"Loving Egypt cannot just be words," he said. "We are behind, and those that are behind must either speed walk or run. Even running will not be enough in our case." 
 
 The government, at least, likely won't bear the cost of the project. The al-Sisi regime has hired a Dubai-based "private real-estate investment fund" called Capital City Partners, whose founder, Mohammed Alabbar, built Dubai's iconic Burj Khalifa skyscraper, to build the new capital. In addition, according to Gulf Business the United Arab Emirates government has apparently pledged almost $4 billion in aid to Egypt; in turn, a major part of the new city is expected to be named after one of the UAE's leaders. 
 
 The project's relationship to Dubai is no accident: According to Fahmy, the glistening Gulf metropolis fascinates Egypt's authoritarian leaders. But a better comparison to the effort might be found in distant Burma. In 2005, the Southeast Asian nation moved its government from Rangoon, Burma's largest city, to an uninhabited patch of land in the country's center. (According to rumor, Burma's then-president Than Shwe chose the location on the advice of his astrologer.) A decade later, the new capital, Naypyidaw, is a ghost town—a monument not to clever planning but to megalomania. 
 
 Will Egypt's new capital meet the same fate? The government believes that the city, which at 150 square miles will be about the same size as Denver, will eventually be home to 5 million citizens. According to Egypt's Housing Minister Moustafa Madbouly, present-day Cairo, which spreads across roughly 175 square miles, is simply too small to handle a population expected to double in the coming decades. But according to Khaled, overcapacity has little to do with the decision. Instead, he sees an authoritarian government operating without scrutiny from Egypt's muzzled media and embarking on a corrupt and unneeded venture. 
 
 "The very manner in which the decision to move the capital outside Cairo has been taken," he wrote, "is the best illustration of our government’s insistence on ignoring us." 
 
 We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com. ||||| By Khaled Fahmy 
 
 
 
 Imagine if you were Russian and you woke up one day to discover that due to Moscow’s insufferable traffic problems, the Kremlin decided to build not a new mass transport system, but a new capital city altogether. Or, if you were Chinese, and because of Beijing’s endemic pollution problem, the Central Committee of the Communist Party, rather than pass new laws to limit carbon emissions and limit the number of passenger cars, has decided instead to move the capital to a new hitherto unknown location. Or if were Italian, that your government decided to abandon Rome and locate the capital to the coast to be close to maritime routes. 
 
 And imagine in all these cases that your government did this without informing you of its intentions, let alone consult you as a resident of any of these ancient cities or as a citizen of any of these countries. 
 
 This is exactly what the Egyptian government did today. In a dramatic move, and to showcase its future plans, the government suddenly unveiled a plan to build a new administrative and economic capital of Egypt some fifty kilometers to the east of its millennia-old city, Cairo. 
 
 We, Cairenes and Egyptians, were not informed, let alone consulted about this move. 
 
 The new proposed city as revealed in the project’s website, has pictures of shimmering post-modern buildings, Dubai-like skyscrapers, and flashy images of “a global city with smart infrastructure for Egypt’s future, which will provide a multitude of economic opportunities and offer a distinct quality of life.” The website also links to Capital City Partners, a private real estate investment fund led by Emirati Mohamed Alabbar. Alabbar is one of the main advisors of Muhammad bin Rashed al Maktoum, the governor of Dubai. He is also CEO of Emaar, a leading construction firm which built the iconic Burj Khalifa in Dubai and which already has extensive business in Egypt. 
 
 I won’t dwell on the fascination with Dubai as a model for urban development and how unsuitable this model is for Egypt whose GDP per capita is 8% of that of the UAE. Nor will I dwell on the deep political and social inequalities that lie beneath the glittering veneer of Dubai, and the serious political implications that this model bodes for the new proposed capital of Egypt. I also won’t dwell on the meaning and significance of announcing such a momentous decision not in front of parliament (for we have no such institution due to a legal fracas that delayed the elections to an unspecified future date) and not to the local media (despite the fact that whatever independence this media might have once enjoyed has evaporated in thin air), but to a group of word leaders and foreign investors who claim to be “focus[ing] on efforts to promote shared prosperity in Egypt and the region” (in the words of US Secretary of State John Kerry). 
 
 I just wonder what will happen to Cairo, Egypt’s capital for more than a thousand years? What will happen to the metropolis that is home to close to 20 million inhabitants? Where do they fit in the government’s plans for the new capital? The website says that it is hoped that the new city will attract 5 million inhabitants when it is finished. Assuming that the aim of building a new administrative capital is to alleviate the pressure from downtown Cairo where the majority of government offices are located, and assuming, for argument’s sake, that the 5 million inhabitants will actually be moved from overcrowded city, what will happen to the rest of us? 
 
 In a rare sneak preview in preparation for the Sharm El-Sheikh economic conference that is presented as a panacea to Egypt’s economic problems, the Minister of Investment, Ashraf Salman, said that the new city will cost a staggering 500 billion Egyptian pounds (c. 66 billion USD). Imagine what this amount of money could do to alleviate Cairo’s problems, or Egypt’s for that matter. To take just one example, that of transportation, the total cost of Cairo’s last underground metro line cost something in the vicinity of 1.8 billion USD. In other words, the cost of the new capital could cover the cost of building over thirty metro lines in Cairo. 
 
