[M II A II R II K]

Fighting a Housing Crisis, Egypt Builds Towers in the Desert


Jan 22, 2015

By JOHN METCALFE

Read More: http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/...desert/384728/

Egypt is in the throes of a severe housing shortage, with people so desperate for shelter they're building hundreds of thousands of illegal, sometimes rickety buildings that the government promptly dynamites. But one thing the country has an abundance of is lonesome desert, and developers are turning there to construct immense projects that stick out in the emptiness like skyscrapers on Mars.

- Though they look like ghost cities, one day these places will stir with life. "The houses are in the middle of construction, with the exception of some that are almost finished," emails Alvarez Diestro, who's 42. "It is interesting that they build them with no fences around and they're visible to all passing around. All of them will be occupied, especially those ones for the lower classes that happen to be the majority of the population and are experiencing an important growth." --- Alvarez Diestro says Egypt's housing shortage is "mainly for the lower class." One of the developments meant to house the less fortunate is shown in the above photo, taken near the southern city of Aswan.

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