- Peter W. Amato, "Satellite New Towns for Greater Cairo - The Egyptian Experiment" in: Constandse, Galantay
- "New Towns World-Wide", IFHP, Den Haag 1985
- Mohamed Salah-Eddin Hegab, "New Towns Policy" in: The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
- "The Expanding Metropolis: Coping with the Urban Growth of Cairo" 1985
- Stewart, Dona J., 'Cities in the Desert: the Egyptian New Towns Program'
- Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 86 (3) 1996, pp. 460-479
type of New Town:
> scale of autonomy
New-Town-in-Town
Satellite
New Town
Company Town
> client
Private Corporation
Public Corporation
> policy
Capital
Decentralization
Industrialization
Resettlement
Economic
Part of the comprehensive post-independence New Urban Communities programme planned for the Greater Cairo Region to structure and relieve the overpopulation of Cairo, Tenth of Ramadan City - aka 10th of Ramadan City, Ramadan 10th, Madinat al-Ashir min Ramadan etc. - was the first city to be build, 50 km northeast of the capital in the empty desert. The New Urban Community Authority was created to lead the founding and management of the cities. The building of new cities from scratch was a completely new experience for the Egyptians, and international experts were brought in to assist with the planning of the new population map of Egypt. The New Urban Communities of Cairo can be divided into three types: New Towns, satellite cities and new settlements. The satellites were located close to the centre of Cairo and the new settlements took advantage of existing employment bases, both designed more traditionally than the modern European inspired New Towns which were established in a total vacuum and meant to function as independent urban agglomerations. The population of the new communities were envisaged to be between 100,000 (New Saleheya) and 1 mio. (6th of October), together in the end absorbing around 2,5 mio. people in all. None of the cities have even just to some degree reached these numbers. Besides from being intended to absorb some of the drastically growing Egyptian population, Tenth of Ramadan City and the other new communities were part of a larger strategy for industrialization. To stimulate the industrial development on desert sites ten-year tax exemptions were given to industries locating in New Towns. Firms locating in Tenth of Ramadan City were offered the purchasing of housing at subsidised rates for their employees. For the preparation of a Master Plan for Tenth of Ramadan City a group was formed between the Swedish architectural and engineering firm, the main consultant on the project, and the Egyptian sub-consultant called COPA. Finalised in 1976, the Master Plan called for a long-term development in four stages, each for a population of averagely 125,000. The first 250,000 were to be reached by the year 2000. By the year 1986 the population of Tenth of Ramadan City was only little above 8000. The city has had serious problems with attracting both inhabitants and industry. Meant to be affordable for low-income workers the housing rents turned out to be much higher than planned. For most people it was too expensive to live in the city, and social facilities and services were lacking in the town. For industries the advantage of a profitable financial climate did not counterbalance the advantages Cairo had to offer. A mid80s evaluation of Tenth of Ramadan City shows that most of the employees were living somewhere else and commuting every day. As it was realized that Tenth of Ramadan City could not attract the population hoped for, construction of the city was stopped. Stage 1 was completed, stage two partly, and construction on one neighbourhood of stage 3 was begun, but did not get far. Today there parts of the city of stage 2 (and the whole unit of stage 3), where streets were laid out, but houses never built. Many of the houses of the city are empty. This is the situation of most of the other new settlements around Cairo, too.
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