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The real reason Egypt is moving its capital
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3,340,217 Views • Sep 7, 2022 • Click to toggle off description
Cairo isn’t the problem.

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In 2017, Egypt’s government announced it would build a new capital city 45 kilometers outside of Cairo, the current capital. It was a shocking announcement since Cairo, a city of more than 10,000,000 people, has been the capital of Egypt for decades.

The government claims that Cairo has become too overcrowded and that moving the capital will give both Cairo’s residents and government workers more space. But this excuse is not new. For decades, Egypt’s rulers have been building brand new cities in the desert. None of them have solved Cairo’s density issue. And based on how construction is going, this new capital won’t be a solution either.

So why does Egypt want a new capital? Well, it has a lot to do with the political revolution in 2011.

Watch this episode of Vox Atlas to understand the real reason behind Egypt’s giant new capital city.

Sources:

Mohamed Elshahed’s extensive expertise on architectural history and urbanism helped us understand why creating new cities and communities doesn’t actually improve livelihoods in Cairo:

Nasr City was once Egypt’s new capital, but things went wrong:
cairobserver.com/post/114391196879/nasr-city-was-o…
Revolutionary Modernism? Architecture and the Politics of Transition in Egypt 1936-1967:
www.proquest.com/openview/e199f143de3d7dc0a53ea314…

For historical maps of Cairo, we mainly relied on these three books:

Understanding Cairo: The Logic of a City Out of Control by David Sims
books.google.com/books/about/Understanding_Cairo.h…
Egypt’s Desert Dreams: Development or Disaster by David Sims
books.google.com/books/about/Egypt_s_Desert_Dreams…
Cairo by André Raymond
www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674009967

We used this report by LSE cities to compare densities between major cities at 1:52:

lsecities.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Final-Dev…

For the map at 5:05, we used an updated informal cities map created by Ahmed Zaazaa, a researcher and urban designer. For the demolitions and displacement locations, we used press clippings from Egypt Today and maps from the Cairo 2050 plan. Not all locations are shown.

www.egypttoday.com/Article/Search?title=slums
cairofrombelow.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/cairo-2…

These three links helped us create the diagram at 6:42 that shows the population target gaps in Greater Cairo’s new cities:

The Built Environment Observatory: marsadomran.info/en/facts_budgets/2016/11/485/
City Population: www.citypopulation.de/en/egypt/cities/
Egypt census data: egypt.opendataforafrica.org/tadpaqg

These two pieces helped guide the direction of our video:

The Sinister Side of Sisi’s Urban Development by Maged Mandour
carnegieendowment.org/sada/84504
Why is Egypt building a new capital by Mustafa Menshaway
www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/7/5/why-is-egypt-b…

And a special thanks to the many others based in Cairo who helped us research for this video. Unfortunately, their names could not be listed due to safety concerns.

Make sure you never miss behind-the-scenes content in the Vox Video newsletter, sign up here: vox.com/video-newsletter

Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out www.vox.com/

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Views : 3,340,217
Genre: News & Politics
Date of upload: Sep 7, 2022 ^^


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YouTube Comments - 4,548 Comments

Top Comments of this video!! :3

@Vox

1 year ago

This is an episode of Vox Atlas, where we demonstrate where conflicts occurs on a map and the ways in which foreign policy shapes a region. Watch more episodes of Atlas here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ8cMiYb3G5e4MOmzf-piIW…

936 |

@Fusilier7

1 year ago

So basically, Egypt's new capital is the new Versailles, which was more than just the palace, it was the administrative capital of the Kingdom of France. The king was then followed by other aristocrats, who built their mansions away from Paris, some around Versailles, while others were in more remote locations, effectively abandoning the poor to squalour and neglect in Paris. Although the nobility could forget the poor, the poor never forgot the nobility, so when the revolution occurred, they marched all the way to Versailles, and laid siege to the estate, forcing the royals to surrender. If history is a guild, Egypt's new capital will not make long outstanding problems go away, there is no distance far enough for the oligarchy to escape revolutionaries, justice is patient.

11K |

@hugonordin

1 year ago

How considerate of them to include a new revolution square.

