This is Cairo.
Egypt’s largest city and its capital.
For decades it's been home to Egyptian rulers and their palaces.
The Parliament has met in this building for over 150 years.
And this public square in the heart of Cairo has been the site of several revolutions.
But in 2015, the Egyptian government announced the capital would move
about 50 kilometers away...
To this patch of empty desert.
Which is quickly shaping up to be the New Administrative Capital of Egypt.
This is where a new presidential palace will go...
the new Parliament building and a new public square.
Egypt’s government, led by president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi
claims this new city will solve a specific problem:
Cairo’s overpopulation.
But the country has a long history of building new cities to decongest Cairo.
Many of them sit outside the city today.
So, why is Cairo’s population still considered a ticking time bomb?
And what’s the real reason behind this new capital?
There's a population counter outside one of the ministries.
It's mundane, but it also
it's red, flashing lights with these colors is almost always like telling people...
A little too many of you are here.
This is Mohamed Elshahed
an architectural historian who studies urban development in Egypt.
And I find this to be quite a dangerous narrative especially since that's actually not the case.
Egypt's home to more than 100 million people.
And about 20% of them live within the boundaries of Greater Cairo.
The city has one of the highest population densities
in the world
with 153,000 people per square kilometer at its peak.
That’s higher than New York, London, and Shanghai.
What we know as Cairo, today, was officially founded on the banks of the Nile
in the 10th century, as the capital of the Arab Fatimid Caliphate.
The city had to be built near the river
because the rest of the region was barren desert.
Over the next several centuries, each ruler built expansions of Cairo
close to the fertile banks.
The Ottomans built these areas...
and the British added these suburbs during their decades-long occupation of Egypt.
In the 1950s, when the British left and Egypt became a republic
Cairo was by far the biggest city.
In the 50s, 60s and 70s, millions of impoverished Egyptians from the countryside
moved to Cairo in search of opportunities and better living conditions.
But the city that was built haphazardly along the river
wasn't equipped to house more people.
The city sort of was already kind of shaped and demarcated
and the green areas around it were left agricultural.
And it's those areas that were cheap
and close enough to those amenities that allowed then people to step in.
Since the housing that was available was completely not sufficient.
So farmers started selling small slices of their agricultural land to the migrants.
A lot of people have to build for themselves with little money.
So together, so entire families would go vertical on a small plot of land.
These were the first informal and technically illegal neighborhoods.
It's informal because it's not, you know, given licenses for construction.
It's built outside of the economy, that is the “official economy".
And I think this is actually the result of the fact that
the economic system really excluded the majority of the population.
For decades, Egypt's government failed to build affordable housing
or invest in public services and infrastructure to support the explosive growth
in Cairo’s density.
And that meant these unplanned and informal neighborhoods
continued to get more and more crowded until it became a crisis.
"Egypt’s capital is bursting at the seams."
"Cairo is equipped to handle around 3 million, in fact,
it's home to 8 million."
"Housing is an area of desperate need."
"Many people in Cairo live in makeshift shacks
in the city's center and in much worse conditions in the suburbs."
Today, these informal neighborhoods are home to 60% of Cairo’s population.
Most of them are inhabited by the poor
but many have evolved into middle class neighborhoods.
Collectively, these are the most crowded areas of Cairo.
And Egypt’s government, under Sisi, points to them
as the real problem behind Cairo's overcrowding.
I find this to be a very problematic narrative because then we take a question of
let's say, bad design or bad management from a state perspective
and turn the blame on actually the people who are suffering
from the bad design and the bad policies
and say, there's just too many of you.
In fact, the government still considers them illegal, referring to them as slums.
From the point of view of the state, calling an area a slum facilitates its removal.
In 2019, the government announced it would eradicate Cairo's slums by 2030.
Many neighborhoods will be redeveloped as affluent housing
while thousands of residents will be forcibly pushed out of their homes
and into affordable housing outside the city.
But instead of focusing on sufficient affordable housing
they invested billions of dollars in a whole new city elsewhere.
And it's not the first time an Egyptian ruler
has tried to solve the crisis by starting fresh in the desert.
"A building boom is in progress."
