I had been expecting a bustling, chaotic megalopolis, but when I arrived in Cairo, the city was deserted. Almost everyone had left the city to celebrate Eid el-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice. Normally, the capital of Egypt and the Arab world is very, very noisy and congested.
Over 17 million people live in the greater Cairo area. To reduce the congestion, the Egyptian authorities decided in the early 1980s to build satellite cities along the Ring Road around Cairo. Many people, particularly the wealthy, decided to move to the satellite cities in search of peace and quiet.
Others, like Youssef Affifi, a 29-year-old factory worker, had no other choice:
“Since the earthquake in 1992 I have been living here. I came because my house was inhabitable. We couldn’t stay there and just moved. But I am no happy. I would rather live in Cairo. It is closer to my job. I travel 45 minutes every day. Sometimes the traffic is very bad. That is the only problem: the traffic.”
Mission unknown
Many of the inhabitants of the satellite cities have even longer commutes to their jobs in Cairo than Youssef. Environmentalists say this has led to a major increase in air pollution. That’s just one of the satellite cities’ drawbacks, say critics.
Leading Egyptian architect Abdelhalim Ibrahim Abdelhalim believes the cities were necessary but, he says, the authorities didn’t give much thought to what they really expected to achieve:
“Even until now it is not clear what the mission is of these satellite cities. Are they dormitory cities where people just go to sleep and then come back to the giant metropolises - Cairo, Alexandria and so on - to work? Are they university cities, industrial cities or are they real cities? Are they annexed to the larger cities or are they independent cities? Many of these very fundamental questions were not fully resolved before beginning the construction of the first generation of satellite cities.”
One big city
In the meantime, Cairo and the satellite cities continue to grow. When I drove from Cairo to the satellite city of New Cairo, I couldn’t even see where the first ended and the other one began: there were simply kilometers upon kilometers of ugly brown 4- and 5-storey apartment buildings.
But 26-year-old Hassan Said Hassan says life in New Cairo is much better than in the capital:
“I like it here because it is very green. When I wake up in the morning, it is clean. When I get married, there are good schools here for the children. The facilities are good. There is a supermarket nearby. The neighbours have good jobs. They are doctors and army officers and police officers. The city is growning and employment is growing every day. I work at Zara’s, which is opening a branch here. Then I’ll live just five minutes away.”
No example
New Cairo may be a relative paradise for Hassan, but many experts say that Cairo’s satellite cities are not an example for other megacities in the world. What’s needed to deal with the Egyptian capital’s problems are smaller, independent communities whose residents have a say in their development. As my taxi driver took me back to the airport, he sighed: “I wish the Eid lasted longer. It’s so nice not to be stuck in traffic jams”.
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