RUnder the title "The Distorting Luxury of Infinite Space: Egypt's new capital, new cities, and new industrial areas&rdquo; Alternative Policy Solutions project at AUC held an open talk that hosted Mr. David Sims, a housing and urban development specialist. The event was held at the American University in Cairo, Tahrir Square Campus on Sunday March 31, 2019.
The Lecture aimed to discuss Egypt's urban expansion policies, the pre-occupation with mega solutions in the dessert and its future effects. It also addressed the impact of this trend on deepening the industrial sector, housing the burgeoning urban population, and the expansion of existing towns.
<h2 dir="ltr">The summary video:</h2>
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At the beginning of the talk, Mr. Sims discussed a comparative view of Middle Eastern landscape and addressed how the Egyptian scheme differs from other Arab countries such as Dubai. He pointed out that Egypt&rsquo;s desert should be a gift; however, given the urban development policies in Egypt, it might be a curse.
Then, he draw a base line of the Egyptian historical changes in its landscape since 60s until now. Also, he gave a detailed explanation of all spatial realities; such as Infrastructure costs, both capital and recurrent, energy and carbon footprint costs, mobility costs presented in workers and goods. Add to this he indicated the livelihood costs such as businesses, social services and social capital and he clearly pointed out that those costs cannot be erased by new technologies.
After addressing those costs, Sims emphasized that if the Egyptian government neglect all those factors, this will lead to a distorting effect on the country&rsquo;s main national policies.
Also, the effects will force the government to compromise its own spatial plans, and consequently will have a negative impact on economic growth and &ndash; especially &ndash; &lsquo;shared prosperity.
As Sims argument goes, there are three main pillars that will be impacted by the mega solutions in the deserts that are under constructions without a real visibility studies. The first pillar is the new towns. Sims pointed out that Egypt has 22 new existing countries. 7 new towns around Cairo and 14 new towns elsewhere. He also addressed the main features of those towns around Cairo such as planning standards, and the very common patchy development. He also addressed the affordability of housing in those areas by upper middle class and rich only. He pointed out that despite the tremendous speculative investment, 60 to 80% of housing are dominating the scheme. Add to this, the attempts at affordable social housing are creating remote mono-form housing estates. Nevertheless, he addressed the dilemma of mobility, which in this case, is exclusively by private car or minibus. &nbsp;He also pointed out the significant commercial, office, and services success; however, there is a little street life with no functioning public spaces, except for those in malls and shopping centers. Then, Sims discussed the success of those towns in Egypt in terms of the increase of the population numbers in those towns, which recorded more than doubling and actually representing increase of 6% of the population of Greater Cairo, and in terms of releasing the pressures on existing Cairo, which was according to Sims &ldquo;Hardly at all&rdquo;. On the other side, Sims evaluated the new towns outside Cairo by the same characteristic with which he evaluated the success of towns around Cairo, and the same results were spotted. &nbsp;
The second pillar that Sims addressed is the New Administrative Capital. According to Sims, the New Capital is the new trend that following Dubai as a role module to follow.
The new capital is occupying in the desert and actually pointed out that it is as large as Los Anglos City and twice New York City. In this context, he questioned how people are going to commute from and to the city. Add to this, he addressed the great impact that the city will have on our natural resources such as environment, water and energy. In a comparative preview, Sims pointed out that Dubai model differs from the Egyptian one since Dubai has access to endless financial resources that would allow them to import foreign experts to build and maintain the city; however, in Egypt the situation is on the other verge. On another note, Sims clarified that unlike new towns, the New Capital Administrative city has no social housing and it targets the 10 -15 % rich part of the population. Also, it generates a very low quality of jobs that has no real impact on the economic growth.&nbsp;
As for the third pillar of Sims&rsquo; talk, the new industrial zones, he said that this zone still needs progressive development. He emphasized that strong, competitive and productive manufacturing, and related activities are Egypt&rsquo;s only hope. However, to date the record is abysmal: few dynamic subsectors, few exports, lost niches. Also, he pointed out that manufacturing as a share of GDP and of the labor force has been declining steadily. Add to this he claimed the sector has no depth in terms of most subsectors, half of raw material and intermediate inputs are imported, and so is all machinery. &nbsp;On another side, Sims said that Industrial zones are galore, mostly unsuitable, poorly serviced, and empty.&nbsp;
In this regard, he pointed out that favorable investment policies are needed, plus good regional roads and ports shall be provided. &nbsp;He said the government should roll out of more and more industrial areas, larger and larger, in more and more remote areas. Also, Policy makers should pay attention to roll out of numerous other land hungry zones: logistics centers, dry ports, warehousing complexes, etc.&nbsp;
killing those areas and make no use of them. He also highlighted two factors that are so related to industrial developments &ldquo;SMEs and job creation&rdquo;.&nbsp;&nbsp; Sims assured that governments and policy makers know that key factors for any deepening the industrial sector are SMEs and job creation. And actually Egypt started to pay attention for them and is on the path on creating more and more legalization that would help in encouraging informal SMEs to join the formal sector. However, entrepreneurs are unlikely to trust this cycle because of the bureaucracy and dealing with government workers. As for the job creation part, Sims said that Egypt has a great source in its human resources specially the work forces in Egypt are cheap. However; the far distances for those cities and the long hours of commuting, make businesses owners prefer to relay more on the machinery massive production tools rather than human factor.
The talk gave the chance for the audience to ask David some questions.
<h2 dir="ltr">Watch the full discussion here:&nbsp;</h2>
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