@@belalsherif553 The fact he got democratically elected, does not mean he is not a dictator. The fact that the Egyptian people are in favour of him also does not mean he is not a dictator. His actions decide whether he is a dictator. Does he take decisions based on the well-being of his people or based on his own delusions of grandeur? Does he respect the limitations of his presidential position or is he trying to reform the government so that he has more ruling power? Does he engage in nepotism? These are but a few questions you could pose that can lead to the conclusion of whether he is a dictator. To me, it definitely seems like he is.
@@mortenrl1946 Yes, but the other factors I mentioned (nepotism, displays of supremacy and government reforms to increase presidential power) are part of the progress to obtain that absolute power. When we observe these behaviours, we can see a dictator in the making.
Ceausescu was a great man who managed to keep the country out of the hands of both the russians and the americans. Paid out foreign debt, built hydroelectrical and nuclear plants, protected forests etc. What we have now we have because of him. So what if they build that shit remember most people who come to Egypt come to see the outrageous shit your ancestors build 2000+ years ago
it really is! the American and in most part Canadian city/urban/suburban system is horrible to live in. you're so far away from things so you need transportation which causes street congestion and air/noise pollution. it dosen't seem truly sustainable, look at older areas of middle east, Europe, and the east where houses are near shops, near food, near family and those areas are relatively the same for hundreds to thousands of years; you don't need a car you can safely walk or bike . Theres no real sense of community with 'American' design.
@@mikepalmer2219 I mean the thing is, it’s not about your preference. There are just various multifaceted problems to designing a society around suburban sprawl. As a contained example, the inflated distances between important sites, necessitating cars as the primary mode of transportation, causes various issues. There are environmental problems from excessive/inefficient energy use of regular car driving, and excessive development/destruction of wild habitats to create wider, less dense communities. There are increased public health problems due to a decreased emphasis on walking/cycling as a form of transportation vs the car, not to mention the simple fact that transportation via car has a higher mortality rate than public transport. The excessive space also leads to a an unaffordable cost of living for many due to the higher cost of building and operating public utilities like water or electricity over a longer mass of land, this before considering factors like the larger, more expensive housing often built on these areas, with more inefficient heating/air conditioning among other utilities. Wanting some privacy away from society is an understandable individual choice, but the reality is this planet is not big enough to sustain every human currently on it to have such large amounts of space and resources to themselves. For a majority of people on the planet, urban living of some sort is not a matter of preference, it’s just a necessary reality.
I am Egyptian at first . Our country will built more 30 cities . More than 100 m live on delta and close the Nile and people built on fertile soil so the president ordered no more built on fertile so we built near desert . This is only solution to solve overpopulation in Egypt. Don't listen to this man he is against the regime .
I was literally going to mention that the world's largest flagpole was being built just to handle to the size of the red flag this project gives to the citizens of Egypt.
2023 update from Egypt: He ran out of foreign currency now and couldn't finish his cartoon project. Interestingly, he is blaming the people at the moment. We're fu*ked 😂
Maybe it's because all the contractors, construction materials and labour are from China Inc. Tofu dregs. The Saudi's chose Bechtel as the prime contractor for NEOM. That ought to tell you everything you need to know.
@@Canonlaw2 at least Turkey produces and exports a lot of products. We're wayyyyyy more fu*ked here in Egypt. Any change in politics wouldn't be able to fight the army in dominating the economy for decades.
Well, the Pyramids at least became tousands of years later a massive income source with tourism, so it was a slow burning investment which 300 generations later pays off. I have my doubt the new capital will ever attractive anyone to visit Egypt.
On the other hand: The pyramids lasted for thousands of years. I give this new capital a decade if there's a revolution and maybe 3 decades if there's no revolution
Egyptian here: we have food shortages, high inflation rates, high unemployment, underfunded healthcare and education, and high rate of corruption.then mr el sisi wants to build a fancy expensive capital for the rich assholes to live far away from our impoverished population. Nice video Adam.
Prophecy of Islam, When you see barefoot, naked, destitute shepherds competing in constructing tall buildings.” وَأَنْ تَرَى الْحُفَاةَ الْعُرَاةَ الْعَالَةَ رِعَاءَ الشَّاءِ يَتَطَاوَلُونَ فِي الْبِنَاءِ Arab citizens suffering while arab leaders competing who's gonna build the highest buildings, we're truly at the end times
Just like in Indonesia then, our government is doing the exact same thing, in the middle of our largest rainforest, on the most sparsely populated island. The upper bourgeois tried building their own "city of dreams" a while back, which failed spectacularly, and now our government is going to finish the job, except we have even less money than egypt, bigger problems than egypt, and a much larger population than egypt. They're not even planning on building something like that giant obelisk you guys are getting. They want to build a giant GLASS BIRD.
It’s time for Egypt to westernize. Overthrow your government. You deserve better. Don’t you guys want to get the prosperity places like Poland and the Baltic countries got after they westernized?
@@tylerclayton6081 the second world is "westernizing" in general. We have access to internet, increases in prosperity and wealth, unprecedented economic growth, but we have several problems we share, notably religious fanatics (christians in the philippines, buddhists in myanmar, muslims here in indo and there in egypt)
@@tylerclayton6081 we also have a copious amount of political authoritarianism that refuses to liberalize either because the people are too uneducated or too dogmatically blind. Overthrowing our governments would be an even worse plan, considering how easily a revolution can go wrong.
