Egypt's population needs to move away from its conventional concentration areas around the Nile Valley. About 95 per cent of Egyptians live on merely five per cent of the country's area. Take for example Greater Cairo, a city that remains a thorn in the side of planners. None of Cairo's urban planning schemes has been appropriately implemented. All we did was link the capital with several satellite cities that still depend on the centre for survival. Now I hear people suggesting palliative measures, such as linking the new cities to central Cairo with metro lines and other forms of public transportation. Frankly, this is not the solution.
We're already spending millions on flyovers and tunnels. And yet our traffic is still as congested as ever and pollution is killing us. Why we haven't built a green belt around the city, instead of letting the outskirts turn into a jungle of cement, is beyond me. Satellite cities are not the solution. Even though many of them have factories and job opportunities, they remain dormitories, places from which people commute to the centre everyday.
The only solution is for a new capital to be created. We need to put an end to the cancerous growth of Cairo, a mega-city in which 20 per cent of the nation live. Let's make a new capital, complete with science and business parks, rich in entertainment and culture and strong in its appeal and economy. Let's have a new capital with sophisticated communication, proper transportation systems, and reliable amenities. Leave Cairo alone and it will become a better place. Cairo's only hope is to be replaced as the nation's capital.
This week's speaker is a professor of urban planning at Alexandria University.