A NEW CAIRO?
Egypt’s ruler envisions an oasis in the desert to replace the country’s overcrowded capital,
CAIRO— The road ends abruptly. The search for Egypt’s new capital city leads into the desert, primrose beneath the hazy sky. Workers speed past a white container in the midday heat, a crane rises into the air, and tire marks can be seen in the sand. “You can’t get any closer,” says Sayyad al Sabbagh, pointing into the distance. “From here it’s about 25 kilometres to the right.” A dune swells on the horizon.
Sabbagh is 60 and has worked as a civil servant with Egypt’s building ministry for the past 24 years. He is sitting inside a red pickup truck, map in hand, and says the highway leading to the new Cairo will eventually have four lanes. Inshallah, God willing. For now, the asphalt covering the ground will have to suffice as proof. But it is clear the dream has begun. Getting out of the vehicle is forbidden, as is photography.
The Egyptian government has decided to build a new capital city east of Cairo, smack in the middle of the desert. “A global capital,” the building minister announced in March. At the event, investors from the Gulf states, China and Saudi Arabia gathered around a model of the metropolis, admiring the business quarter, with its Dubai-style skyscrapers, the small residential homes in greenbelts and the soccer stadium. The city is to be situated on 700 square kilometres of land, with an airport larger than London’s Heathrow. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi even wooed investors himself. He recently announced that construction would begin in January.
It is to be a capital created in accordance with the wishes of the country’s leadership elite. It may not fit well with the country as it currently exists, but it will conform to their visions of Egypt’s future: a planned, manageable city conceived from the top down in the same way the pharaohs once created the pyramids. The new Cairo will be a beautiful place, an “innovation centre,” environmentally sustainable and with a high quality of life, city planners are pledging. They want it to be a city where people can breathe without having to cough.
The old Cairo is an ugly city, an affront to the senses. Even as you begin heading into the city from the airport, the buildings are already blackened from pollution. The cacophony of car horns is painful to the ears and during winter months, the smog hangs like thick fog. The city suffers from thrombosis, with streets so crammed with cars they’re like clogged arteries. Yet women in high-heeled shoes saunter along the banks of the Nile smiling. Even though the place seems unbearable, Cairo is loved.
It is a city of contradictions, created from the bottom up although that had never been the intention. It has been growing wildly since the 1960s — from 3.5 million then to 18 million now — against the will of the country’s rulers. Fully 11 million people live in structures that were built illegally, and residential districts continue popping up like weeds in a field. The city centre is becoming increasingly dense to the point that, in one of the city’s largest cemeteries, people have converted burial chambers into living quarters. Cairo is dirty and chaotic, and, of course, it’s a city that gave birth to a revolution.
On the drive back, Sabbagh, the building ministry representative, explains the trouble with Cairo: “Too many Egyptians.” The more people there are, the more trouble. In the coming decades, the population is expected to double to as many as 40 million people, which is why officials want to move people out of the city. The new capital is being planned for up to five million people, and all government ministries and embassies are expected to move.
There’s a logic behind el-Sissi’s fondness for major projects. Only recently, a new Suez Canal was christened with considerable hoopla after being completed in record time, though experts question whether it will ever be profitable. The government largely fi- nanced the project by selling sovereign bonds, with money flowing into a fund called Long Live Egypt. Historian Khaled Fahmy calls it “something to play around (with) for Sissi,” since the funds don’t have any parliamentary controls attached to them.
The people no longer appear to be important now that it has fallen back into its old patterns following the revolution. Parliamentary elections are underway, and yet few are bothering to vote. Turnout in the first round was initially reported at 2 per cent, despite the government giving civil servants a half a day off so they could cast their ballots; in the end, the official figure given was 27 per cent.
El-Sissi, the former military leader who was elected president by an overwhelming majority, changed the election law after entering office. Now, two-thirds of the new parliament will comprise individual candidates who are running as independents and have money to bankroll their campaigns. The new rules favour the rich elite, which tend to favour elSissi. Important opposition movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the revolutionary April 6th Movement, have been banned.
