Dr. Walid Abbas, Assistant Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities, Supervisor of the Planning and Projects Sector at the New Urban Communities Authority, presented a research paper entitled: Fourth Generation Cities in Egypt: Towards Smart Sustainable Cities, during his participation in one of the discussion sessions at the Seventh Arab Housing Conference, entitled Towards sustainable smart cities that achieve quality of life, which is hosted by Egypt on the sidelines of the 39th session of the Council of Arab Ministers of Housing and Construction.
The Deputy Minister of Housing said: We currently have 61 new cities in Egypt, with a total area of 2.2 million acres, inhabited by more than 8 million people, and it is intended that they will accommodate about 65 million people when their growth is complete. The new cities in Egypt have been classified into 4 generations, for each The generation of a number of cities that bear a number of common features, the first generation includes 8 cities, as well as the second generation includes 8 cities as well, while the third generation has 6 cities, and the cities of the fourth generation reach 39 cities.
Dr. Walid Abbas addressed a number of important points, the necessary dimensions necessary for digital transformation, and sustainable smart cities, which were included in his research paper, the most important of which is the Egyptian experience in establishing new cities, the vision of new cities within the 2030 strategy “smart sustainable cities”, and the efforts of the Communities Authority New Urbanism in establishing sustainable projects in cities from the first to third generations, and contributing to the issuance of the “Smart Cities Code” that includes planning and construction considerations, and finally the New Alamein City as a model for fourth-generation cities “Smart Sustainable City”.
The supervisor of the authority’s planning and projects sector referred to the strategy for establishing new cities in Egypt, which works on two axes, the first of which is the development of existing urbanization towards sustainability, and the second is the establishment of a new generation of smart and sustainable cities, indicating the authority’s efforts to establish sustainable projects within the framework of developing The existing urbanization in the cities of previous generations, which proceeds in 7 axes, including (energy efficiency and renewable energy – integrated water management – integrated waste management – sustainable transportation – sustainable architecture “green architecture”).
Dr. Walid Abbas reviewed the first phase of digital transformation in new cities, in terms of establishing smart systems, collecting information, and linking building information. He also dealt with the axis of establishing smart fourth-generation cities, indicating the main objectives of establishing the fourth generation of new cities, the most important of which is resource conservation. , such as water and others, the availability of means of environmental monitoring, urban management, as well as the most important principles of the fourth generation of cities, represented in providing smart infrastructure and providing a quality of life for citizens moving to live in those cities.
The Assistant Minister of Housing gave an explanation of the plan for establishing the new city of El Alamein, and how to change the common concept of the city from being a summer city only, to an integrated city livable throughout the year, in addition to the availability of connectivity to cities, and ease of movement through smart means of transportation, as the new city of El Alamein is A model for fourth-generation cities that are smart and sustainable cities, and highlight the importance of the city in supporting spatial and communication relations between the sectors of the northwest coast (Burj Al-Arab, Marsa Matrouh and Salloum), and at the level of the Mediterranean countries as a tourist city in a privileged location that competes with the cities of 22 countries overlooking On the Mediterranean Sea, with an area of about 49,000 feddans, he concluded his speech by emphasizing the importance of the participation of the private sector in the development process, as well as the importance of the participation of relevant parties in development work in general.