Egypt is building a vast new capital city in the desert, a bold project designed to ease pressure on overcrowded Cairo.
But is it a vision of the future, or a vanity project serving more authoritarian goals?
As skyscrapers rise, so do the questions about who this city is really for.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English, the show where you can listen to fascinating stories and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today is part two of our three-part mini-series on Modern Egypt.
[00:00:28] In part one, in case you missed it, we talked about the Egyptian Revolution, how Mubarak was toppled, and how what ultimately came next wasn’t all that different.
[00:00:40] In part three, we will talk about the murder of the Italian PhD student, Giulio Regeni, almost certainly at the hands of the Egyptian police.
[00:00:51] And today, in part two, we are going to talk about Egypt’s plan to build a new administrative capital in the middle of the desert.
[00:01:01] Is it bold and necessary?
[00:01:03] Is it foolish and a waste of money, or is it simply a way for President Sisi to make sure he doesn’t end up like Mubarak?
[00:01:12] Let’s not waste a minute and find out.
[00:01:17] It’s hard to overstate quite how big Cairo is.
[00:01:22] By some measures, it’s the sixth most populous city in the world, with over 21 million people.
[00:01:30] It’s also one of the world’s most densely populated cities, with the Cairo urban area having 10,000 people per kilometre squared.
[00:01:41] As a point of reference, this number for Paris is 3,800.
[00:01:47] Cairo is massive, very densely populated, and with the population of Egypt growing at almost 2% a year, well, this situation isn’t going to change any time soon.
[00:02:02] Traffic clogs the streets for hours, air pollution chokes the lungs, and housing struggles to keep up with a population that grows by roughly two million every year.
[00:02:17] And while Cairo might be sprawling and densely populated, most of the rest of Egypt…isn’t.
[00:02:26] 99% of the population of Egypt lives in about 5.5% of the country’s area.
[00:02:35] There is a perfectly good reason for this, of course; most of Egypt is arid desert.
[00:02:42] It’s hard to build on, hostile to live in, and has no water.
[00:02:49] The lifeblood of the country is, as you will know, the river that runs almost vertically through it: The Nile.
[00:02:58] As a quick side note, we have a three-part mini-series all about the amazing story of the quest to find the origin of the Nile; that’s episodes 414 through to 416, if you haven’t listened to those already.
[00:03:14] Anyway, unsurprisingly, population centres in Egypt all cluster around the Nile.
[00:03:21] And Cairo is no exception. The Nile runs right through it.
[00:03:26] But there is a plan to separate Egyptian centres of population from the river that has been the lifeblood of the country for thousands of years.
[00:03:37] If you go 45 kilometres east of Cairo, right out towards the desert, on the way to the port city of Suez, you will find it.
[00:03:49] In fact, one sign in particular will not be difficult to spot.
[00:03:55] Shooting up into the sky, like a 21st-century gleaming obelisk, is The Iconic Tower.
[00:04:04] It’s 77 storeys high, making it the tallest building not just in Egypt but in the whole of Africa.
[00:04:14] It is the centrepiece of a city called “New Administrative Capital”, a project so ambitious it’s almost hard to fathom.
[00:04:25] 60 billion dollars, an entire city built from scratch in the desert.
[00:04:32] The idea for the city was first unveiled in 2015 at a high-profile conference in Sharm el-Sheikh.
[00:04:42] Its name? Well, that's a good question.
[00:04:44] They hadn’t quite decided on the name yet, but as a placeholder, it would be called the New Administrative Capital, or NAC for short.
[00:04:55] The idea was to relocate the government, ease Cairo’s overcrowding, and project an image of modernity and control.
[00:05:07] Building started in 2016, first with official government buildings, offices, and some of the signature mosques and churches.
[00:05:18] There are, as of the time of writing this episode, almost 50,000 government workers who have moved into new offices there, although it’s not clear how many actually live there. According to most reports, most still live in Cairo proper, and commute out every day.
[00:05:38] But this is just the beginning.
[00:05:41] By the time the city is completed, it is slated to go over an area of 950 square kilometres and have space for up to 8 million residents, almost half the current population of Cairo.
[00:05:56] If you look at the plans, of course, it looks pretty fantastic: an artificial river that meanders through the city, surrounded by a lush green park projected to be six times bigger than New York’s Central Park.
[00:06:11] Vast mosques, churches, clean streets, modern schools, a new airport, even a theme park.
[00:06:20] Boasts that it will set a new standard of what it means to be a “smart city”, or to quote its brochure, “Experience a city that seamlessly blends cutting-edge urban planning, smart designs, and advanced technologies to ensure the safety, efficiency, and vitality of both our cherished residents and esteemed visitors.” End quote.
[00:06:46] If it all sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is too good to be true, at least at the moment.
[00:06:54] There are posts on social media from curious tourists who popped in for a visit but found…nobody there.