@@real_ninja3932if they’re scouring Twitter but don’t care at all about RU-vid? Shut up stop making stupid excuses for people being idiots on the internet
As an African and Architecture student this makes me realize that some African countries may be in a phase of 'wanting to speed up development, but not tackling the problems that DO matter and instead going for flashy developments at the cost of the less fortunate citizens or ALL of the regular citizens'... and my country is one of them🤦♀️. I empathise with the citizens negatively affected by these developments. I also have seriously been ruminating over this question, 'What are our leaders' priorities??!' Because it seems it's not the general citizens and their welfare.☹️
Dude you are the first to critisize this dumbass project. Seriously, thank you. As a half Egyptian, It is nice that somebody actually did the math instead of saying "BIG BUILDINGS = BIG COOL"
Ikr I've seen so many people say it's an impressive project that will bring prestige to the Egyptian people. As an architect, I burst out laughing when I found out the sheer vanity of the project (specially the phallic park design) and that someone wanted to make Dubai 2.0 but without the insane oil wealth
The American military headquarters is a Pentagon yes? Yes. And a pentagon has five sides correct? Yes sir. I want our complex to have eight, make it a full-on octagon. And make it magnitudes bigger than their Pentagon. But sir, the Pentagon is enormous already... Bigger! With eight sides! Sir, our military is a fraction of the size of the United States military. We really don't need a... BIGGER!!!
Fining poor people for repairing their homes and then condemning the buildings is truly next-level. Solidarity to every single Egyptian who is getting shafted by this bullsht.
@@ForelliBoy No it isn't, this is just an excuse Westerners make up to make themselves feel guilt-free for supporting the tyrant building this monstrosity.
@@ForelliBoy The alternative was the first democratically elected leader in the history of Egypt. I guess democracy doesn't matter when DC doesn't like the outcome.
True that regarding the flagpole. I mean if you look at the top 6 before Egypt took the top spot, the tallest flagpoles are in Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, North Korea, Iran, and Turkmenistan...all dictatorships in some shape or form (Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, but that's just a fancier dictatorship). And it gets better, Azerbaijan will now have an even TALLER flagpole. The last flagpole was 162 m/531 feet but it was dismantled in 2017 because the flag being ripped by the wind many times. With help from Turkey, they'll have the second tallest flagpole at 191 m/627 feet, beating Saudi Arabia's 171 m/561 feet. Also, they're building an urban park just to own Central Park? Bruh, Central Park isn't even the biggest urban park. That title goes to Table Mountain National Park in Cape Town, South Africa with over 74,000 acres
@@lunariousmoon as someone who lives in southern Africa i can say that isn't true, but that's mostly because Table mountain is the first thing you see when you approach Cape town
Anything large is harmful in my understanding. Even large solar power plants and large dams are harmful and unsustainable. It is better to have decentralized things. So decentralized small water management systems would be better.
@@yashagrawal88 There’s a moderate approach where you can have systems that are large medium and small that all complement each other to create synergy
Just do a little search about Egypt's efforts in the water sector in the past 8 years, you'll be stunned. This video is totally dumb and has ZERO scientific way of analyzing the object of interest.
The worst part of these projects is that when the working classes say "why don't you pay us better? provide security? healthcare? help us make the country a better place for everyone?", the response is always "who's gonna pay for it??". But when the rich and powerful want to build stuff like this, using public funds is patriotic.
But honest question. Who is going to pay for it. Better security, healthcare, and better pay all require alot of money. Where does it come from? None of those things are money generators like reducing the cost of establishing new industries. The things you mentuoned are all socialist money pits that don't generate income.
@@MA_KA_PA_TIE The taxes pay for it. Tax the rich and stop government spending on useless projects. Make better economic decisions and the money will come easily. The people should be the one that reap the benefits of a good economy.
@@MA_KA_PA_TIE So? Food is a money pit, it generates no income for me, it only keeps me alive. Healthcare generates no income for me, it only keeps me alive. Safer cities and roads generate no income for me either. But I would happily pay more money so I *dont* have to choose between a million dollar ambulance ride or walking to the hospital. I would gladly pay more money so we could have more effective crime prevention. And I happily pay money for roads so I can travel between cities without having to pay a toll on every new road. Also, you are completely ignoring the fact that health care and defense spending *do* generate income and contribute to the economy. They provides jobs which pay well. The developments that come out of those industries can be applied to other areas as well, so they provide additional benefits. Finally, don't throw around words like "Socialist" when you clearly have a very macro, simplistic idea of how economies work and what their purpose are.
Fantastic video as usual. Anyone who has visited Egypt has seen the crumbling infrastructure of Cairo, ruined roads, traffic nightmares and air pollution. This is a society that still uses mules as transport outside major cities. The Nile is shrinking due to climate change so this is ludicrous and laughable. I can’t imagine the rage the people of Cairo must feel. Feed this dictator to the crocodiles in the Nile. That’s all he’s good for.
The Nile is not shrinking because of climate change, if anything the Nile should be flooding by climate change. However the opposite is happening and it may dry up because of a dam that Ethiopia constructed which is very problematic and can affect the Nile stream at all the countries north of Ethiopia
@@LO-dm6uf “The Nile River, and its fertile delta, could be destroyed by climate change, experts warn. Droughts across Africa are draining the river at its source, prompting the UN to warn that the Nile could shrink by up to 70% before 2100, threatening farms and families that depend on it for irrigation. On Egypt’s northern coast, rising seas are creeping up on the Nile Delta, salinating the once arable land and destroying crops. As the water continues to rise, experts fear that thousands of acres of farmland could be ruined.” That’s according to the UN so you aren’t correct.
Having worked in the federal US government in DC, and as just my opinion as a private citizen and not speaking for any agency, most US federal buildings were definitely “nice, but not TOO nice….because that is taxpayer money.” Some offices I worked in were downright dumpy (which was fine with me…because tax payer money) with only the headquarters being nicer or historic.
Ironically the origins of civilized life still has yet to get over it's hubris and realize there are actually better ways of doing things. Well if my ancestors were able to make a fancy pyramid and build a city around it every time the poor started moving in, good idea, we'll do the same. 👉👉
@@cattibingo pyramids were built with contract workers. Egypt had slaves, but they didn't rely on them as much as Greeks or Romans, but thanks to stereotypes we associate slavery with Egyptians, and not with people who had it way worse in Europe.
