improve Cairo's existing infrastructure?

Just like 'new Tampa'.

I checked out Google Earth and there is already a "New Cairo" to the east of Cairo. So this will be New New Cairo.

I'm surprised that no one in this thread has yet recognized the political motivations here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 10023 (Post 6950915)

I'm surprised that no one in this thread has yet recognized the political motivations here.

Oh, do enlighten us!

Well, just like the ulterior motives ascribed to Baron Haussmann's renovation of Paris, a new capital that is more spread out and auto-oriented is also harder to protest and riot in. That's not to say it doesn't happen - lots of protesting in Rio and Sao Paulo recently despite the capital being moved to the auto-oriented Brasilia decades ago. But it doesn't shut down the government when that happens.

Political motivations aside, this fits into a much larger and longer-term movement to decentralize Cairo. The city as a whole is denser than Manhattan at 40000 p/km^2, with older neighborhoods in the 60000-100000 p/km^2 range. However, it has none of the infrastructure of Manhattan - just three overtaxed subway lines providing poor coverage to the city as a whole, and a confusing network of buses on massively congested roads.

It doesn't surprise me that they feel the need to decentralize into the desert. It should be done at responsible density levels with appropriate transit infrastructure and measures to conserve energy, however, and the plans I've seen have been more reminiscent of Dubai or China-style planning than French or Canadian.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jasoncw (Post 6950870)

You can't buy taste

The Cairo subway system is woefully inadequate. they need to invest in it in a dramatic way. I've ridden it a few times and yeah its insanely crowded (plus no AC!) and far too short.

Hopefully they will build a subway system in the new city. Seems the money spent on building the new city would be better spent on improving infrastructure in Cairo itself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 10023 (Post 6950915)

I'm surprised that no one in this thread has yet recognized the political motivations here.

Yeah, where are all the tenements and giant, protest-friendly squares? :)

There is absolutely a political motivation for this (in addition to an economic one). We are talking about moving the capital of a nation that just recently overthrew its government by way of massive, crisis-inducing popular protest. And we can't have that happen again.

Or they could save a lot of time and money by simply building over the existing squares for protests.

So Cairo has a subway system about the size of Toronto's but with 4 times the ridership, yeah... that's crowded and inadequate. Although I would think they could solve that for less than $45 billion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eightball (Post 6951004)

No AC?! That's rough.

Website: http://thecapitalcairo.com/index.html

Quote:

.....

- If completed, the currently nameless city would span 700 sq km (a space almost as big as Singapore), house a park double the size of New York’s Central Park, and a theme park four times as big as Disneyland – all to be completed within five to seven years.

- According to the brochure, there will be exactly 21 residential districts, 25 “dedicated districts”, 663 hospitals and clinics, 1,250 mosques and churches, and 1.1m homes housing at least five million residents.

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http://thecapitalcairo.com/img/content/vision-02.jpg

http://thecapitalcairo.com/img/content/vision-05.jpg

http://thecapitalcairo.com/img/content/vision-06.jpg

where is the money for this coming from?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ryanrule (Post 6953769)

where is the money for this coming from?

I was thinking the same thing. Their economy is in tatters. Unemployment of young men is sky high resulting in civil unrest. Where are all these people (5 million) going to come from to occupy the new city? Relocated from old Cairo?