About 50 kilometers east of the current capital of Egypt, Cairo, a new city is being actively built in the desert, which should become the administrative capital of the country. Construction began in 2016, and now its first phase is almost completed. It is planned that the second one will begin in the last quarter of 2024.
When the construction is completed, about 6.5 million people are expected to be able to accommodate almost 700 square kilometers. Now more than one and a half thousand families have already moved to the new capital of Egypt, and by the end of this year their number may increase to 10 thousand. The Egyptian authorities explain the need to build a new capital by the urgent need to relieve the incredibly overpopulated Cairo, which has one of the highest population densities in the world — up to 50,000 people per square mile (2.59 km2).
In addition to the incredible crowding, another problem in Cairo is extremely polluted air. As promised, this problem will not be in the new city — it is planned to create many green areas there, and construction of a park has already begun, the area of which should double the area of Central Park in New York. However, it is still unclear how the irrigation system will be arranged in this park, given that the city is located in the desert, and there is a shortage of water for irrigation in the country as a whole.
Among other things, the Egyptian authorities expect that over time the new city will turn not only into the administrative center of the country, but also into a major global financial and business center. The city has already built the tallest skyscraper in Africa and the largest mosque in the Middle East, ministries and other government agencies are gradually being transferred here, the head offices of banks and the headquarters of large Egyptian and international companies are moving.
In 2023, the new and old capitals were connected by an electric train, on which about 48 thousand officials now travel to and from work. Since March, sessions of the Egyptian parliament have also begun to take place in the new capital.
Meanwhile, the project to build a new capital is being criticized, including for the fact that the money allocated to it (the cost of the project is estimated at about $ 58 billion) could be spent on solving the problems of the old, already existing capital, that is, Cairo. Infrastructure renovation, reconstruction of dilapidated housing stock, construction of new houses, and other steps could well make the ancient city a more acceptable place to live, experts say.
Alas, Cairo is very far from the top twenty richest cities in the world.
The author of the text:Tatyana Shcheglova
According to CNN materials.
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