There was a Economist here in Egypt that used to go on air in popular shows and talk about problems in Egypt and actually suggest solutions to them. He even suggested solutions to almost every problem the country had bit apparently he spoke too much that he was *killed*.
Yeah, that's worth subscribing. Not only pointing out the flaws in the project, but taking a strip off of people who are cheerleaders for insane garbage like this without bothering to consider what they actually support.
This is kinda like when the old pharaohs of Egypt would build a new capital city in a useless patch of desert every time a new dynasty came into power, allegedly because of important reasons like defence or trade or whatever, but its actually so they can ignore the original capitals. Edit: I noticed that a lot of people like to call out how I worded this comment originally and how they seem to think that this has only happened once in history, so I’m going to address that here for people who care. There were many times in Egypt’s history when a new dynasty would come into power, they’d build a new city (or at least convert the site of a town or small city) and call it their new capital. For example during the rule of the twelfth dynasty in the Middle Kingdom period they changed the capital of Egypt from Thebes to the city of Itjtawy, which was founded by the first pharaoh of the twelfth dynasty King Amenemhat I. Another good example of this phenomena happened when the Hyksos invaded and settled northern Egypt, founding the new capital of avaris, another city founded in a patch of desert just to be the seat of a few pharaohs. And of course this also happened loads of other times until the Persians invaded, got kicked out, put themselves back in charge, then Alexander the Great came around and built the city of Alexandria where many of the future rulers of Egypt will sit. Idk why people think this is a rare occurrence, it’s not like this is something that’s entirely unprecedented, many other countries like China and Germany and India also had this happen. If you’re going to make statements like that then go and learn the history first.
That's actually the perfect analogy, the reasons behind it are the same. The NAC is built in order to flex the regime's power, status and wealth (just like all the pharaoh's grand monuments), it's built in a new location with more administrative oversight in order to provide more oversight and root out resistance/corruption from the old regime, and lastly the NAC is built in such a way to provide more security for the new regime.
The plan of the egyptians was to build some kind of legitimazi that can give power to the new dynasty so it can endure in the region. (Mostly to secure the elites and funcionaries support) Especially in moments of great turmoil and crisis.The egiptians in that cultural context have more sense building citys then this people xd
Unfortunately, as an Egyptian, we never see people publicly criticizing this dumbass project. The media is controlled by the government and if you even post a criticism about this on your personal social media account and it got enough exposure, they're eventually going to take you down and you will essentially disappear. Thank you for making this video.
This city looks like a megalomaniacal version of Brazil's capital, Brasília, which is also a planned city. If this city is really structured like Brasília, then I'm so sorry for you egyptians. Brasília is not only a bad place to live compared to other major cities in Brazil, it has a very inefficient transport system because of the dumb way the roads and blocks were designed and the cost of living is astronomical. And the city was built by poor workers who could never afford even a square meter of land in the city, and they were so poorly paid they couldn't travel back to where they came from, so they settled all around the "beautiful work of art", creating the Satellite Cities (one of which I live in) where the poorly designed roads and inefficient public transport creates a daily commuting nightmare twice a day.
@@phosspatharios9680 this city is a big dunk from the tyrranical elite on the people of egypt,the city is pointless and the economy is going to hell because of it(+corruption and massive economic mismanagement),people dont want to speak up because their scared but im hopeful,the day people wake up and take their right,i will be right there with them
13:39 This poem fits this video in two ways. Because it is´nt just a poem about a lost civilization and the vanity of their ruins(especially Egypt ones). Ozymandias is also the Greek name for Ramses😄
It would seem the Egyptian dictator has been influenced by one of my favorite demotivator posters: "Hundreds of years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove... But the world may be different because I did something so bafflingly crazy that my ruins become a tourist attraction."
well actually what car you drove would matter if it was innovative and unique, like say the Model-T. If you didn't contribute to history then yes making a tourist attraction is a legacy. The other building that has no proper plumbing has a self aggrandizing monument saying it's the technology of the modern era.
As an Egyptian I can say that most of us hate and make fun of this "new capital". So much money was spent on it while most Egyptian can't even afford food, housing, and health. They built the biggest chandelier in the world cuz big things are cool and that's how a country is considered progressive. It's not even the same case like UAE where they have so much money that they don't know that to do with, in our case WE ARE BROKE and in deep dept to everyone around the globe But big building sounds cool so the elites can look down on us while we beg for scraps and maybe they might be generous enough to throw some leftovers at us. Egypt is the epitome of when an idiot fascist tries to speed run corruption
I loved a year in Alexandria and I totally agree with your comment. The country is broke, nothing works without bakshish (tips) and they borrowed money to build this non sense?!
Why is this idiotic? What does being broke have to do with it? Anything they can actually build, they can afford. Ruling class need a fortress (desert & distance is the fortification). Sounds reasonable given recent history of the people being a bit... insubordinate. I don't like it, but it's reasonable from their stand point. What does poverty relief give them? Are there checks and balances? Not even liberal democracy takes into account lower class political interests
@@christian2i unfortunately, not everything that is built can be afforded. Countries can be in serious amounts of debt (which Egypt is), and therefore cannot really afford a project of this scale. But the debt is ignored, and the project continues regardless. As for serving the interests of the lower classes, while a lot of countries with more liberal ideologies may still primarily serve the interests of the rich, it is usually at least more challenging for them to flagrantly spend the country's money in such a way. Generally it is easier to hold people accountable, and there are more expectations for them to help with urban issues, the kind of which the video describes are being ignored in Cairo. While the same issues may be present in these more liberal countries, you will generally find that they are of a lesser scale.
