Issue highlights:

• Choosing New Cities

• Cities in the News

Dear friends,

Just this month, NYC’s new mayor proposed a solution for Manhattan’s flooding and affordability problems: expand Manhattan by 1,760 acres! On the other side of the world, Indonesia’s government took a completely different approach to Jakarta’s own environmental and density issues: relocate the federal government. That’s right, the government is moving the nation’s capital to another city. 

This month, we zoom out and take a look at how choosing new cities could be a radical approach to our urban challenges. 

Hope this gets you thinking,
Kate

Choosing New Cities

For hundreds of years, countries have chosen new capital cities for many reasons. Washington, DC was selected as the U.S. capital to fulfill a political compromise. Nigeria moved its capital from coastal Lagos to inland Abuja to build national unity. Brazil’s move from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia sought to bring economic growth to another part of the country. Since relocation, these countries have succeeded to varying degrees in achieving these goals.

Within the last two months, Indonesia and Egypt have made headlines with decisions to relocate their own capital cities. These moves aspire to redistribute population and alleviate urban challenges in their “old” capital cities.

Moving to more solid ground in Nusantara

Jakarta is sinking rapidly into the Java Sea (due to water pumping activities) and is prone to earthquakes and flooding. Beyond that, Jakarta is one of the most polluted and congested cities in the world. To mitigate the effects of these issues, the Indonesian government decided to create a new capital city, Nusantara. 

• Indonesia’s decision to relocate its capital was officially approved on January 18th

• Nusantara (which translates to “archipelago”) will be located on Borneo, an island shared between Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei

• Indonesia plans to complete the 1st phase of construction in 2024, with Nusantara’s full opening in 2045

• The new 139k acre city will cost $32B, covered through PPPs

Moving away from Cairo’s traffic nightmare

Cairo is expected to double in population by 2050, increasing challenges in an already densely populated city. With that in mind, President El Sisi announced that the federal government would be moving to a new city. Just 6 years later (last month), Egypt’s federal government held its first meeting in the New Administrative Capital (NAC). 

• At completion, NAC (located just 35 miles from Cairo) will be 87k acres and house 6.5M people

• The construction of NAC, meant to build business support for President Sisi’s regime, is financed through Egypt’s military and ministry of housing with a pricetag of $45B

• Within NAC, Egypt is building a smart, eco-friendly 5k-acre district, Noor City

Cities in the News

• Pittsburgh vies to become a dark sky city [CityLab]

• $1k of bitcoin and a bike- is it enough to entice you to move to Arkansas? [Finding NWA]

• Underwater sculpture park, 1k trees in Shanghai, and more projects to watch this year [ArchDaily]

• Real estate investors are shifting investments from offices to data centers [WSJ]

• Cities need more nature based solutions to protect GDP [Nature]

• 52 places to travel in 2022 that are doing right by people and the Earth [NYTimes]

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