[00:07:03] Huge wide boulevards, spotless streets, but no signs of life whatsoever.
[00:07:11] Egyptian authorities say that this is all to be expected. It’s part of the plan.
[00:07:16] Of course, millions of people aren’t going to flood in at once, but over time, the population will grow, to an estimated 6 or 7 million by the year 2030, and there will be capacity for more, up to 8 if required.
[00:07:34] If this happens, it will relieve a huge amount of pressure from Cairo.
[00:07:40] The air quality will improve, people will live in better housing conditions, they’ll have access to better parks, schools, hospitals, you name it.
[00:07:51] It will be good for people who choose to stay in Cairo, and it will be good for those who decide to move. A win-win.
[00:08:00] But sceptics point out that the motivations for this city go beyond mere urban planning.
[00:08:08] Moving the capital 45 kilometres from Cairo isn’t just about space; it’s about security and control.
[00:08:18] As we talked about in the last episode, Cairo was the centre of the 2011 revolution, and Tahrir Square an almost indestructible monument to civil unrest.
[00:08:31] By shifting the government to a remote desert site, the critics argue, Sisi is signaling that he wants to start afresh, away from the revolutionary energy of Cairo.
[00:08:44] It signals a reset, a chance to leave that chaos behind.
[00:08:50] When Sisi won re-election in 2018, he chose to take his constitutional oath outside the new parliament in the NAC, not in Cairo.
[00:09:03] He repeated this in 2024, swearing in for his third term under the desert sky.
[00:09:10] This is Egypt’s future, he seemed to say. Forget Tahrir; power lives here now.
[00:09:19] The city’s very design reinforces this idea, of power and authority.
[00:09:25] Wide boulevards and sprawling plazas dominate the layout, which a cynic might say have been deliberately planned to make it easier to put down any kind of public demonstration.
[00:09:39] Narrow streets, like those in Cairo where protesters once vanished into alleys or swelled out of sight, are nowhere to be found.
[00:09:48] Crowds would struggle to gather or hide in the NAC.
[00:09:53] That’s if they could get there in the first place.
[00:09:57] Unlike Cairo, where anyone could flood the streets, the NAC’s remoteness and planned zones make it easier to gate off any trouble. The army can just close the roads, effectively blocking off the city.
[00:10:14] And of course, any trouble is likely to be noticed and swiftly dealt with before it has the chance to bubble up.
[00:10:22] With 6,000 CCTV cameras spread throughout the NAC, every corner is watched, every step tracked, a stark warning that the state is watching your every move.
[00:10:36] Indeed, the entire project, or rather the company that is administering the project, is majority owned by the Egyptian military. This is a military city.
[00:10:49] But it is also President Sisi’s signature project.
[00:10:54] It’s a city to represent his vision of modern Egypt, and ensure his political survival.
[00:11:02] In 2015, when Sisi unveiled the plan, the country had endured years of upheaval.
[00:11:09] Thousands had been killed in clashes, tens of thousands more jailed, and the Muslim Brotherhood outlawed and hunted.
[00:11:19] Relocating to the desert, far from Tahrir’s symbolic pull, lets him redraw the map of control.
[00:11:27] The NAC isn’t just a new address; it’s a fortress, isolating power from the urban chaos that fuelled the 2011 protests.
[00:11:39] So, there is this criticism, that it is a cynical ploy to reduce the potential for future civil unrest and build a city that makes it a breeze to contain it.
[00:11:51] There is also the criticism that building cities in unnatural places never works, and this is a fool’s errand.
[00:12:01] There are countless examples throughout history of failed “new cities”, and indeed, this isn’t Egypt’s first stab at building a new city in the desert.
[00:12:12] Back in the 1970s, President Sadat had a similar idea, and it seems that he was not much more imaginative in his naming than Sisi is.
[00:12:24] He proudly announced Sadat City, which was to be about 90 kilometres northwest of Cairo.
[00:12:32] Its aim, like that of the NAC, was to draw people away from the capital, but this was to work in factories and farms rather than to be a seat of government.
[00:12:45] It was meant to house half a million people; today, it’s home to fewer than 100,000, an industrial outpost that never really took off.
[00:12:57] Then there’s Toshka, a 1990s dream under Mubarak to divert the Nile and turn the southern desert into a “New Valley” with canals and crops.
[00:13:10] Billions were spent, but the water never flowed right, and now it’s a scattering of half-finished projects baking in the sun.
[00:13:20] These weren’t small plans either; Sadat City got 1.5 billion dollars in its day, and Toshka is believed to have swallowed even more.
[00:13:30] Both stumbled over funding, poor planning, and just a lack of people willing to leave the Nile’s cool embrace.
[00:13:40] Yes, the New Administrative Capital has glossier PR and more money behind it, but the ghosts of these earlier failures still linger; desert cities are easier to announce than to fill.
[00:13:56] And there is the other issue that building a city in the desert is a constant fight against nature.