Very well explained Adam, I can’t believe a non egyptian can understand and explain it so well when some locals can’t comprehend the disaster we are facing
the accuracy of the information in this video is Amazingly SHOCKING, he nailed every single aspect, Politics, Sociology, Engineering, and Architecture........ I am an Egyptian living in Cairo and this video cannot be more accurate..............hats off to the video makers
It's uncannily similar to what they did here in Brazil when they moved the capital from Rio and created Brasília. A mega structure in the middle of nowhere to house all the federal government. On the upside, they've created superblocks as residential infrastructure. You should make a video about Brasília, by the way. Feel free to reach out to me if you need information. I'll gladly help you out.
isn't Rio just covered in crime? Having criminals roaming your streets and killing your people randomly isn't a safe place to grow up in. Not too surprising that they'd wanna leave the mess they made.
@@genericscout5408 you missed the time frame by a few centuries. Also, the criminals roaming the steets of Rio are the Businessmen and politicians drug traffickers. Neither inside the favelas nor inside the zona sul are where crimes occur, it's in the transition of both.
@@genericscout5408 Rio isn't Grand Theft Auto, there aren't any more criminals roaming the streets and killing people randomly than anywhere else in the world.
he prolly wont make a video about it since he kinda hates the middle east only, he didnt even make a video about china's ghost cities, the worst offender of this "idealistic city" syndrome
@@AzureKite 2021, there were a total of 4653 shootings registered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 485 in New York. It's 10x as dangerous but yeah that's not GTA levels of violence.
Yes they had quite a few bad train disasters i saw many vids of train wrecks , lot of dead peeps .. i better stop slagging my goverment as things are so much better here ...
I am Egyptian and you said everything is true This does not only happen in Cairo There are many cities in Egypt suffer from dictatorship The rich are getting richer And the poor get poorer
And the pentagon of the, uh, Pentagon, actually serves a purpose. It helps to make the structure more stable against bombings if there was a war or attack at Washignton. It worked because only one part was damaged at 9/11
Seeing how the Egyptian government has complained about not affording to feed their people due to increased food prices I think I can spot one place where they could save the currency for the imports...
hey aren't whining about food prices so they can feed their people, they're whining about food prices so that Western countries will send them foreign aid that the dictator and his buddies can pocket to enrich themselves with, and Western countries, fully knowing this, will send that aid so that when the Western countries need Egypt's support with something, Egypt will be more likely to comply. Isn't geopolitics fun?
Honestly, it wouldn't matter. If they hadn't built this travesty of a city, they'd steal that money, anyway. It's not that the Egyptian gov spends frivolously, it's that they steal from the people to enrich themselves and maintain their dictatorship.
They could also stop trying to abuse the global economic system via deflationary monetary policy- just vibe and maintain a stability but NO, but that would require folds in the grey matter to pull off.
I've been to Egypt so when Adam was talking about the situation in Cairo (ie the slums, highways next to half finished occupied buildings, the microbuses etc) memories came flooding back and I know its all true. I was shocked to see in the comments of that neo video he referenced there were so many Egyptians (or people claiming to be Egyptians) saying its such a wonderful project and being so proud of it.
Egypt's economy is essentially closed to most of the population and is in the hands of the military. So the military, the few hundred thousand wealthy citizens, and the political class (all the same people anyways) are building a place from which they can rule without interference from the pesky humans upon whom their luxurious lives are built. This is the geography of the 21st century.
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That's not geography of the 21st century. It was always like this man :/
On the plus side, when the elites all live in a tower in the desert, all the rebels have to do is turn off the water to them and wait...
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@@nathaniellindner313 I hate when youtube shadow bans comments or replies, they do it with around 10% 😑 i only see your comment because it's on my mailbox... its for everyone invincible
@@viktorstojanovic9007 I know. I only can see it, because I have it in Mail, but you should see the 5 on the comment logo, that shows you that there is a hidden comment
South Africa almost built a giant flagpole last year but there was such a public outcry about it that the plan was scuppered. It is mind boggling that the minister who proposed the project thought it was worth the small fortune it would cost. Even worse, they were not summary sacked from their post.
The funds to build this could have rebuilt Egypt's irrigation infrastructure, effectively dealing with the issue of the dam Ethiopia built on the Nile.
Egyptian here, Cairo is an amazing city if we took care of buildings and fixed their issues, there are lots of unpainted brick buildings that look ugly. Cairo is built around the nile, and has an old rich history, we should embrace this history rather than building a new city and copying oil rich gulf countries.
What a really positive comment. I’m a strong believer in rethinking failing urban spaces rather than starting with a blank sheet. It requires a lot of creativity and hard work but we’ve seen in a lot of smaller European cities that Urban design can work with the current built environment to create really cool, interesting, liveable spaces. No city is a lost cause. I’d love to know what the Egyptian architectural profession (outside the mega firms) think about this project.
It’s insane knowing that Walt Disney made a prototype city (EPCOT) that was more eco-friendly, less car centric and designed better than most cities in the 60’s and almost all modern cities of now and somehow an entire government can’t design a better city than a prototype that a company CEO came up with randomly on a flight to Florida
Walt was idealistic and wantedto leave his mark on the world by defining its very structure forever. It was still a sort of ego-stroking, but his thought was "they'll remember me if I make something perfect" rather than "HURR DURR BIG BUILDING"
Long, long ago they built an elevated monorail through the streets of Sydney. Its purpose was to connect all the big hotels around the city to the new CASINO that was being built at Darling Harbour. Only the location for the Casino changed and it wasn't built at Darling Harbour but a kilometer or two away from it, and well away from the completed monorail. So we had a monorail which did a loop around the city but really benefitted no one. For $2 it was a fun ride, but that was it. It's gone now, taken down because no one cared to use it. Well, the first time a train broke down on it; all the others had to stop running; and no one knew how to get the passengers down. The fire brigade had to bring in cheery pickers and do one carriage at a time. It took over 3hrs; and it blocked traffic in the street.
He could touch upon the surreal roads that are miniature beltways of sorts where if you’re a typical Washingtonian, you don’t expect a road to go in a circle and there you are coming back to where you were before. And everything looks so much the same so there’s no cues but that is the worst of it and it’s largely successful units goals, especially compared to the rest of the Washington DC metropolitan area.
