An example of such a new city which went reasonably well is Brasilia. The new capital in the far interior was an important catalyst for developing the vast areas which are now feeding the world.
china's done this before domestically. Ordos/Kangbashi was the famous ghost city for years, but by 2018 it hit 150K residents. the fill came when beijing mandated SOE relocations and government offices moved in. the question for Egypt is whether Sisi can replicate that lever. China can build the city but it can't relocate Egyptian civil servants.
great reporting. truly thought provoking. I would however suggest that there reason that the US does not have decent infrastructure is due to a system where those with private capital compete with each other for the continuing expansion of money that they need. Often simply to hold their place in life and try to pass something on to their children. So they fight with desperation against the building of new housing that would taint the exclusivity premium of their home, their central investment. In Massachusetts in Concord, my former home, hundreds of millions have been recently spent on new showcase school buildings. These in turn attract buyers intent on getting their kids into elite schools. These buildings are funded by loans supported by property taxes, that themselves rise with the rising home values. This is a kind of real estate industrial complex, in a small town of about 30,000 people. This is the micro to the macro of systems like stock indexing to the S&P 500 and the mag 8. People who can afford to invest in stocks are professionally advised that they have to buy in at some point, or else their literal position in society will drop as inflation steadily rises in the background. This in turn maintains growth in the S&P stocks and the index. The gap between those who are in and those who are out grows. And meanwhile the need for money grows as free living conditions erode. Walking in affordable towns and living on slow-growing incomes in towns with affordable taxes is a thing of the past eras. Commons like walkable streets and free public libraries decline--further spreading the distance between those on the escalator of rising incomes and investment and those walking. This overall situation is not an accident, it is the result of a kind of free floating coalition building that is the feature of the US type of political system--where those with capital and understanding how to preserve and use it are able to participate in arraignments that are more or less invisible or unnoticed by those who cannot play. The great organization theorist Chris Argyris suggested that when you see a persistent problematic situation that seems to make little sense, the situation might be "designed incompetence" where the design serves some people very very well, and yet to others seems incompetent and accidental--e.g. gridlock or polarization or whatever. It is very convenient for those served by designed incompetence to see problems as intractable and unsolvable.
Ghost cities are spreading abroad. Whether they ultimately survive and succeed is a story for future historians. I agree that there needs to be a route between the two extremes that can achieve positive results for people and society without either paralysis or excess, both of which are ruinous long term. An interesting alignment of your two poles is that the glorification of Sisi mirrors the deification we see of our great leader in America today, but in an environment that does not and cannot plan nor build.
why don't you compare this to the US expenditure on the US/Israeli war machine and the US's mutli-year campaign of destruction of the nations that surround Israel: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan (by way of destabilizing flows of victims from adjacent Iraq)--and including Iraq, Afghanistan, and last but not least not only destroying Palestine but blocking its gaining the status as a nation at all. I would rather be producing empty new cities than bombed out nations. You criticize the Chinese building industry--but you don't criticize the US defense industry. Both have overcapacity and look for new business opportunities. The Chinese industry builds roads and dams and soccer stadiums here in Costa Rica, and sells affordable EV cars. And solar and wind technology. This industrial capacity is greatly appreciated here. The other, the US, sends prisoners and trades them for special Visas for local officials. And "trains" troops in adjacent Panama.
Egypt's population increases by over 1.7 million per year - which is about the same as the entire yearly growth of the USA. They only build around 240,000 new homes per year ---- The new city will fill in over time. Cannot forget to mention the 'other' mega projects ongoing - such as the 2000km high speed rail network to link all the major cities, huge expansions in renewable energy (plus nuclear), the ports, the highways and bridges (Egypt really loves building roads), the free trade zones ect.... all these things will push Egypt to become Africa's top economy in short order.
Mostly agreed, the 'aesthetics' of building a new capital city from scratch is fraught with mistakes; you should visit Abuja in Nigeria.
I had no idea there was anything like this being built, thanks for the insight!!
"There’s something fittingly pharaonic about it all. Khufu didn’t build the Great Pyramid to house the Egyptian people either. He built it so that history would know his name" .... what interests me is the increasing state surveillance. Whether or not the pyramids were meant to represent their contemporary culture, their geometric and jagged straight architecture came to represent immortality. How will built in state surveillance impact how we function, make meaning of life, illustrate greater powers?
Why do some states build badly? Why don't peoole want to live in centrally planned cities? James C. Scott tackles this head-on in Seeing Like a State. It's a mix of all three of your initial answers, but #1 has more salience than you might think. I was unimpressed with Egypt, generally. So bizaare seeing massive construction projects starting next to unfinished, empty buildings. Such a waste.
I eagerly await for washington's triumphal arch to be covered with the same amount of zeal
Excellent piece, fascinating!
An example of such a new city which went reasonably well is Brasilia. The new capital in the far interior was an important catalyst for developing the vast areas which are now feeding the world.
