The new pharaonic capital of Egypt

The NAC had everything Cairo lacks: order, cleanliness, and, most importantly, no room for protests. Unlike the downtown of the ancient city, the new capital didn't have the boulevards of Paris or British colonial-style hotels as its reference. The new model of success was in the Persian Gulf, in places like Dubai and Riyadh, where skyscrapers dominated the skyline . Sisi wanted his own Doha.

A decade later, a hundred cranes are working at high altitude under the Saharan sun. The streets of the NAC are now a reality. On both sides of the new 12-lane highway, rows of identical, well-finished residential apartments zip by, except for one detail: there are no windows or tenants. For the time being, it remains a ghost town, too expensive and isolated to live in.

Even so, the New Administrative Capital is designed to house six million people, with political power concentrated in its center. A monumental axis runs through the government district, connecting to the south with the Grand Mosque and to the north with People's Park and the presidential complex, one of the largest in the world.

The government announced its final relocation in April 2023, and since then, the main ministries have moved there. However, most embassies are reluctant to leave Cairo, although negotiations with the Foreign Office have been complicated by the distance.

The Octagon, the new army headquarters, has also been built. It consists of ten octagonal buildings that symbolize the strength of the Egyptian military. To the south is the sports district, dominated by a 93,000-seat stadium designed by SHESA Architects.

The financial district, to the west, is home to the Iconic Tower, a 394-meter skyscraper that became the tallest building in Africa in 2024. However, that title could be lost if the Obelisk Capitale, a 1,000-meter-high project approved by the government and designed by Egyptian studio IDIA, comes to fruition. The city also includes a cultural district with an opera house, a national library, and a museum. In terms of transportation and infrastructure, the NAC will be connected to Cairo by the new Cairo Monorail.

The cost of the city is estimated to have already reached $58 billion, a huge bill for one of the most indebted countries in the world. Egypt is experiencing a deep economic crisis, with a devalued currency and 60% of the population living below the poverty line.

The city's high cost of living has also fueled the debate about social exclusion. According to Al Jazeera, a two-bedroom apartment costs around $50,000, in a country where GDP per capita does not exceed $3,000. In practice, most Egyptians are excluded from the real estate market in this new capital.

In this way, the NAC will become an oasis for the wealthy who want to live far from the pollution, garbage, and monstrous noise that surrounds Cairo, the capital steeped in history and abandoned to its fate by its own government.

In addition to the NAC, Egypt is building more than thirty new cities from scratch. The goal, according to the government, is to relieve pressure on large cities, redistribute the population, and create development hubs throughout the country. However, many of these locations are dominated by the same landscape of wide avenues, identical residential blocks, limited urban activity, and prohibitive prices for a large portion of the population. Among the most notable projects are New Alamein, on the north coast, one of the most advanced projects, which seeks to attract international tourism to its Mediterranean beaches. New Mansura, in the Nile Delta, and Galala, along the Red Sea, are also being developed. There are also initiatives in Upper Egypt, such as Nasser, in Asyut, or Toshka, in the southern desert, although their construction is much more complicated as they are located in the middle of the desert, where climatic conditions are extreme during the summer. All are part of a state plan promoted from Cairo, with a strong presence of the Army and public companies in its execution.