I was chased onto a 4 lane road in Cairo by a guard dog guarding a "private garage" under an open bridge. as an Egyptian, I apologize profusely for modern Egypt's existence.
@@Baca279 it was a universal apology, directed mainly to the مصريين and everyone else who has to confusedly watch what's going on. كسم إللي حاصل فينا و كسم المنظر للي شايف من برة
This feels genuinely like the Endgame or Magnum Opus of Adam Something's urban planning videos, he was *made for this.* There's subarbs, ridiculously tall syscrapers, roads that are car centric, it's in the desert, and OF COURSE there even is an insanely expensive Monorail with no trains or other forms of public transportation in sight, with the fact it's run by a Dicktator. The only thing left is Elon Musk giving some dumb invention a go here and genuinely everything is checked off. But that's just what i see.
i was shocked by the unsafe driving conditions in Cairo (as an observant pedestrian, off course) as well as on the countryside. a Cairo bus driver had a meltdown after i disembarked and crossed what i would call a highway, on foot. he yelled and waived his arms, so i crossed back to the bus thinking "maybe he didn't intend for us to get off here". he immediately made a u-turn and let us off ... after I'd already made the trip twice on foot. i also saw a bus hit a pedestrian, and no care was given to the poor man, who got back to his feet and continued walking as if that were the price of getting where you want to go
Wow, I’ve heard it said about other countries before, but the saying that “most countries have militaries, but Egypt is a military with a country” has never seemed more true.
@@sadeksama5057 very acurate analisis. I live in a country semi neo-colonize and I don't mind at all. It's a semi-republican democracy and a lot of people really don't care as a big portion doesn't vote by choice.
As pointed out by many locals when I lived in Egypt: They built new cairo, 6th October city and all the other new cities to get away from the poor people but in each city they needed low wage long hour employment for all the social services (shops, busses, trains, taxis etc) so had to make cheap, poor quality housing but then found there were lots of poor people in their city... so they made a new city to get away from them running into the same problem One wonders what's going to happen to this new city when they need workers for all this half baked infrastructure and shops.
An easier solution to this would be class zoning. A section of the city is low priced and low quality, ONLY affordable to the poor/middle class working families, in the middle can be a rather big park, or city district where urban shops can be, and even some high rise buildings. Finally, split that off by a large park, and then place the rich housing that's a gated community. Only affordable to the rich, and the only way in or out, are multiple gates. Connect the two areas with a metro system, that's fairly ass because only poor people are going to use it, and have stops going from the poor housing area, to the city center, and then a nice 10-15 minute walk away from the rich housing. You can also place alot of the crucial city infrastructure like legal buildings, police stations, and fire stations, closer to the rich side simply to make sure that they're taken care of first compared to the lower income people. I've actually done this in City Skylines, and it's worked rather well if you want to be a fucking asshole. The 'slums' if that's what you want to call that, can be close together and tight, cars won't be needed as much, and the rich neighborhoods can be designed much like American ones because on a map they look pretty, but in reality they fucking suck. The rich will be surrounded by nice gates, an almost private HUGE park, and close to any crucial infrastructure for them. While the poor on their side of the city, are left to essentially rot, with no way to ACTUALLY leave because they can't afford it. Bonus points if housing at first is cheap, but you slowly raise the price every 3-4 years making it impossible for the next generation of workers to afford vehicles to move out of your city.
It would take more water than Egypt has to turn such a massive area into... something that isn't a disgusting, depressing patch of desert. I get what they're going for, but they're biting off far too much to chew in one go with such a project. This is like Dubai 2.0... and no, that isn't a compliment.
As an Egyptian citizen who’s also an architect who believes in the stupidity of the New Capital, I really want to share this video… but I don’t want to risk getting arrested or sth 😂😂 I’ll wait until I migrate somewhere safe 😂😂😂😂
Oh, don't worry about migrating first, Google/Alphabet is surely selling your comment to your government. Packed your underwear for prison already? Sorry, living in the West made me quite sarcastic. Might have resulted from living in a "democracy" aka an "Edward Bernays' style propaganda managed technocratical system serving big tech and big pharma and other globalist madmen"...
Well this new city is the most Egyptian thing ever, because when our civilization collapse and new one take over they will find octagon buildings in desert like we found pyramids. We didn't find ordinary ancient Egyptian homes and they wouldn't find todays Egyptian homes but rather palaces and mausoleums of ruling class.
As an Egyptian I always thought that the amount of corruption Egypt is in is not clear to the public and that's why the problems are still going. And the problems are not that big because the government and the media never talks about it instead they play songs about how beautiful Egypt is in the TV 24 hours. And that we are the problem that we are not doing good financially, because the government always blame us , we have too many kids, we don't work hard enough, we don't study hard enough to get a decent education. But it just amazes me that someone from the other side of the world with a quick research online found all the problems our country is dealing with , and it's very clear to the government and the public and yet nothing has changed and probably nothing will.
The too many kid thing is true, if you are not a subsistence farmer, don't make a lot of kids! It will cause a lot of difficulties for the family. Kids for proletariat or bourgeois are mostly a cost
@@moneyobsessed It's the government's job to maintain things well enough for their civilians to live as they please, or the civilians WILL leave or revolt. People are dumb in any country, it's the government's job to take that into account and help their stupid population
You can't blame the average Egyptian though. Without the slightest form of free speech things like this won't ever be brought up in the media people consume, only blatant propaganda lies. Most people aren't educated enough to do the quick online research someone from the other side of the world could do.