[00:14:04] Outside the Nile Valley, Egypt gets less than 20 millilitres of rain a year, 3% of the rainfall you get in London.
[00:14:14] Now, I know people always complain about the rain in the UK, but if you want a functioning city, some rain is good. At least you need more than 20 millilitres a year.
[00:14:27] And you certainly do if you have plans as ambitious as the NAC.
[00:14:33] The Green River and those lush parks need millions of litres every single day, piped in from the Nile or desalinated from the Red Sea, both costly options.
[00:14:47] In 2024, officials bragged about a new treatment plant to recycle wastewater, but it’s nowhere near enough for 6.5 million people.
[00:14:59] Then there’s the sand. Desert storms carry sand into the city every day, which not only gets in the way of construction during the building phase, but will be a constant feature of life in the city.
[00:15:14] Sure, other cities in the Middle East have similar issues, whether that’s Dubai or Riyadh, but these are also in countries with much deeper pockets than Egypt’s, much greater financial resources, thanks to oil.
[00:15:30] And, of course, we need to talk about the cost of all of this. As you might imagine, it is eye-watering.
[00:15:39] It’s officially pegged at 59 billion dollars, but some estimates suggest it could climb closer to 100 billion.
[00:15:49] The money for it comes from land sales, property development, and a large loan from China, but the Egyptian economy is not in a particularly strong place to be taking on so much debt.
[00:16:03] After increasing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea last year, revenue from the Suez Canal dropped by 60%.
[00:16:11] Inflation sits at 25.5%, and Egypt’s foreign debt has climbed to more than 165 billion dollars.
[00:16:22] And this is all in a country where 30% of the population is below the poverty line, and 50% of the population makes less than $5 a day.
[00:16:34] So, to its critics, this all represents a massive financial commitment at a time when ordinary Egyptians are struggling.
[00:16:44] It is a luxury for the elite, disconnected from the needs of the poor who still crowd Cairo’s slums.
[00:16:52] While billions are being poured into wide boulevards and gleaming empty skyscrapers, Cairo’s infrastructure continues to crumble.
[00:17:02] This is Sisi’s Egypt, the critics say.
[00:17:06] A divided country: the planned, orderly city for the rich and powerful, and the chaotic, neglected metropolis for everyone else.
[00:17:17] So what are we to make of all of this?
[00:17:20] The New Administrative Capital is undeniably bold, a statement of intent etched in glass and steel.
[00:17:29] But its vast expense and strategic design raise questions.
[00:17:36] Is it a necessary step to relieve Cairo’s burden or a wasteful monument to Sisi’s ego?
[00:17:44] Perhaps it’s a bit of both.
[00:17:47] Cairo is bursting at the seams, but this doesn’t stop the NAC from being a calculated move by Sisi to ensure his political survival.
[00:17:58] And as for whether it ever really takes off, only time will tell if this desert city becomes Egypt’s future or joins the list of grand projects abandoned to the sands.
[00:18:13] OK then, that’s it for today’s episode on Egypt’s New Administrative Capital, part two of our mini-series on Modern Egypt.
[00:18:21] In part one, in case you missed it, we talked about the Egyptian Revolution.
[00:18:26] And next time, in part three, we’ll uncover an even darker side of Sisi’s regime with the murder of Giulio Regeni.
[00:18:35] You’ve been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:18:40] I’m Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I’ll catch you in the next episode.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English, the show where you can listen to fascinating stories and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today is part two of our three-part mini-series on Modern Egypt.
[00:00:28] In part one, in case you missed it, we talked about the Egyptian Revolution, how Mubarak was toppled, and how what ultimately came next wasn’t all that different.
[00:00:40] In part three, we will talk about the murder of the Italian PhD student, Giulio Regeni, almost certainly at the hands of the Egyptian police.
[00:00:51] And today, in part two, we are going to talk about Egypt’s plan to build a new administrative capital in the middle of the desert.
[00:01:01] Is it bold and necessary?
[00:01:03] Is it foolish and a waste of money, or is it simply a way for President Sisi to make sure he doesn’t end up like Mubarak?
[00:01:12] Let’s not waste a minute and find out.
[00:01:17] It’s hard to overstate quite how big Cairo is.
[00:01:22] By some measures, it’s the sixth most populous city in the world, with over 21 million people.
[00:01:30] It’s also one of the world’s most densely populated cities, with the Cairo urban area having 10,000 people per kilometre squared.
[00:01:41] As a point of reference, this number for Paris is 3,800.
[00:01:47] Cairo is massive, very densely populated, and with the population of Egypt growing at almost 2% a year, well, this situation isn’t going to change any time soon.
[00:02:02] Traffic clogs the streets for hours, air pollution chokes the lungs, and housing struggles to keep up with a population that grows by roughly two million every year.
[00:02:17] And while Cairo might be sprawling and densely populated, most of the rest of Egypt…isn’t.
