RETHINKING NEW COMMUNITIES DEVELOPMENT: WITH REFERENCE TO EGYPT'S 40 YEARS EXPERIENCE

摘要

The Egyptian New Communities development experience started in the mid-Nineteen Seventies, as part of a general strategy to tackle the complex problems challenging Egyptian settlements and context; mostly surrounded by invaluable agricultural land. New Communities were thought as an effective solution to the problems of rapid encroachment of agricultural land, deteriorating urban fabric, and low-quality living. It represented a serious endeavour and a heavy undertaking in a developing context burdened by challenging priorities and limited resources. The New Communities drive and partial realization continued in full vigour for almost two decades. The authors were involved in many of the studies of New Communities during the said period, and followed the fortunes and lapses of the experience since. The New Communities present scene, points-out their limited success in achieving underlying objectives and meeting declared development programs, in terms of: securing effective 'resident' population, accommodating a balanced socio-economic mix, enabling lower income groups, achieving relative independence and autonomy, and providing sustainable living and quality settings. The political upheaval in the wake of January 2011 uprising in Egypt transformed the political and socio-economic setting; allowed extensive informal physical interventions and hosted hastily formulated development strategies that ignored previous policies and products, slowed and stifled development (New Communities included). The present work critically re-examines Egyptian New Communities, advocating the importance of continuous monitoring and critical assessment of earlier development plans and implemented policies, and in turn deployment of the related findings in formulating new development strategies and future planning scenarios. Supported by recorded satellite images and a limited pilot research, it reviews the New Communities recent changes and current status, pointing out means of revitalizing its role in the country's development drive and future planning policies. The paper falls into three closely related sections, namely: Recalling Conception and Realization, Recent Transformations and the Present Scene, and Propositions for Revitalization and Development.