@@moneyobsessed not really It's boils down to education and employment China has a massive population but it's an educated/skilled population allowing for companies , factories and small businesses to easily open India has a massive population but it has invested in low tech and low skill industries along with extreme support to immigration to work In Egypt in 50s 3/4 weren't even educated but they pushed and pushed and by 60s illiteracy went below 30% , unfortunately in the 70s the leadership tore down the previous long term projects and in the 80s bureaucracy kicked in and till now it hasn't gotten better , as for skilled Labour education it had been neglected since the 70s and until...2018 the gov didn't even support small businesses while low tech industries were neglected by private sector with the public sector (the biggest low tech industries holder) being dismantled and destroyed DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON HOW THE GOV VILLAINIZED IMMIGRATION
As an exile egpytian/2nd generation emigrant born in the late 80s, I visited the city together with my father (who also lives abroad). Our reactions couldn't be more different. Since he witnessed a stagnating country with corrupt elites over all of his life, he is amazed by the actual happening of things. I however, share your point. The pure power architecture is absolutely on par with late 1930s architecture á la Speer in Germany.
Can't blame your father for seeing things that way; makes total sense. Similar things happen in Latin America - elites run countries for decades and decades and nothing improves, nothing changes.
Your. Country spent 2 trillions in war in Iraq. Egypt. Haven't went. To. A worthless war to spend. Its money rather. They are building their. Own country so you shouldn't talk dummy and say. It is much worse out there
You're right, but America's status quo is still embarrassing giving the money and potential they have, they're outdone by so many European countries with much less money, power and potential...i mean if only the US wasn't so busy interfering in everyone's business and wasn't too obsessed with being in control of literally EVERYTHING in the world
One of the most alarming things in here is making the military entirely separate from the rest of society. One key objective of dictatorships is to separate the military from the rest of society. This is to achieve two things: 1) so they enjoy special privileges that will make them want to maintain the current regime so as to maintain their special privileges, and 2) so they feel wholly disconnected and distinct from the "common" folk, so they are much more willing to use force against their own people. Turns out, drawing your military from common, everyday people makes them much less likely to want to kill common, everyday people. But creating a distinct, privileged military social class makes them much more willing to kill or oppress commoners.
No? What? No! I don't know which country you are from but in some parts of the world militaries are a separate and distinct political establishment. They wield political power and they launch coups. They are by all means states within states. And using force against their own people is just another tool to get their way
@@0g0mogosepikworld31 Well, that's exactly what I mean. It's a lot easier to wield the military against the people when the military is wholly separate and distinct and privileged from the common people. When the military is comprised of the common folk, like in most western democracies, it's members are much less inclined to kill and/or oppress their own people. I have some friends from Bangladesh who describe how the military there is its own social class, highly privileged and with their own special schools and neighborhoods they live in. It is precisely that separation I'm talking about that makes it easier to wield violence against the common citizenry.
@@ulrichspencer the military is seperate and is distinct becausr it's the military. that military caste forms and I don't know why it does that. there can be several theories as to why that happens. it might because the military has lots of educated young people who have political aspirations or it might be because it is seen by the people as prestigious leading to a superiority mentality the reason is irrelevant and the end is the same: army becomes a political institute and that political institute does it's bidding sometimes with pen and sometimes with sword
One of my favourite poems. Not so much because of its stanza as the fact that it speaks to human hubris and infantilism in such a piercing way. All we are is dust in the wind.
@@jpaulo_ap I concur, communicating with fellow humans regarding recent events is indeed a great method through which I can improve my social skills and be able to mimic humanity better.
I love the higway next to the park. It will be really rellaxing place, where you can breathe the fumes and hear roaring motors of thousand of cars. I would love to study there.
@@Kr0noZ The difference is that Central Park has depth. If you go to the centre, you're quite far from the roads. It also has a great deal of tree cover. This new Cairo park, however, is long but thin - you can only go so far towards the center before you're headed back onto the road again. Plus, a bunch of the center is artificial lakes, pushing you out further toward the edge.
I like how they advertise it as having shade when you can see from the aerial view there's a single foot path and like 20 water features. and the foot path is only lightly shaded on one side. Like bruh I may be wrong though I haven't done research maybe it's sprawling and nice and away from traffic
Just discovered your channel, was looking up content for some world building I was doing, but I am impressed. You're right there aren't many people on RU-vid discussing urbanism in its totality. I learned alot and laughed a fair bit doing it. Well done and I eagerly await your next topic
I live in Egypt and although I agree with what you say, I could not continue watching because the workers who are plastering my living room got too annoyed by your voice. I will have to watch 3 minutes per day to avoid severe headaches.
I was recently in Egypt and car-centric doesn't even begin to describe that country, especially Cairo. There were highways with 4+ lanes in each direction everywhere, no underpass or traffic lights or any way for pedestrians to walk anywhere. We wanted to walk around and see the sights for ourselves, but that was a very stressful experience... When people are used to that, it is not odd that they will recreate it in the next capital, but damn no need to create anything better...
@@memerman916 any statistics from Egypt is taken with grain of salt Egypt is absolute chaos And when i lived there i saw multiple ppl get hit by cars when trying to cross the road There is no functioning system And no traffic laws
Egypt 5000 years ago: let’s build some massive structure that’s pointlessly large but shows how big our ruler’s ego is. Egypt now: let’s build some massive city that’s pointlessly large but shows how big our ruler’s ego is.
Yeah that's what I am fascinated by people who are fascinated with ancient Egypt. Ancient Egypt was just a more grandiose version of present day North Korea
@@dsgarden for as much as you're right, at least the pharaohs saw paying for actual laborers and giving proper pay instead of just buying a bunch of slaves as part of the grandiosity of the project.
@@dsgarden I don't agree with your statement. Egyptian civilization did achieved many great things unlike North Korea where you can't even escape and it's never created something new.
@@npc6817 Exactly, of course they had slaves and Pharaos were shitty people with a god complex, but hey, at least their builders were well respected and paid. Thus, stupid as their monuments are when you look beyond the grandiose surface, they actually built cities and a civilization to last. They had better urban planning thousands of years ago than whatever the fuck is going on now, and that's just depressing.
