New New Cairo?
Just out of Cairo Airport, here's a surprising shot of a suburb on the ground. A lot of large apartment blocks with few signs of street life. Egypt has toyed with the idea of building new desert cities to take residents away from the Nile - and this could be New Cairo, an area that was meant to attract several million but only hosts a few hundred thousand residents. The problem is that one needs a car to live there, and most Egyptians can't afford them.
Alternatively, is this part of the purpose-built new capital city announced at Sharm al-Sheikh in 2015? Egypt's president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi unveiled a mosque there in January 2019, although no one lives in the city yet. It's being built 45 kilometres east of Cairo in an area halfway to Suez, a 700 square km zone bigger than Singapore, able to house 6.5 million people - the 'new New Cairo'!
Wherever it is, it's just seconds after liftoff from Cairo Airport. The map location is my best guess...
New New Cairo?
Just out of Cairo Airport, here's a surprising shot of a suburb on the ground. A lot of large apartment blocks with few signs of street life. Egypt has toyed with the idea of building new desert cities to take residents away from the Nile - and this could be New Cairo, an area that was meant to attract several million but only hosts a few hundred thousand residents. The problem is that one needs a car to live there, and most Egyptians can't afford them.
Alternatively, is this part of the purpose-built new capital city announced at Sharm al-Sheikh in 2015? Egypt's president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi unveiled a mosque there in January 2019, although no one lives in the city yet. It's being built 45 kilometres east of Cairo in an area halfway to Suez, a 700 square km zone bigger than Singapore, able to house 6.5 million people - the 'new New Cairo'!
Wherever it is, it's just seconds after liftoff from Cairo Airport. The map location is my best guess...