Changing Cairo

Cairo is hot, dusty, crowded, corrupt and dilapidated. The city’s resources have simply reached breaking point. Get stuck in one of the many traffic jams and it can take well over an hour just to cross the Nile. Pollution is heavy and visible. Downtown, quiet does not exist at any hour. With the electricity and water grids pushed to the brink, rolling blackouts and water shortages are not uncommon. So people have left, and moved away from the city center. Cairo’s first string of suburbs — such as Maadi to the south and Heliopolis to the northeast — have become popular. Wide boulevards, gardens and villas characterize these neighborhoods, which had earlier been the locales of choice for the British colonial enterprise. Yet, with time, some of the city’s problems have started seeping into these suburbs too. Now alternatives are being offered, for a price. In the desert to the