I used to visit Egypt some time in the past since there are really good diving areas, but I've never been to Cairo. I used to visit some tourist towns like Dahab, Sharm-el-Shaik ect. Anyway, I've been always impressed (irony mode on) by their roads. Imagine driving in the open desert on a road wide as a motorway with like fifteen roundabouts on your way... In many cases these roads lead to nowhere or they go as much around as possible. I could say much more stuff about their roads and how they build large and shiny resorts... and drop large piles of garbage just outside of the entrences. But I wont. These guys are just on the different side of the rainbow. Trying to understand them is like trying to understand how an analphabet could write a book.
I have been calling out how bad for Egypt's water situation this thing will be for a very long time. It feels nice to finally be validated. Fun Fact: All that cash could have been spent on desalination plants and thus reduce Egypt's overreliance on the Nile.
Egypt has been building and investing a lot of money in water desalination plants in the past couple of years.But the population is increasing at an enormous pace so they are not enough.
Hey Adam Something. I am an architecture student and honestly, this video and the Dubai one are superb critical analyses. I almost want to send them to my History & Theory of Urban Planning professor. But I do have to say this; most of your videos are mainly focused on the analysis of bad examples ("why X is bad", "Y is a nightmare", etc.). I think it would be good to create some videos about e.g. urban planning projects that were 100% or in part successes.
Here's a positive one of Adam's about the benefits of commie blocks: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1eIxUuuJX7Y.html While most of his vids launch with a negative angle on some kind of innovation, all that I've watched direct the viewer to positive alternatives that exist somewhere. Also, as the implementation of good urban planning concepts are being perverted or brushed aside by narcissistic authoritarians all over the world, it seems appropriate if the balance of Adam's critiques is on the negative side.
@@permanentmarkerone I think the better explanation is always a failure to compare the right numbers, rather than an active disregard after comparing the right numbers. Especially true of statistical stuff; people are bad at statistical reasoning. I recall during COVID a lot of Europeans would criticize the US for their COVID death numbers, but for most of the pandemic, if you divided the deaths in the EU by the population of the _whole_ EU, it was equal or worse than the rate in the US. But people struggle with identifying numbers that are comparable to one another...
What's interesting is that whenever I've played City's Skylines and have gotten to the point where money just floods in and you start to make giant urban projects like these, they never turn out looking interesting of functioning particularly well. It's always the original core of my city that I keep coming back to and updating/improving as the organic spread is much more appealing and useful.
@@PosterityIslesNews Nah, even the ones using money cheats would be fine, for the money system in Cities:Skylines isn't anywhere near realistic anyway. The issues regarding traffic and livability are way more crucial and everyone gets to face them, regardless of whether they use cheats or not.
@@lonestarr1490 yeah but as mentioned in this video, the egyptian government can't even *afford* any of the big big business buildings, their entire country is practically in shambles
While I thoroughly enjoyed Cities: Skylines myself, in it's core it sadly is not to different from Sim City in that it only knows zoning. Unless you really want to paint pixels with these zones, you will never have a true organic mixture of residences and commercial/office space. It's the perfect system to recreate the American way of building vast soul crushing pits of despair, not for building cities one would like to live in.
The old Arabic cities you see in medieval history books have such a unique beauty to them; they blend in so naturally with the desert surroundings, they have a bustling energy full of life and commerce. It's a shame that instead of trying to recreate that aesthetic but with more modern amenities, dictators and Saudi princes are just spending billions to make these hideous hyper-modernist skyscraper suburbs that look like they were made by a 9 year old in Sim City.
I know right mate! I have already said it on other videos but I would have had the money Dubai has, I would have instead created a new Babylon straight out of a tale of A Thousand And One Nights with an equatorial level forest. A country dedicated to science and innovation in Space, IT, Medecine, Energy, in order to attract the greatest minds on earth... But no, I guess that giants penises made out of glasses and concrete in the desert for rich as*holes was a wayyyy better idea ...
Agreed. I’ve never been to an Arab country, but I’ve seen the Alcazar, Mezquita de Córdoba, Alhambra, and many other such buildings in Spain left over from the Muslim conquest and occupation, and they’re gorgeous. If the Egyptian dick-tater was so set on emulating the country’s past, he should’ve taken an inspiration from more than simply enormous, pompous architecture, and have a proper style created. Then again, that’s probably too much creativity for his pea brain to handle
The old Arabic administrators were much better. With a clear vision for empowerment of society as a whole, taken from Islamic values. It seems the Arab and Muslim world has forgotten its roots
@@speedking7224 after the western invasion of the Arab world most rulers are puppets of the west that do what their masters say just to stay on the throne more, they just give enough for the people to shut up, every muslim ruler who did something good for their people and or something bad for the west was killed brutally, King faisal is a big example, others include Qadafi and Sadam and Alhamdi of north Yemen (before 1990s)
When I went to Egypt something that really stuck with me is the amount of huge buildings that were completely empty. Now they're just building more? Alright
China has entire cities that no one lived in, which are crumbling and falling over. despite being "new" That's what happens when the few hold all the wealth, the money is wasted that's all.
I believe the reason why there is a huge amount of empty buildings is due to a loophole in the law in which buildings that are technically "under construction" result in no council tax. So they essentially build a massive building, have a large percentage of it inhabited and then leave the rest as "empty" such that it can have the status of being under construction.
Every time I see a park / green area surrounded by or next to a large road / freeway I just get so infuratiated at the incompetence of the city planning. Like seriously who is going to use those parks? Also you can rest assured that even though the only way to transport yourself is by car, there isn't going to be any parking space made so they're going to have to use gigantic plots of land just to use as a parking lot
I wonder who even plans these cities, because from going to lectures on those topics it's incredibly clear none of the people that designed this had any knowledge of urban planning / spacial arcitecture
Yeah bigass encircling highway = only those who have a car and can park the damn thing are allowed in. Move the highway somewhere else then you don't even need a parking lot, period.