[00:02:26] 99% of the population of Egypt lives in about 5.5% of the country’s area.
[00:02:35] There is a perfectly good reason for this, of course; most of Egypt is arid desert.
[00:02:42] It’s hard to build on, hostile to live in, and has no water.
[00:02:49] The lifeblood of the country is, as you will know, the river that runs almost vertically through it: The Nile.
[00:02:58] As a quick side note, we have a three-part mini-series all about the amazing story of the quest to find the origin of the Nile; that’s episodes 414 through to 416, if you haven’t listened to those already.
[00:03:14] Anyway, unsurprisingly, population centres in Egypt all cluster around the Nile.
[00:03:21] And Cairo is no exception. The Nile runs right through it.
[00:03:26] But there is a plan to separate Egyptian centres of population from the river that has been the lifeblood of the country for thousands of years.
[00:03:37] If you go 45 kilometres east of Cairo, right out towards the desert, on the way to the port city of Suez, you will find it.
[00:03:49] In fact, one sign in particular will not be difficult to spot.
[00:03:55] Shooting up into the sky, like a 21st-century gleaming obelisk, is The Iconic Tower.
[00:04:04] It’s 77 storeys high, making it the tallest building not just in Egypt but in the whole of Africa.
[00:04:14] It is the centrepiece of a city called “New Administrative Capital”, a project so ambitious it’s almost hard to fathom.
[00:04:25] 60 billion dollars, an entire city built from scratch in the desert.
[00:04:32] The idea for the city was first unveiled in 2015 at a high-profile conference in Sharm el-Sheikh.
[00:04:42] Its name? Well, that's a good question.
[00:04:44] They hadn’t quite decided on the name yet, but as a placeholder, it would be called the New Administrative Capital, or NAC for short.
[00:04:55] The idea was to relocate the government, ease Cairo’s overcrowding, and project an image of modernity and control.
[00:05:07] Building started in 2016, first with official government buildings, offices, and some of the signature mosques and churches.
[00:05:18] There are, as of the time of writing this episode, almost 50,000 government workers who have moved into new offices there, although it’s not clear how many actually live there. According to most reports, most still live in Cairo proper, and commute out every day.
[00:05:38] But this is just the beginning.
[00:05:41] By the time the city is completed, it is slated to go over an area of 950 square kilometres and have space for up to 8 million residents, almost half the current population of Cairo.
[00:05:56] If you look at the plans, of course, it looks pretty fantastic: an artificial river that meanders through the city, surrounded by a lush green park projected to be six times bigger than New York’s Central Park.
[00:06:11] Vast mosques, churches, clean streets, modern schools, a new airport, even a theme park.
[00:06:20] Boasts that it will set a new standard of what it means to be a “smart city”, or to quote its brochure, “Experience a city that seamlessly blends cutting-edge urban planning, smart designs, and advanced technologies to ensure the safety, efficiency, and vitality of both our cherished residents and esteemed visitors.” End quote.
[00:06:46] If it all sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is too good to be true, at least at the moment.
[00:06:54] There are posts on social media from curious tourists who popped in for a visit but found…nobody there.
[00:07:03] Huge wide boulevards, spotless streets, but no signs of life whatsoever.
[00:07:11] Egyptian authorities say that this is all to be expected. It’s part of the plan.
[00:07:16] Of course, millions of people aren’t going to flood in at once, but over time, the population will grow, to an estimated 6 or 7 million by the year 2030, and there will be capacity for more, up to 8 if required.
[00:07:34] If this happens, it will relieve a huge amount of pressure from Cairo.
[00:07:40] The air quality will improve, people will live in better housing conditions, they’ll have access to better parks, schools, hospitals, you name it.
[00:07:51] It will be good for people who choose to stay in Cairo, and it will be good for those who decide to move. A win-win.
[00:08:00] But sceptics point out that the motivations for this city go beyond mere urban planning.
[00:08:08] Moving the capital 45 kilometres from Cairo isn’t just about space; it’s about security and control.
[00:08:18] As we talked about in the last episode, Cairo was the centre of the 2011 revolution, and Tahrir Square an almost indestructible monument to civil unrest.
[00:08:31] By shifting the government to a remote desert site, the critics argue, Sisi is signaling that he wants to start afresh, away from the revolutionary energy of Cairo.
[00:08:44] It signals a reset, a chance to leave that chaos behind.
[00:08:50] When Sisi won re-election in 2018, he chose to take his constitutional oath outside the new parliament in the NAC, not in Cairo.
[00:09:03] He repeated this in 2024, swearing in for his third term under the desert sky.
[00:09:10] This is Egypt’s future, he seemed to say. Forget Tahrir; power lives here now.
[00:09:19] The city’s very design reinforces this idea, of power and authority.
