MennatuAllah Hendawy

As Egyptians, we have been raised since the 1950s with the notion that the Nile Valley and Delta, permanent home to our civilisation for over 7000 years, is overcrowded and cannot accommodate any more people. As architects and planners we have been trained over the last half century almost solely on designing mega regional, urban and land reclamation plans in the vacant desert. The purpose of these is to “redistribute the population” and absorb future population growth.