"New apartment blocks are going up at a greater rate
since the start of Nasser’s Revolution."
The concept of a new city as a solution for Cairo's growing population began in the 1950s.
The first attempt was under President Gamal Abdel Nasser
who ordered the construction of a new city called Nasr City.
It was also designed to be a new capital at the time.
There would be space for government buildings, markets, and a huge new stadium.
But there was a big flaw.
The plan didn't involve affordable housing
for the people in Cairo's most crowded areas.
The need was for a lot of lower class housing.
But that wasn't going to be placed in the new capital.
Nobody wants to build a shiny new capital and then fill it with low cost housing.
So it's sort of a trend that already starts there.
By the 1970s, Egypt had a new leader, Anwar Sadat
who didn’t end up moving the capitol to Nasr City.
But he really leaned into the trend of building ‘desert cities’.
Starting in 1976, Egypt’s government built 8 new cities
in the desert around Cairo.
Each time they claimed the goal was to alleviate overcrowding.
But, most included only expensive housing.
And barely any featured public transportation
making them inaccessible for anyone without a car.
That’s why today, many of these desert cities are only partially occupied.
Most who have moved here are Cairo’s middle and upper class residents.
That means that the majority of the population that's squeezed in the little green belt
that's now urbanized around the Nile are kind of X’d-out of these developments.
So we're looking at a condition that's a result of
I would say, 3 to 4 decades in particular of
misguided policy that
looks to the outside of the city.
President Sisi is continuing that trend with his new capital.
These areas are designated for housing, but mostly
for middle and upper class residents.
Those people are not moving in with handouts.
They're buying their those properties.
And so the main target audience is, again, a moneyed class.
I think the housing for low-income communities will be included in the capital
but definitely very limited.
All of this land will be used for government buildings
and this section will be a business district
featuring this soon-to-be-tallest building in Africa.
So, if this new capital isn’t really about solving Cairo’s population density crisis
why is the government so determined to build it?
In 2011, protests erupted in Egypt over police brutality.
And they quickly evolved into widespread calls
for the resignation of Egypt’s ruler of 30 years,
Hosni Mubarak.
Demonstrations took place all over Egypt.
But the biggest were in Cairo.
Specifically, Tahrir Square.
It’s been the epicenter of many political demonstrations
since the early 20th century.
Largely because it’s so close to Egyptian government buildings, including the Parliament.
In 2011, millions of people occupied Tahrir Square for 18 days.
They set up roadblocks...
and battled with police.
On February 11, thousands marched from Tahrir Square
to the presidential palace, 10 km away
where they ultimately forced Mubarak to step down.
The ability to control Tahrir Square and inner Cairo
allowed the protestors to effectively paralyze the government.
Making their presence and their demands impossible to ignore.
Sisi remembers that.
He was the head of Egypt’s powerful military when he seized power in 2013
on the heels of the revolution.
Barely a month after taking power
he commanded his soldiers and police to crack down
on protestors who opposed him.
The brutal raid killed more than 800 people.
Ever since, he's been systematically trying to prevent
a revolution that could topple him.
His government has shut down political dissents, punished journalists, and hindered free speech.
Now, they are redesigning several aspects of Cairo
to make the city harder to protest in.
They’ve widened dozens of streets
making it more difficult to erect road-blocks.
And they plan to add 40 bridges
which will give the military and police easier access to the city center.
Sisi’s government has also renovated Tahrir Square
adding giant monuments and private security guards
which, some experts, say will make it harder for large crowds to gather.
Now, they’re taking the final step:
removing the government entirely from Cairo.
Just 7 years after announcing the construction of the new capital
government officials are starting to move into these new buildings.
Once that’s complete, all of Egypt’s political power, including Sisi
will be concentrated here... almost 50 kilometers from Cairo.
And it will all be under heavy guard:
this is the military's sprawling complex nearby.
Even though there is a public square, called the People’s Piazza
it’s hard to imagine millions of people
making the journey from Cairo to demonstrate here.
And that may be the point.
The distance, plus the military presence
will allow Sisi to defend his power in case of an uprising.
So instead of a capital that offers a solution for the people of Cairo
this city is designed to move the government out of their reach.