[00:09:25] Wide boulevards and sprawling plazas dominate the layout, which a cynic might say have been deliberately planned to make it easier to put down any kind of public demonstration.
[00:09:39] Narrow streets, like those in Cairo where protesters once vanished into alleys or swelled out of sight, are nowhere to be found.
[00:09:48] Crowds would struggle to gather or hide in the NAC.
[00:09:53] That’s if they could get there in the first place.
[00:09:57] Unlike Cairo, where anyone could flood the streets, the NAC’s remoteness and planned zones make it easier to gate off any trouble. The army can just close the roads, effectively blocking off the city.
[00:10:14] And of course, any trouble is likely to be noticed and swiftly dealt with before it has the chance to bubble up.
[00:10:22] With 6,000 CCTV cameras spread throughout the NAC, every corner is watched, every step tracked, a stark warning that the state is watching your every move.
[00:10:36] Indeed, the entire project, or rather the company that is administering the project, is majority owned by the Egyptian military. This is a military city.
[00:10:49] But it is also President Sisi’s signature project.
[00:10:54] It’s a city to represent his vision of modern Egypt, and ensure his political survival.
[00:11:02] In 2015, when Sisi unveiled the plan, the country had endured years of upheaval.
[00:11:09] Thousands had been killed in clashes, tens of thousands more jailed, and the Muslim Brotherhood outlawed and hunted.
[00:11:19] Relocating to the desert, far from Tahrir’s symbolic pull, lets him redraw the map of control.
[00:11:27] The NAC isn’t just a new address; it’s a fortress, isolating power from the urban chaos that fuelled the 2011 protests.
[00:11:39] So, there is this criticism, that it is a cynical ploy to reduce the potential for future civil unrest and build a city that makes it a breeze to contain it.
[00:11:51] There is also the criticism that building cities in unnatural places never works, and this is a fool’s errand.
[00:12:01] There are countless examples throughout history of failed “new cities”, and indeed, this isn’t Egypt’s first stab at building a new city in the desert.
[00:12:12] Back in the 1970s, President Sadat had a similar idea, and it seems that he was not much more imaginative in his naming than Sisi is.
[00:12:24] He proudly announced Sadat City, which was to be about 90 kilometres northwest of Cairo.
[00:12:32] Its aim, like that of the NAC, was to draw people away from the capital, but this was to work in factories and farms rather than to be a seat of government.
[00:12:45] It was meant to house half a million people; today, it’s home to fewer than 100,000, an industrial outpost that never really took off.
[00:12:57] Then there’s Toshka, a 1990s dream under Mubarak to divert the Nile and turn the southern desert into a “New Valley” with canals and crops.
[00:13:10] Billions were spent, but the water never flowed right, and now it’s a scattering of half-finished projects baking in the sun.
[00:13:20] These weren’t small plans either; Sadat City got 1.5 billion dollars in its day, and Toshka is believed to have swallowed even more.
[00:13:30] Both stumbled over funding, poor planning, and just a lack of people willing to leave the Nile’s cool embrace.
[00:13:40] Yes, the New Administrative Capital has glossier PR and more money behind it, but the ghosts of these earlier failures still linger; desert cities are easier to announce than to fill.
[00:13:56] And there is the other issue that building a city in the desert is a constant fight against nature.
[00:14:04] Outside the Nile Valley, Egypt gets less than 20 millilitres of rain a year, 3% of the rainfall you get in London.
[00:14:14] Now, I know people always complain about the rain in the UK, but if you want a functioning city, some rain is good. At least you need more than 20 millilitres a year.
[00:14:27] And you certainly do if you have plans as ambitious as the NAC.
[00:14:33] The Green River and those lush parks need millions of litres every single day, piped in from the Nile or desalinated from the Red Sea, both costly options.
[00:14:47] In 2024, officials bragged about a new treatment plant to recycle wastewater, but it’s nowhere near enough for 6.5 million people.
[00:14:59] Then there’s the sand. Desert storms carry sand into the city every day, which not only gets in the way of construction during the building phase, but will be a constant feature of life in the city.
[00:15:14] Sure, other cities in the Middle East have similar issues, whether that’s Dubai or Riyadh, but these are also in countries with much deeper pockets than Egypt’s, much greater financial resources, thanks to oil.
[00:15:30] And, of course, we need to talk about the cost of all of this. As you might imagine, it is eye-watering.
[00:15:39] It’s officially pegged at 59 billion dollars, but some estimates suggest it could climb closer to 100 billion.
[00:15:49] The money for it comes from land sales, property development, and a large loan from China, but the Egyptian economy is not in a particularly strong place to be taking on so much debt.
[00:16:03] After increasing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea last year, revenue from the Suez Canal dropped by 60%.
[00:16:11] Inflation sits at 25.5%, and Egypt’s foreign debt has climbed to more than 165 billion dollars.
[00:16:22] And this is all in a country where 30% of the population is below the poverty line, and 50% of the population makes less than $5 a day.
