© AFP/Getty Images
Labourers work at the construction site of the new Egyptian administrative capital, 40km east of Cairo.
Billed as smart city in the desert, boasting greenery and luxury housing, the government is set to relocate to the as-yet-unnamed city in 2019. But will anyone else move in?
Billboards promising another way of life have long clustered alongside the clogged highways of central Cairo. Advertisements for gated housing developments called "Regent's Park", "Beta Greens" or "Uptown" promise "360-degree greenery" and open spaces. One, on a busy and polluted central road, invites onlookers to "just breathe".
The promise of escape from the congestion of central Cairo to a new life 40km away on the city's outskirts is fetishised for those able to afford it. Nowhere is this more clear than on the billboards advertising real estate in "Entrada", a housing and commercial property development in Egypt's new administrative capital, which is currently without a name. "Welcome to a supreme community," proclaims one. The development is touted by its creators as "the entrance to a new city, a new lifestyle, a new community and a new worldwide centre of attraction".
The alternative capital will span 700 sq km, making it almost as large as Singapore, and is intended to house a total of five million people. The plan shows an expanse of high-rises and residential buildings as well as a "government district" all stationed around a central "green river", a combination of open water and planted greenery twice the size of New York's Central Park.
© ACUD
A graphic of the new Egyptian capital shows completed residential districts, as well as the planned tallest building in Africa at 345 metres high.
Comment: So how exactly will they be able to defined "unexpected objects" and why would a parked car be considered unexpected? Sounds like there are some fundamental flaws in how this automated vehicle is supposed to work. See also: Uber suspends self-driving vehicle tests after fatal crash in Arizona