The idea of rethinking the country is hardly novel. el-Sissi is simply following a long tradition. As far back as the 1970s, autocratic Egyptian governments began building satellite cities in the desert. They carried names like Sadat City or Sixth of October City. A New Cairo has existed since 2000. Officials seemed to believe that the construction of new cities could solve all their problems. More than 90 per cent of all Egyptians are packed into the Nile Valley, which represents just a fraction of the country’s total land. The official aim had been for a quarter of the population to live outside the Nile Valley, but today less than 2 per cent do, says U.S. economist and urban planner David Sims, who has written several books about Cairo. Because billions flowed into these projects, there was little left to invest in old Cairo.
The red pickup truck drives past several unfinished construction sites where new suburbs are popping up that, it is hoped, will one day be inhabited by people. There are signs with names such as Hyde Park, Sharouk Gardens or CityGate. Other signs advertise shopping centres with palm tree-lined promenades. “Urban life redefined,” proclaims one billboard. But there are fenced-in vacant lots or estates with “for rent” signs in front. Are all the buildings here empty? “Most,” Sabbagh says. Why? “Many people can’t afford the homes. Besides, they want to live where they work, in Cairo.”
So what’s the point of building a new capital city?
“That’s not my responsibility,” he says. You’ll have to ask somebody higher up.
In a narrow alley in the actual capital, a man sits on a plastic chair. The district is called Ramlet Bulak and it has the reputation of being one of the worst parts in the centre of Cairo, a real slum. Karam Ahmad is drinking tea and smoking. His blacksmith shop is just across the street, and next to it, the entrance to his apartment. His grandfather lived here, his father and his brothers lived here and now his children call it home. He can’t imagine moving to the desert.
The plaster is crumbling, the window bars are bent, a street vendor sells fruit and vegetables. “The homes here may be a little bit rundown,” Ahmad says, “but I love my neighbourhood.”
One street away, trash is piled up in a courtyard and structures are being built on the roofs of buildings. Ahmad says the neighbours have agreed not to throw their trash into the streets and, if need be, he’s also perfectly willing to pick up a broom. While we talk, a cluster of people has grown behind him. “We’re lacking the simplest of things,” a man calls out. “All we want are good streets and schools.”
On the periphery of Cairo, unplanned illegal residential districts are growing rampantly, with millions of people living there. The government largely ignores them and invests little in infrastructure. Although most have access to electricity and water, few other services are offered and sewage and garbage collection is insufficient. Still, Cairo’s impoverished districts aren’t directly comparable to those in other major cities because there is less crime and less filth, in part because local residents have addressed some of the problems on their own.
Community efforts aren’t given much support by the government: on the contrary. Cairo residents don’t even have the right to elect their own mayor; the office is appointed by the government. “There are not too many people in Cairo, nor is there a lack of funds” says Khaled Fahmy. He argues that building a new capital would be a “fiasco.” “The idea is an expression of contempt for the people and history of Cairo,” he says.
Cairo, meanwhile, continues to exude a revolutionary air. Despite repression that has resulted in the arrests of thousands, students continue to protest. And although the masses of protesters, drums, tents and political graffiti at Tahrir Square have disappeared, the urbane, unruly and well-networked populace still poses a threat to any autocratic ruler. That’s what makes the dream of a desert capital so alluring. el-Sissi needs a more secure city that can be controlled more easily. He can’t leave a behemoth like Cairo to its own devices.
The minister hadn’t answered interview requests for weeks, and when I ask a guard if anyone can provide me with information about the new capital, he calls a higher level official. “I’m not authorized to speak,” he says. “I can’t talk about a fish in the sea,” says the next.
In the end, a spokeswoman for the minister agrees to talk. Wafaa Bakry’s office is ice cold. In Cairo, officials’ places in the hierarchy can be determined by the intensity of air-conditioning in their offices — and Bakry must be pretty close to the minister.
Bakry twists in her chair. “The media,” she grumbles, “have misunderstood everything.” She says there will be a bidding process for construction of the new city and that no decisions have been made. She runs her finger under her pink head scarf and scratches her forehead. She adds that the project is expected to cost $43.4 billion (U.S.) during the first stage.
When asked if money has already been found, she says, “None whatsoever so far.” She says she also has no idea where it might come from.
Asked if she thinks the new capital will ever actually get built, she responds, “Absolutely. One hundred per cent. The president has announced it, so it will happen.”
The concept of rethinking Egypt is hardly novel. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is simply following a long tradition. As far back as the 1970s, autocratic Egyptian governments began building satellite cities in the desert