Urban City Centres Designed for Life.

Cairo is a city bursting at the seams. In less than fifty years, a city initially designed for 5 million people has reached 20 million. The city is continuing to grow at an alarming rate and all the problems of city congestion, lack of walkability, intense traffic, and pollution are escalating. Faced with this reality, the government had the vision to reclaim desert land and redirect the current north-south expansion of Cairo (which consumes valuable farmland in the Nile valley) along a new east-west axis. Although an ambitious and far-reaching plan, it was successful in creating two new hubs: Sheikh Zayed/Sixth of October City in the west and Kattameya/New Cairo in the east. These two new suburbs are each forecasted to have populations of more than 2.5 million in the near future.

Bold in conception, both Sheikh Zayed City and Kattameya have enjoyed partial success in absorbing Cairo's population growth. However, as they stand, they suffer from a fundamental problem; the lack of an urban centre, in both a physical and emotional sense. Without this core, Sheikh Zayed City and Kattameya will be unable to support the commercial and social aspirations of their growing populations.

This is where Westown and Eastown come in. These self-sufficient urban centres will anchor the existing suburbs and provide focal points for residents and visitors alike. They will represent all that's best about city living with none of the downsides of pollution, parking problems or traffic jams. As well as alleviating pressure on Cairo's congested downtown, these new hubs will become destinations in their own right. They will offer another type of tourism beyond antiquities and beaches: tourism centred on entertainment, shopping and leisure.