Humankind has long been obsessed with the idea of building cities from scratch: from the “father or urban planning” Hippodamus in ancient Greece to the “garden city movement” across Europe and North America in the early 20th century. Writing for Bloomberg, Monte Reel argues that the world seems to be in the midst of yet another such outbreak, though this one is located in the developing world, where population growth and rapid urbanization have overwhelmed existing infrastructure.
Reel recites a long list of such projects: Eko Atlantic in Nigeria; Hope Forest City in Ghana; Vision City in Rwanda; Forest City in Malaysia; and Xiongan in China. But according to Reel, the boldest of these projects is the new capital of Egypt, which is slated to be built just 45 kilometres east of the current capital Cairo. Expectations are high — and the price tag even higher, leading some to argue that it doesn’t address what residents actually need.
As a case in point, Reel mentions Masdar City outside of Abu Dhabi. Slated 10 years ago to be the world’s first zero-impact city, today just 5 per cent of the city is built. Yet according to Reel, Masdar City isn’t a failure just because it hasn’t lived up to aspirations: “It serves as an important function as a laboratory where the government and private-sector partners can test green technologies.”
The same can be said about many of these places. “They shouldn’t be judged according to their original intentions, which too often get oversold to bait investors. Cities are organisms that undergo constant evolutions, inevitably responding to stresses in ways planners can’t predict,” Reel argues. For him, true success is found in the vibrant urban life that fills the spaces left blank by the city planners.
