Al-Ahram Weekly | Features | Promised cities

		5 - 11 September 2002 Issue No. 602 Features	Current issue Previous issue Site map
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Promised cities
Amira El-Noshokaty reports from the dark side of the moon

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A flat of her own: (above) a resident of one of the country's new housing projects attends to the details of running a home (below); building at the new cities continues apace although many housing units remain uninhabited
On the Cairo-Suez highway, 47km out of Cairo, palm trees, lamp-posts and a big sign mark the entrance to Badr (literally "full-moon") City.
The "city", built in 1983, comprises five-storey apartment buildings which are almost totally empty -- with the exception of workers who are constructing still more buildings and a few hapless inhabitants.
I found Sayed, a taxi driver, walking down one of the city's many deserted streets. "I have been living here for a year," he said. He and his wife are the only tenants in a five-storey building.
Not only does Sayed have no neighbours, but until recently he had no water either. "The water pipes here are very old," he mumbled by way of explanation.
Between 1952 and 1960, housing became a national priority and investment in the sector averaged around 28.2 per cent of public investment. At that time the number of housing units built by the state averaged 56,000 annually. However, from 1960 to 1972 housing dropped to 8.5 per cent of public investment -- reflected in an average of 30,000 units built annually. The sector became even less of a priority and in 1979 its share of public investment dropped to a record low of 5.9 per cent. The state subsequently acknowledged that the country was facing a housing crisis which bumped investment back to an average of 13.3 per cent during the years 1982- 86.
In 1973, the state took up the idea of building satellite cities outside the greater Cairo area as the solution to the population explosion, the effects of which are magnified by the fact that Egyptians have long inhabited no more than five per cent of country's total area. The initiative was an attempt to move into the remaining 95 per cent that is primarily desert. And so, the "new cities" became the catchphrase for the preferred solution to the housing crisis in urban centres.
By the year 1977, 10th of Ramadan City had been built, to be followed by the 15th of May in 1978 and Badr City in 1983. All in all, 17 new housing areas have been established across the desert, costing the state an estimated LE20 billion and with a projected capacity to house 8.4 million people by the year 2017.
Although Badr City's target number of residents is 430,000, the actual number of people residing there as of the year 2001 is no more than 25,000.
According to Fouad Madbouli, vice-president of the Technical Affairs Department at the New Urban Communities section of the Ministry of Housing, "every new city starts small then it grows and attracts residents. However, the availability of job opportunities plays a major role in this growth dynamic. Hence, the importance of the fact that Badr City has an industrial zone with 225 factories with a capacity to employ 20,000 people," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. (Upon investigation, the Weekly discovered that 100 factories are under construction, 65 are functional, providing a total of 5,100 jobs).
Madbouli added, "today we have a school, a market, a telephone exchange, a police station. We are planning to have two transportation lines to link Badr City with Cairo."
Yet for those living in the city -- most residents are among those who lost their homes in the 1992 earthquake -- it is not exactly the land of milk and honey. Badr City residents complain that the apartments were not properly finished, noting that many units have not had either doors or windows installed.
"True, there is a small medical clinic," conceded a young female resident, "but the assigned doctor's medical knowledge seems to be limited to birth control pills." She had gone to the unit because of kidney problems and walked out with birth control pills, even though she is a teenager and unmarried.
Aside from this all-inclusive prescription, residents complain that the facility is not always operating. One man recounted that when his wife went into labour, he was unable to find anyone to provide her with medical assistance. And in the "new cities", residents are cut off from traditional support networks. Further, rumours that five residents died as a result of drinking from water tanks that had become the repository of dead animals or contained brackish water, are revealing of concerns that the infrastructure, even when in place, is not all that it is supposed to be.
"There is nothing called 'limited facilities'. Any new city is designed in accordance with high quality planning, however, there are two phases to such planning. The first is urban planning and facility planning. The second is planning services which are executed in phases and in accordance with needs," countered Madbouli.
Another point of contention between the residents of Badr and the Ministry of Housing are the terms of payment for units. The installments unit-owners pay are subjected to compounded interest. And so, Saber Mohamed, a government employee whose income is LE150, must make monthly payments of LE70.
Even so, the state has made an effort to lighten the burden of payments. According to Essam Rashad, first undersecretary at the Ministry of Housing, the state has granted almost LE615 million in the form of loans to owners of subsidised housing units. In 2001, each home-owner was loaned LE15,000 to be paid back over 40 years with a grace period of three years and in monthly instalments not to exceed LE73 per unit.
Despite the Ministry of Housing's statements, residents complain that the cities lack adequate means of transportation and a functioning market place. Instead, they have supermarkets with prices double those to be found in Cairo, forcing many residents to do all of their shopping in the metropolis.
Hassan El-Gebali, head of the Urban Planning Department at the Ministry of Housing, told the Weekly, "the occupation rate is more than 70 per cent in cities like 10th of Ramadan and Sixth of October, and approximately 20 to 25 per cent in cities that are still developing."
For the new cities to take off, El-Gebali says, is not up to the state alone. The ministry does the initial planning and monitors the plan's growth. "The private sector, however, must also develop housing projects. In the late 1970s, the state had a central role. Of course, that was a major burden, especially with the then-burgeoning number of new cities. But now you find that in many new cities, real estate investment companies are dominant."
Such companies are not catering to low- income groups, however, the majority are building luxurious housing. Only a few companies, and beginning only recently, build middle- income units.
Today, the annual national target is 250,000 apartments, 80 per cent of them to be constructed by the private sector, 20 per cent by the state, with the latter concentrating its activities in the new cities.
According to Fouad Madbouli of the Ministry of Housing, "in 2001, the total number of housing units made available in the new cities was 588,000. Of these, approximately 342,000 were built by the state. Around 70 per cent of these units are categorised as 'economic units', that is low-cost units that are provided for the majority of the population."

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