Studying the "Development" Concept to Determine the Urban Size of the New Western Sahara Urban Agglomerations

Abstract

Egypt has recently experienced an increasing attention to urban development and horizontal urban expansion by establishing new cities as an extension of the urban space on one hand while getting rid of slums on the other hand, in all different regions of the Republic. Theattentionto urban developmenthas been extended to the Western Sahara by establishing new cities. This study focuses on determining the availability of development services and the proportionate distribution of these services over the city area. It has been applied to the cities of Sheikh Zayed as a model for residential cities and El-Nubaria New Town as a model for cities of an agricultural nature, given that they have a desert hinterland in Western Sahara. The analysis was based on detailed data of both cities obtained from the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).The total data (Observations)ofEl-Nubaria New Town amounted to 4451 observations, compared to 20405 observations of Sheikh Zayed City) that include a full description for the two cities. In addition, the results of the study revealed that there is a difference between the availability of services in both cities, taking into account the difference in areaof the two cities; for example, with regard to medical services; the number of hospitals in Sheikh Zayed City was 36 compared to only four hospitals in El-Nubaria New Town. As for educational services, the number reached 19 schools in El-Nubaria New Town compared to 59 schools in Sheikh Zayed. The study therefore has recommended that pre-planning according to the nature of the city (residential - agricultural – industrial planning) is necessary due to the consequent diversity of facilities and services. Moreover,it is recommended that in the event of establishing new cities in Western Sahara,planning must be considered so that residential cities are designedand planned in different ways from agricultural cities in terms of service availability, distribution and coverage areas.