[00:16:34] So, to its critics, this all represents a massive financial commitment at a time when ordinary Egyptians are struggling.
[00:16:44] It is a luxury for the elite, disconnected from the needs of the poor who still crowd Cairo’s slums.
[00:16:52] While billions are being poured into wide boulevards and gleaming empty skyscrapers, Cairo’s infrastructure continues to crumble.
[00:17:02] This is Sisi’s Egypt, the critics say.
[00:17:06] A divided country: the planned, orderly city for the rich and powerful, and the chaotic, neglected metropolis for everyone else.
[00:17:17] So what are we to make of all of this?
[00:17:20] The New Administrative Capital is undeniably bold, a statement of intent etched in glass and steel.
[00:17:29] But its vast expense and strategic design raise questions.
[00:17:36] Is it a necessary step to relieve Cairo’s burden or a wasteful monument to Sisi’s ego?
[00:17:44] Perhaps it’s a bit of both.
[00:17:47] Cairo is bursting at the seams, but this doesn’t stop the NAC from being a calculated move by Sisi to ensure his political survival.
[00:17:58] And as for whether it ever really takes off, only time will tell if this desert city becomes Egypt’s future or joins the list of grand projects abandoned to the sands.
[00:18:13] OK then, that’s it for today’s episode on Egypt’s New Administrative Capital, part two of our mini-series on Modern Egypt.
[00:18:21] In part one, in case you missed it, we talked about the Egyptian Revolution.
[00:18:26] And next time, in part three, we’ll uncover an even darker side of Sisi’s regime with the murder of Giulio Regeni.
[00:18:35] You’ve been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:18:40] I’m Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I’ll catch you in the next episode.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English, the show where you can listen to fascinating stories and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today is part two of our three-part mini-series on Modern Egypt.
[00:00:28] In part one, in case you missed it, we talked about the Egyptian Revolution, how Mubarak was toppled, and how what ultimately came next wasn’t all that different.
[00:00:40] In part three, we will talk about the murder of the Italian PhD student, Giulio Regeni, almost certainly at the hands of the Egyptian police.
[00:00:51] And today, in part two, we are going to talk about Egypt’s plan to build a new administrative capital in the middle of the desert.
[00:01:01] Is it bold and necessary?
[00:01:03] Is it foolish and a waste of money, or is it simply a way for President Sisi to make sure he doesn’t end up like Mubarak?
[00:01:12] Let’s not waste a minute and find out.
[00:01:17] It’s hard to overstate quite how big Cairo is.
[00:01:22] By some measures, it’s the sixth most populous city in the world, with over 21 million people.
[00:01:30] It’s also one of the world’s most densely populated cities, with the Cairo urban area having 10,000 people per kilometre squared.
[00:01:41] As a point of reference, this number for Paris is 3,800.
[00:01:47] Cairo is massive, very densely populated, and with the population of Egypt growing at almost 2% a year, well, this situation isn’t going to change any time soon.
[00:02:02] Traffic clogs the streets for hours, air pollution chokes the lungs, and housing struggles to keep up with a population that grows by roughly two million every year.
[00:02:17] And while Cairo might be sprawling and densely populated, most of the rest of Egypt…isn’t.
[00:02:26] 99% of the population of Egypt lives in about 5.5% of the country’s area.
[00:02:35] There is a perfectly good reason for this, of course; most of Egypt is arid desert.
[00:02:42] It’s hard to build on, hostile to live in, and has no water.
[00:02:49] The lifeblood of the country is, as you will know, the river that runs almost vertically through it: The Nile.
[00:02:58] As a quick side note, we have a three-part mini-series all about the amazing story of the quest to find the origin of the Nile; that’s episodes 414 through to 416, if you haven’t listened to those already.
[00:03:14] Anyway, unsurprisingly, population centres in Egypt all cluster around the Nile.
[00:03:21] And Cairo is no exception. The Nile runs right through it.
[00:03:26] But there is a plan to separate Egyptian centres of population from the river that has been the lifeblood of the country for thousands of years.
[00:03:37] If you go 45 kilometres east of Cairo, right out towards the desert, on the way to the port city of Suez, you will find it.
[00:03:49] In fact, one sign in particular will not be difficult to spot.
[00:03:55] Shooting up into the sky, like a 21st-century gleaming obelisk, is The Iconic Tower.
[00:04:04] It’s 77 storeys high, making it the tallest building not just in Egypt but in the whole of Africa.
[00:04:14] It is the centrepiece of a city called “New Administrative Capital”, a project so ambitious it’s almost hard to fathom.
[00:04:25] 60 billion dollars, an entire city built from scratch in the desert.
[00:04:32] The idea for the city was first unveiled in 2015 at a high-profile conference in Sharm el-Sheikh.
[00:04:42] Its name? Well, that's a good question.
