Egypt's building a second Nile city, 100 km upriver

Egypt is pouring concrete for the New Administrative Capital, a 700-square-km city 45 km east of Cairo. The 770-meter Minarets tower tops 120 stories and will be the tallest building in Africa. The first residents move in next year. The whole thing costs about $58 billion — most of it financed by the government.

It's part of a wider project to shift the capital east of the Nile, away from the old city and the flood plain. The old capital is already choked: 22 million people, traffic that doesn't budge, housing the government can't keep up with. The new city is meant to absorb some of that pressure — ministries, the presidential palace, the financial district, universities, hospitals. The Minarets tower alone houses 14,000 apartments, a mosque, a church, a hotel, shops, offices, a swimming pool.

The project is controversial. Critics point to the scale, the cost, and the fact that it was largely designed by foreign firms. There's also the question of whether it'll actually help anyone outside the government and the wealthy who can afford to buy in. But the government is pressing ahead.

Why this matters for us: it's the kind of megaproject that moves billions of dollars and reshapes a city without asking the people who live in the old one what they think — and those same dynamics are happening in Chicago, LA, and the barrios where rent gets hiked while the skyline gets taller.