When I was a bachelor, I entertained all comers on Houseboat 28. Then, with my partner for life, the marital home was a Zamalek apartment. Now as a family man, I am moving again. I am heading out to the Sixth of October for fresh air, a lawn and barbeques.
The reaction from friends has ranged from empathy for a baby-based lifestyle to outright disgust.
“The desert! How could you live out there? It’s a cultural wasteland, lectured one friend.
“You’re moving where? asked another. “Why would you be doing that?
“Oh well, it was nice knowing you, I was told from a singleton who has offered to host a farewell party.
Yep, I am leaving Cairo. The day comes for all of foreign birth, but one may have expected the skyscrapers of Hong Kong, the red earth of East Africa or even Sydney’s harbor, but not the Sahara.
The Sixth of October is a boom town. Homeowners are making money hand over fist, as prices double and even triple from what was being paid just a few years ago.
Construction of new apartments, townhouses and villas is frenetic. Strung out along dual carriage ways, developments such as Beverley Hills, Swan Lake and Park Avenue, despite the names, may help to house two or three million people in the near future.
From many vantage points in Cairo, you can view the Pyramids on the horizon. Sixth of October is over that horizon. It is the back of beyond.
Northwest of the Pyramids, the new city is only connected to the old by congested and dangerous roads. I fear it will be an epic journey equivalent to the Lord of the Rings for a Friday night out to Downtown’s iconic Horreya coffee shop.
I spent two days, and I think there are a few more to come, visiting Sixth of October compounds and apartment blocks looking for a piece of the dream that is renting out in exurbia.
The speculator’s dream lifestyle is displayed on too many roadside billboards. This visual pollution scars the dramatic lines of the desert environment and the signage gives the many unfinished developments a feel of the Wild West.
Of course, when you speak to residents, they tell you they love it.
“Gardenia is a great place to live, said my friend Farah El Alfy, ace Daily News Egypt’s Lifestyle page editor.
“There are swimming pools, all types of sports and a great sense of community. It is always beautiful outside and in the winter you can curl up in front of an open fire.
Viewed from the road, Sixth of October is scary. But once inside the gated communities, it is a world of golf, swimming pools and eerie quiet.
But here the developers have made the same mistakes I saw in Dubai: Duplicate architectural design, no public transport and the urban sprawl dominated by the automobile.
It is such a shame that the developer’s investment ambitions weren’t matched by an integrated urban plan and the problems associated with the automobile that are driving people out of Cairo are beginning to emerge in this utopia.
The arteries that are Sixth of October’s lifeblood are heavy with traffic.
Where cars can motor at more than 100 km per hour they do. Large hunks of cement are used to mark pot holes on the dual carriage way leading to Beverley Hills and large dump trucks add an extra obstacle to the video game driving habits of the indigenous population.
It would be great to see the metro extend to Sixth of October, of course.
And like Dubai, that plan will be discussed when traffic jams reach three hours. I think an airport would have also been a bonus. As it stands now, the best option will be to stay at an airport hotel the night before I fly; as it’s always best to break up long journeys.
Of course footpaths for pedestrians and cyclists would just be asking too much.
But I am missing the point. I am leaving Cairo for a better place. I am leaving Cairo to get baby Max into the fresh air, to teach him to play cricket in the backyard and to ride a bike. I want to buy a barbeque, I don’t want to buy a car, but I’ll have to.
But most of all, I am leaving because, as I learned on Houseboat 28, you have to know when the party is over.