[00:04:44] They hadn’t quite decided on the name yet, but as a placeholder, it would be called the New Administrative Capital, or NAC for short.
[00:04:55] The idea was to relocate the government, ease Cairo’s overcrowding, and project an image of modernity and control.
[00:05:07] Building started in 2016, first with official government buildings, offices, and some of the signature mosques and churches.
[00:05:18] There are, as of the time of writing this episode, almost 50,000 government workers who have moved into new offices there, although it’s not clear how many actually live there. According to most reports, most still live in Cairo proper, and commute out every day.
[00:05:38] But this is just the beginning.
[00:05:41] By the time the city is completed, it is slated to go over an area of 950 square kilometres and have space for up to 8 million residents, almost half the current population of Cairo.
[00:05:56] If you look at the plans, of course, it looks pretty fantastic: an artificial river that meanders through the city, surrounded by a lush green park projected to be six times bigger than New York’s Central Park.
[00:06:11] Vast mosques, churches, clean streets, modern schools, a new airport, even a theme park.
[00:06:20] Boasts that it will set a new standard of what it means to be a “smart city”, or to quote its brochure, “Experience a city that seamlessly blends cutting-edge urban planning, smart designs, and advanced technologies to ensure the safety, efficiency, and vitality of both our cherished residents and esteemed visitors.” End quote.
[00:06:46] If it all sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is too good to be true, at least at the moment.
[00:06:54] There are posts on social media from curious tourists who popped in for a visit but found…nobody there.
[00:07:03] Huge wide boulevards, spotless streets, but no signs of life whatsoever.
[00:07:11] Egyptian authorities say that this is all to be expected. It’s part of the plan.
[00:07:16] Of course, millions of people aren’t going to flood in at once, but over time, the population will grow, to an estimated 6 or 7 million by the year 2030, and there will be capacity for more, up to 8 if required.
[00:07:34] If this happens, it will relieve a huge amount of pressure from Cairo.
[00:07:40] The air quality will improve, people will live in better housing conditions, they’ll have access to better parks, schools, hospitals, you name it.
[00:07:51] It will be good for people who choose to stay in Cairo, and it will be good for those who decide to move. A win-win.
[00:08:00] But sceptics point out that the motivations for this city go beyond mere urban planning.
[00:08:08] Moving the capital 45 kilometres from Cairo isn’t just about space; it’s about security and control.
[00:08:18] As we talked about in the last episode, Cairo was the centre of the 2011 revolution, and Tahrir Square an almost indestructible monument to civil unrest.
[00:08:31] By shifting the government to a remote desert site, the critics argue, Sisi is signaling that he wants to start afresh, away from the revolutionary energy of Cairo.
[00:08:44] It signals a reset, a chance to leave that chaos behind.
[00:08:50] When Sisi won re-election in 2018, he chose to take his constitutional oath outside the new parliament in the NAC, not in Cairo.
[00:09:03] He repeated this in 2024, swearing in for his third term under the desert sky.
[00:09:10] This is Egypt’s future, he seemed to say. Forget Tahrir; power lives here now.
[00:09:19] The city’s very design reinforces this idea, of power and authority.
[00:09:25] Wide boulevards and sprawling plazas dominate the layout, which a cynic might say have been deliberately planned to make it easier to put down any kind of public demonstration.
[00:09:39] Narrow streets, like those in Cairo where protesters once vanished into alleys or swelled out of sight, are nowhere to be found.
[00:09:48] Crowds would struggle to gather or hide in the NAC.
[00:09:53] That’s if they could get there in the first place.
[00:09:57] Unlike Cairo, where anyone could flood the streets, the NAC’s remoteness and planned zones make it easier to gate off any trouble. The army can just close the roads, effectively blocking off the city.
[00:10:14] And of course, any trouble is likely to be noticed and swiftly dealt with before it has the chance to bubble up.
[00:10:22] With 6,000 CCTV cameras spread throughout the NAC, every corner is watched, every step tracked, a stark warning that the state is watching your every move.
[00:10:36] Indeed, the entire project, or rather the company that is administering the project, is majority owned by the Egyptian military. This is a military city.
[00:10:49] But it is also President Sisi’s signature project.
[00:10:54] It’s a city to represent his vision of modern Egypt, and ensure his political survival.
[00:11:02] In 2015, when Sisi unveiled the plan, the country had endured years of upheaval.
[00:11:09] Thousands had been killed in clashes, tens of thousands more jailed, and the Muslim Brotherhood outlawed and hunted.
[00:11:19] Relocating to the desert, far from Tahrir’s symbolic pull, lets him redraw the map of control.
[00:11:27] The NAC isn’t just a new address; it’s a fortress, isolating power from the urban chaos that fuelled the 2011 protests.
[00:11:39] So, there is this criticism, that it is a cynical ploy to reduce the potential for future civil unrest and build a city that makes it a breeze to contain it.
