Gated communities

By Salama A Salama

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I have ranted on occasion against Gulf-sponsored mega-real estate projects that seem to be sprouting everywhere in this country. I am not against investment, or mega-projects, or Gulf money, but against the way they're being put together. It is my wish that the government encourage Gulf investors to head into industrial and productive projects that generate jobs, instead of focussing on luxury housing that benefits only a small class of the super rich. This inclination to build luxury resorts and palaces is insane, for it reinforces the values of wasteful and ostentatious consumption and flies in the face of social sensitivity.

This type of investment is draining the money and savings of Egyptians. People are buying fancy villas and mansions in the desert and on the sand of the sea. People are building fancy dwellings to live in for a few days every year, and to travel to in four-wheel drive vehicles. Why don't they invest their savings in something more productive? Why don't they buy the Banque du Caire, to give but one example?

Who got it into our heads that Egypt, with its current social and economic situation can compete with Dubai, Qatar and the Gulf in luxury lifestyle? The oil boom, with its attendant business deals, commissions and transit financial services, is damaging us. This immersion in luxury consumption we see on our beaches in summer is not taking us anywhere. As a society, we've grown divided between a minority of the super rich and a majority of the super poor.

I recently read a study about how Egyptian real estate development is borrowing Gulf patterns. Entire communities have sprung to life in the hills surrounding Cairo. Dozens of luxury communities with gates have been created for the exclusive use of the elite. Unable to stand Cairo's pollution and crowds, the elite is escaping into their own havens of golf courses, amusement parks, private universities and mega- malls. Cairo, meanwhile, is losing its skyline, replacing it with one borrowed from Los Angeles. The study I am referring to appeared recently in a book entitled Cosmopolitan Cairo, published by the AUC Press. It describes the development of gated communities and talks about the marketing campaigns that present those communities as the perfect venue for a perfect life.

The new gated communities are a throwback to the walled cities of the past. They offer a sense of independence while preventing others from prying into the luxury that hides behind their walls -- the massive homes, the baroque decorations, the classical columns, and the homogenous patios. These are homes that need an army of labour, usually imported, to tend to them.

The elite are leaving the crowds behind them, with their poverty and extremism. Within the confines of their new communities, the elite can develop its private form of democracy, with common public spaces, and with growing portfolios invested in Cairo's stock market. Why wait for the country to become democratic or be reformed if you can have it all a few miles away from the capital?

Luxury real estate is not the answer to our problems. If anything, it will heighten the sense of social injustice and political exclusion that is growing all around us. This new lifestyle can only worsen the situation where political extremism and political oppression combine to destroy the social fabric of our country. We need to have a strategy for investment. We need a strategy that takes into account the social and political repercussions of investment. We cannot let businessmen and contractors tell us how to live.