5.9K |

@pliska6819

1 year ago

I remember visiting Egypt with my family in the late 90s and remember that the economic situation of the country was pretty good. They had a quite strong pound (circa $1 = 3 EGP) and pretty calm atmosphere and remember the people were not that commercialised. The last time we went in 2018, we were pretty shocked how things have drastically changed. It became so overcrowded, polluted and chaotic. According to some random locals we spoke with, the current government is literally working against its own population and not to mention the opression and suffocation caused on a daily basis especially by the police. Also why change Cairo, which is a city so full of history and character to a souless, artificial capital where all the elite will live? This will create nothing but social segregation and tensions, in my humble opinion. Of course, the choice is entirely theirs. It's a pity how such a beautiful country with very rich history is being destroyed by the mafia politicians (similar to many Balkan countries for example).

1.4K |

@rodrigodurco

1 year ago

in Brasil we had a similar experience; they made Brasília a city with extremely wide streets and squares to make it harder (but not impossible, as we recently saw) to gather protesters; while in Rio, the old capital, the narrow streets surrounding Catete palace would be easily filled with people. it’s all about moving the power away from us.

101 |

@janeteholmes

1 year ago

The creation of Versailles, 12 miles from Paris, was one of the factors leading to the French Revolution. It isolated the king from the people so he had no idea what was really happening in Paris. Ignoring the peasants is risky.

3.2K |

@expandedhistory

1 year ago

One of the worries for me in this plan is that they are bound to create another traffic nightmare: The seperation of residential areas from commercial areas. If you give people the opportunity to walk to work or walk to the shops, they will do it. That has been proven over and over again. But if you force people to drive by only offering flats/houses far away from their place of work, traffic will become a problem eventually. You can somewhat counteract that problem with good public transport, but even the best public transport will not fix bad city design.

5.1K |

@kenosabi

1 year ago

You know the Iranian shah, French royalty, etc ... also lived in isolated palaces. It had the opposite effect that Sisi is looking for -- it angered the people even more. It acted as greater motivation and didn't deter the revolution, it fueled it. It made it easier for the serfs to look around and realize just how out of touch and how different royalties life is compared to the people.

28 |

@sararefaat2465

1 year ago

Very accurate analysis of what’s currently happening in Egypt…very unfortunate but very true! Thank you for sharing and raising awareness!

76 |

@terramater

1 year ago

There's another unknown ticking time-bomb in Cairo: water - or the lack thereof. We've spent a lot of time researching the Nile droughts, Middle Eastern water scarcity and solutions for it, while working on our Nile and desalination videos, and... it doesn't look good: artificial upscale urban developments in the desert mean diverting huge amounts of water away from the city where it is badly needed.

3K |

@LouieGrind

1 year ago

One of the rare cities where it's more affordable to live in the center of the city than outside. Extremely fascinating!

1.3K |

@Master-X-D

1 year ago

As an Egyptian I want to thank you for highlighting this

163 |

@mohammednasser2159

1 year ago

Several times in the past couple of years, there were protest attempts but it was easily shut down by the law enforcement. Tahrir Square now is crowded by police officers wearing civilian clothing and asking pedestrians about where are they going. And even search their phones and check social media for anti-government posts. Happened to me and alot of my friends. It's really inhumane.

276 |

@douglasfariaxp

1 year ago

It was one of the reasons that they built Brasilia city as a new capital in Brazil. Brasilia was designed for driving, not for walking.

420 |

@joeyjojojrshabadoo7462

1 year ago

Historically if the capital city gets moved it's usually a bad sign. If it gets moved to middle of nowhere it's a usually a really bad sign.

384 |

@Lightfyre

9 months ago

As an egyptian, im sad im still poor

6 |

@shaynelin2660

1 year ago

Educational and informative. Thank you for all the hard work.

5 |

@johanburet5041

1 year ago

That was one of the main point of the palace of Versailles, being a bit removed from Paris. In the end, it prevented nothing.

364 |

1 year ago

This is the exactly same thing that happened here in Brazil. The government moved the capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia, a "desert" like place that is harder for the majority of the people to reach and protest.

614 |

@diegoknack1849

8 months ago

In Brazil, Brasilia has been built in the sixties with similar purpose. For an example, less than 4 years after its inauguration, a military coup happened. In Rio de Janeiro, the former capital, it would have been much more difficult, as we can state by observing the fact that there was some atttempts that fail, such in 1954, 1955.

2 |

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