Neo-Liberalism on the Commute

My commute to AUC's new campus consists of an hour-long bus ride through Cairo's hinterlands. At least they are hinterlands presently - the desert areas of New Cairo are being rapidly built up in a Los Angeles-ization process that my French professor lectured me was completely the fault of America (and, to be precise, my fault as a Californian). Apparently we are exporting suburban ideas to hapless Egypt, what with our enticing Hollywood motion-pictures and enviable gated communities. Timothy Mitchell (one of the deities of Middle East Studies) wrote this article about the phenomenon, which I have had to read for two classes now.

Most people on the bus keep the curtains shut and ignore the views, but I am addicted to watching the progess along the side of the highway.

This apartment complex caught my attention because of the winged victory parked along the highway.



These are the kinds of mansions that line the main artery into New Cairo. Some of them are lived in but more are half-finished or all-finished and half-empty. Either way, they're pretty extravagent. And these aren't even the ones hidden behind the gates of exclusive communities, what with their tennis courts and country clubs.




Most of the communities have completely false foliage, like the less than cheerful grass shown below. The message here seems to be that we may live in a desert (in fact, The Desert - this is the literal translation of the Arabic name for the Sahara), but that doesn't mean that we can't play golf!



My favorite future housing community is called Stone Park because of a strange outcropping around which they've decided to center their McMansions. So far, only a few model houses are under construction, but the bilboard assures passers-by that this will be a community that honors nature, and thus basically constitutes heaven on earth. How do they honor nature? By planting extensive gardens in the desert, plowing under the natural ridges of the landscape, and then constructing an ampitheater around the one natural feature left standing.



As a point of comparison, here is what this area looks like before construction.



A whole lot of nothing. And yet somehow I prefer it to what's being built. Except the Winged Victory, of course.