 With 66 billion USD Cairo could easily solve the problems of transportation, housing, sanitation and garbage collection. With 66 billion USD we could solve the problems of Cairo’s inner cities where 63 % of the city’s inhabitants live. We could provide them with all the basic needs that they have been deprived of over the past fifty years: potable water, health care, clean air, recreational facilities and much more. With 66 billion USD we could improve the living standards of millions of Cairenes and of Egyptians who, at best, are dealt with as second-class citizens in their own country. 
 
 But no, our Dubai-intoxicated political, military and economic elites want to turn their back to a history that goes back for thousands of years and to pretend that Egypt is a tabula rasa on which they could draw their depraved dreams for the future. More seriously, these deeply corrupt elites are willing to turn their backs to their own people. They yearn to have a new Egypt, with a new capital, and a new people. 
 
 For decades now, we have heard this elite lay the blame of Egypt’s problems on Egyptians themselves. Not only military leaders, but intellectuals, artists and academics have insisted that while Egypt is rich, the problem with Egypt is that it simply has too many Egyptians. Those Egyptians, this decadent elite has been repeating for years, are responsible for their poverty, their sickness and their ignorance. We have tried everything to enlighten them, they seem to be saying. Time has come to leave them stuck in their own filth and squalor. We will not allow ourselves to be shackled in this mire. It is time to move on to greener pastures and to set our eyes on brighter horizons. 
 
 I, for one, happen to disagree. 
 
 I have no illusions about Cairo, a city that is harsh, rough and sometimes unforgiving. But we, Cairenes, are not responsible for our city’s misery. 
 
 The problem with our city, like the problems of our country, is not that there is too many of us, but that our repeated governments insist on cutting us out from any decisions pertaining to our city, or our country. And the very manner in which the decision to move the capital outside Cairo has been taken is the best illustration of our government’s insistence on ignoring us. 
 
 No. Cairo’s problems is not caused by too many Cairenes. Cairo’s problems are caused by the complete lack of any effective, democratic institutions in which we could have a say in how our city is being run. The governor of Cairo, like the governor of Giza (its sister city), is not elected, but chosen from the ranks of the military or the police, his prime mandate being the pacification of the city and keeping it under control. Our municipal bodies, although elected, have no financial or administrative independence, and, as such, they have become a hotbed of rampant corruption. We don’t even have a say in how to run our streets or our buildings. 
 
 And instead of addressing the root of the problem and allowing us a say in how we shape our own lives and fulfill our dreams, the government is boasting about its ability to raise billions of dollars from friendly governments and business tycoons from all over the world, only to spend these deeply needed billions on chasing mirages in the desert. ||||| SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — Egypt's government announced Friday plans to build a new capital adjacent to Cairo, in a massive new project that in its first phase would cost $45 billion and take up to seven years to complete. 
 
 A model of a planned new capital for Egypt is on display at a major economic conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Friday, March 13, 2015. The Egypt Economic Development Conference that opened Friday... (Associated Press) 
 
 Housing Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced the plan at the opening of the 3-day international economic conference held in this resort city and attended by hundreds of business executives and world leaders. The aim, he said, is to alleviate congestion and overpopulation in Cairo over the next 40 years. By that time, Cairo — currently home to nearly 20 million — would have doubled in size. 
 
 The first phase of the ambitious program, Madbouly said, is an expansion of the current outskirts of the capital to the east, adding an additional 105 kilometers (60 miles) of development. The area would be a new administrative center including government offices, diplomatic missions and housing as well as universities, a technology and innovation park, and 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) of roads. Madbouly did not say what the new administrative center would be named. 
 
 The military has already began constructing the road linking Cairo to the new planned administrative heart of the capital, he said. 
 
 Eventually the new capital would expand to 700 square kilometers in size (270 square miles), much of it green spaces, linking up with the Suez Canal zone, Madbouly said, calling the project a source of "pride and inspiration" to young Egyptians 
 
 The ambitious plan is the latest mega project planned by the government, headed by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who elected in June last year. The other mega project is the expansion of the Suez Canal and the creation of an industrial zone around it.
– Cairo has served as Egypt's capital for more than a millennium, but its long run may be ending: The Egyptian government announced plans Friday for a new capital right next door that would take seven years and $45 billion just for the first stage, the AP reports. Egypt's housing minister said the Capital Cairo project is meant to ease congestion and overpopulation in the current capital over the next four decades, during which time Cairo will reportedly double in size. The initial phase will include 150 square miles (about the size of Denver, the Atlantic notes) of development in Cairo's outskirts, adding a new governmental center, universities, hospitals, and an international airport. Expansion would eventually reach 270 square miles and link up with the Suez Canal area, the AP notes. The Cairo Capital website has plenty about this "momentous endeavour to build national spirit … and provide for long-term sustainable growth." Khaled Fahmy's take in the Cairo Observer, however, isn't quite so rosy. Announcing that "we, Cairenes and Egyptians, were not informed, let alone consulted about this move," Fahmy goes on to say how "unsuitable" it is to model the new city after Dubai (Egypt hired a Dubai-based private investor group to build the city, per the Atlantic). He also wonders why the estimated $66 billion final cost isn't simply being reinvested into Cairo itself. "With [$66 billion] we could solve the problems of Cairo's inner cities, where 63% of the city's inhabitants live," Fahmy writes.