[00:11:51] There is also the criticism that building cities in unnatural places never works, and this is a fool’s errand.
[00:12:01] There are countless examples throughout history of failed “new cities”, and indeed, this isn’t Egypt’s first stab at building a new city in the desert.
[00:12:12] Back in the 1970s, President Sadat had a similar idea, and it seems that he was not much more imaginative in his naming than Sisi is.
[00:12:24] He proudly announced Sadat City, which was to be about 90 kilometres northwest of Cairo.
[00:12:32] Its aim, like that of the NAC, was to draw people away from the capital, but this was to work in factories and farms rather than to be a seat of government.
[00:12:45] It was meant to house half a million people; today, it’s home to fewer than 100,000, an industrial outpost that never really took off.
[00:12:57] Then there’s Toshka, a 1990s dream under Mubarak to divert the Nile and turn the southern desert into a “New Valley” with canals and crops.
[00:13:10] Billions were spent, but the water never flowed right, and now it’s a scattering of half-finished projects baking in the sun.
[00:13:20] These weren’t small plans either; Sadat City got 1.5 billion dollars in its day, and Toshka is believed to have swallowed even more.
[00:13:30] Both stumbled over funding, poor planning, and just a lack of people willing to leave the Nile’s cool embrace.
[00:13:40] Yes, the New Administrative Capital has glossier PR and more money behind it, but the ghosts of these earlier failures still linger; desert cities are easier to announce than to fill.
[00:13:56] And there is the other issue that building a city in the desert is a constant fight against nature.
[00:14:04] Outside the Nile Valley, Egypt gets less than 20 millilitres of rain a year, 3% of the rainfall you get in London.
[00:14:14] Now, I know people always complain about the rain in the UK, but if you want a functioning city, some rain is good. At least you need more than 20 millilitres a year.
[00:14:27] And you certainly do if you have plans as ambitious as the NAC.
[00:14:33] The Green River and those lush parks need millions of litres every single day, piped in from the Nile or desalinated from the Red Sea, both costly options.
[00:14:47] In 2024, officials bragged about a new treatment plant to recycle wastewater, but it’s nowhere near enough for 6.5 million people.
[00:14:59] Then there’s the sand. Desert storms carry sand into the city every day, which not only gets in the way of construction during the building phase, but will be a constant feature of life in the city.
[00:15:14] Sure, other cities in the Middle East have similar issues, whether that’s Dubai or Riyadh, but these are also in countries with much deeper pockets than Egypt’s, much greater financial resources, thanks to oil.
[00:15:30] And, of course, we need to talk about the cost of all of this. As you might imagine, it is eye-watering.
[00:15:39] It’s officially pegged at 59 billion dollars, but some estimates suggest it could climb closer to 100 billion.
[00:15:49] The money for it comes from land sales, property development, and a large loan from China, but the Egyptian economy is not in a particularly strong place to be taking on so much debt.
[00:16:03] After increasing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea last year, revenue from the Suez Canal dropped by 60%.
[00:16:11] Inflation sits at 25.5%, and Egypt’s foreign debt has climbed to more than 165 billion dollars.
[00:16:22] And this is all in a country where 30% of the population is below the poverty line, and 50% of the population makes less than $5 a day.
[00:16:34] So, to its critics, this all represents a massive financial commitment at a time when ordinary Egyptians are struggling.
[00:16:44] It is a luxury for the elite, disconnected from the needs of the poor who still crowd Cairo’s slums.
[00:16:52] While billions are being poured into wide boulevards and gleaming empty skyscrapers, Cairo’s infrastructure continues to crumble.
[00:17:02] This is Sisi’s Egypt, the critics say.
[00:17:06] A divided country: the planned, orderly city for the rich and powerful, and the chaotic, neglected metropolis for everyone else.
[00:17:17] So what are we to make of all of this?
[00:17:20] The New Administrative Capital is undeniably bold, a statement of intent etched in glass and steel.
[00:17:29] But its vast expense and strategic design raise questions.
[00:17:36] Is it a necessary step to relieve Cairo’s burden or a wasteful monument to Sisi’s ego?
[00:17:44] Perhaps it’s a bit of both.
[00:17:47] Cairo is bursting at the seams, but this doesn’t stop the NAC from being a calculated move by Sisi to ensure his political survival.
[00:17:58] And as for whether it ever really takes off, only time will tell if this desert city becomes Egypt’s future or joins the list of grand projects abandoned to the sands.
[00:18:13] OK then, that’s it for today’s episode on Egypt’s New Administrative Capital, part two of our mini-series on Modern Egypt.
[00:18:21] In part one, in case you missed it, we talked about the Egyptian Revolution.
[00:18:26] And next time, in part three, we’ll uncover an even darker side of Sisi’s regime with the murder of Giulio Regeni.
[00:18:35] You’ve been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:18:40] I’m Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I’ll catch you in the next episode.