@@2inpress232 I'm going to guess it's the same people who plan to benefit from them, the government and military. Who, as is the case with most dictatorships, got their positions through either nepotism or deposition, instead of actual skill.
I used to love watching channels like the B1M cause "ooh look! big new skyscraper out in the desert!" without ever really thinking about urban planning. Now I realize how lucky I am to live in a city which prioritizes people over cars and vanity projects. Thank you for bringing attention to this! You and Not just Bikes are awesome.
There are SO MANY of them. And so many are utter trash. I keep having to tell RU-vid to stop showing them to me. I subscribe to engineering channels too so I guess the algorithm can't grasp the difference...
I think dissecting the engineering challenges of these sorts of mega projects like an autopsy is interesting, like if they could apply the engineering solutions they apply to get these bigly big monumental capitals built to actually sound urbanism principles, they could actually maybe do something good.
The average Egyptian living out of $127 per month (thus, about $4 per day!), but "democrator" al-Sisi wanting to built an ultra-luxurious Las Vegas-style Capital in the midst of the endless Sahara-North African Desert complex. That's all what's needed saying - No need for 14 minutes of video, 14 seconds are enough!
Every time I feel like my city-planning skills are hitting a new low in Cities Skylines, I just remind myself that cities like these exist in the real world. The one thing we've got in common is that irresistible urge to smack big-ass arterial roads everywhere because cars go brrrr.
Cities Skylines, and to a much greater extent SimCity, work on the assumption that car infrastructure is the solution to traffic. Walkability confers no benefits to your city in the former, and is outright impossible in the latter.
@@vaiyt It might be the TMPE mod but in CS, offering alt. options to commuters actually does have huge impact on car traffic. And not just mass transit, having a lot of pedestrian roads and bike lanes actually makes the sims choose to walk or cycle to the destination instead of hopping into cars. It works so well that it's even exploitable through parks to make big bucks off of them. It's not a fix-all, but not offering these options in the city is just a guaranteed way of having 1% traffic flow and cars stuck in a line so long it goes off the map.
My dad went to cairo a few times. Said it was the only city he, a lifelong biker, refused to ride a bike in. Apparently he once saw an entire family on the back of a 60s moped, carrying a box of chickens and dragging a goat on a string behind it
The streets are unclean but the houses are clean egyptians don't feel home in their own country and ignorance is increasing every day just like the population that's why Cairo is like a ticked garbage bomb
what does moped mean? Like they just grabbed the back of the car and cling to it while dragging a goat? Never heard that word (moped) outside of gaming (the moped us) or cleaning (moping the floor)
As a Brazilian I caught a glimpse at that long central park and the first thing I thought was my country capital, Brasília. Then I heard of the "Octogon" military center and now I get the impression they are trying to rip-off a few world capitals and nations and "surpass" them.
Yeah, in my country we have the "Palace of culture" otherwise known as "the gift from the Soviets" in Warsaw. A gift that we 🇵🇱 had to pay for, a gift that was build in a ruined city, right in front of piles of rubble and houses that still had holes in them. What was the point of it? To show that our new communist goverment is stronger then the one of the second republic (the highest building at that time was build under pre-war goverment - and it still stands, one of the very few pieces of the original city). This was more important than people having roof. Was it also this level of f$cked in Brasil?
The building of Brasilia is a disgrace and went only to serve the purpose of keeping political elite isolated away from the masses and big city protests.
@@gabrieltorres6484 I disagree. One cannot say only the elites live in Brasília and its surrounded cities, neither that massive protests don't occur there.
They are The oblisik is for uae Octagon for dc Central park for nyc French area is to piss of francophone countries who don't have the budget for it American suburb to show the us we are cool like tel Aviv Many many international universities to mimic old European cities Monorail to mimic built train Big flag for big national energy Big parliament for "democracy" Gov district to say "no more" red tape Big cathedral to win up Lebanon as a "tolerant" country Big mosques to say we are religious like saudi
@@marcosbravo9645 And neither this new capital will be limited to the "rich" or the "elite", are they going to serve themselves? it is an administrative city ffs, of course you will have all walks of life living in or near it, if not there's transportation for a reason, and obviously anyone freelancing there will work for higher rates and sell services/commodities for far higher prices since it's a middle-high income area.
Finally someone is speaking about this. My country's economy is going down the drain and the poverty line is increasing day by day, national debt is horrifying and all because the government doesn't want to be next to the stinky poor people. As an Egyptian, i am truly grateful for this comment. 8:45 You summed it up perfectly. The military is truly the ruling class in Egypt, a state within a state, and it has forever been that way, from the days of the pharaohs to the mamluks to the so called "Republic"
As someone who visits Egypt once every 2 years , my thought on why this new city has been built is same as yours - because rich didn't want to be bothered by the poor. Shame really for all its flaws I really like Egypt and its people. Greeting from Serbia
@@AnoNymous-dh2sv as an Egyptian myself, they kinda do. Many public figures who just tried opening their mouths got arrested just because they talked bad about the government and for those who are living abroad, they go for their first degree family members (father/mother/brother). They don't want any change in the system. They don't want the people to get educated and know their rights are being violated on daily basis and they are basically living an inhumane life. All under the false excuse of "we have economical problems and the government doesn't have enough money". Truly sad to say this but it's the reality. I really hope that things change but unfortunately there isn't any sign for that.
This reminds me of a school trip to the Reichsparteitagsgelände in Nürnberg I was on in 10th or 11th grade. Part of it is this absurdly oversized road, which was only ever meant for Nazi parades and serves no practical purpose now, and I can only ever imagine wondering who thought it would be a good idea. But generally speaking, I feel like a love for oversized and needlessly bombastic administrative architecture just seems like it's indicative of unpleasant political ideology.
We have nothing to do with your shameful German history. If this happened in your country, it does not mean that it is happening in all other countries