Great reporting. Thanks for travelling out here
On "countries with entrenched rule of law and weak political consolidation", this probably operates by design under the liberal model, as outlined in this article: https://leonardoburlamaqui.substack.com/p/mapping-the-maze
china's done this before domestically. Ordos/Kangbashi was the famous ghost city for years, but by 2018 it hit 150K residents. the fill came when beijing mandated SOE relocations and government offices moved in. the question for Egypt is whether Sisi can replicate that lever. China can build the city but it can't relocate Egyptian civil servants.
Great piece, thanks much! I had Ozymandias ringing in my head even before your denouement.
great reporting. truly thought provoking. I would however suggest that there reason that the US does not have decent infrastructure is due to a system where those with private capital compete with each other for the continuing expansion of money that they need. Often simply to hold their place in life and try to pass something on to their children. So they fight with desperation against the building of new housing that would taint the exclusivity premium of their home, their central investment. In Massachusetts in Concord, my former home, hundreds of millions have been recently spent on new showcase school buildings. These in turn attract buyers intent on getting their kids into elite schools. These buildings are funded by loans supported by property taxes, that themselves rise with the rising home values. This is a kind of real estate industrial complex, in a small town of about 30,000 people. This is the micro to the macro of systems like stock indexing to the S&P 500 and the mag 8. People who can afford to invest in stocks are professionally advised that they have to buy in at some point, or else their literal position in society will drop as inflation steadily rises in the background. This in turn maintains growth in the S&P stocks and the index. The gap between those who are in and those who are out grows. And meanwhile the need for money grows as free living conditions erode. Walking in affordable towns and living on slow-growing incomes in towns with affordable taxes is a thing of the past eras. Commons like walkable streets and free public libraries decline--further spreading the distance between those on the escalator of rising incomes and investment and those walking. This overall situation is not an accident, it is the result of a kind of free floating coalition building that is the feature of the US type of political system--where those with capital and understanding how to preserve and use it are able to participate in arraignments that are more or less invisible or unnoticed by those who cannot play. The great organization theorist Chris Argyris suggested that when you see a persistent problematic situation that seems to make little sense, the situation might be "designed incompetence" where the design serves some people very very well, and yet to others seems incompetent and accidental--e.g. gridlock or polarization or whatever. It is very convenient for those served by designed incompetence to see problems as intractable and unsolvable.
Ghost cities are spreading abroad. Whether they ultimately survive and succeed is a story for future historians. I agree that there needs to be a route between the two extremes that can achieve positive results for people and society without either paralysis or excess, both of which are ruinous long term. An interesting alignment of your two poles is that the glorification of Sisi mirrors the deification we see of our great leader in America today, but in an environment that does not and cannot plan nor build.
why don't you compare this to the US expenditure on the US/Israeli war machine and the US's mutli-year campaign of destruction of the nations that surround Israel: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan (by way of destabilizing flows of victims from adjacent Iraq)--and including Iraq, Afghanistan, and last but not least not only destroying Palestine but blocking its gaining the status as a nation at all. I would rather be producing empty new cities than bombed out nations. You criticize the Chinese building industry--but you don't criticize the US defense industry. Both have overcapacity and look for new business opportunities. The Chinese industry builds roads and dams and soccer stadiums here in Costa Rica, and sells affordable EV cars. And solar and wind technology. This industrial capacity is greatly appreciated here. The other, the US, sends prisoners and trades them for special Visas for local officials. And "trains" troops in adjacent Panama.
Egypt's population increases by over 1.7 million per year - which is about the same as the entire yearly growth of the USA. They only build around 240,000 new homes per year ---- The new city will fill in over time. Cannot forget to mention the 'other' mega projects ongoing - such as the 2000km high speed rail network to link all the major cities, huge expansions in renewable energy (plus nuclear), the ports, the highways and bridges (Egypt really loves building roads), the free trade zones ect.... all these things will push Egypt to become Africa's top economy in short order.
Mostly agreed, the 'aesthetics' of building a new capital city from scratch is fraught with mistakes; you should visit Abuja in Nigeria.
I thought a lot of the classic "ghost cities" of China from ~10 years ago did actually see decent population uptake?
What about India?
I had no idea there was anything like this being built, thanks for the insight!!
"There’s something fittingly pharaonic about it all. Khufu didn’t build the Great Pyramid to house the Egyptian people either. He built it so that history would know his name" .... what interests me is the increasing state surveillance. Whether or not the pyramids were meant to represent their contemporary culture, their geometric and jagged straight architecture came to represent immortality. How will built in state surveillance impact how we function, make meaning of life, illustrate greater powers?
Why do some states build badly? Why don't peoole want to live in centrally planned cities? James C. Scott tackles this head-on in Seeing Like a State. It's a mix of all three of your initial answers, but #1 has more salience than you might think. I was unimpressed with Egypt, generally. So bizaare seeing massive construction projects starting next to unfinished, empty buildings. Such a waste.