1) Introduction
It is become more and more obvious that urban growth in most countries (especially developing ones) and the pace of urbanization, are increasing faster than the improvement offered by national and local governments. For urban improvement to gain more momentum, new urban communities should be considered as large-scale national ventures. The value of developing new urban communities depends upon the strength of their comprehensive response to short and long-range national and regional problems. Without this response, their realization may become a national political illusion. For example, if new communities respond only to housing needs of middle-income groups rather than to the major problems of low-income groups, the communities may only seem to solve national problems.
Communities depend on a national policy for urban growth. When the planning and development of such communities is integrated with national policy, we can except them and their regions to offer the variety of social and economic choices that large cities have always offered. New communities can be a tool to improve societies, economics, and the environment. With contrast to common opinion and despite its bureaucratic machinery, public enterprise can gain much prestige by sponsoring new town construction as an instrument for national improvement..
New urban communities must be viewed as innovative laboratories for social, economic, taxation, governance, physical, and other reforms from which the established city can learn a great deal. Thus it is beneficial for the existing cities to see new urban settlement as part of the their process for improvement. The establishment of this relation adds another argument for the necessity of having a national policy for urban growth.
2) The problem
As a result of Cairo plan (1974), Cairo structural plan (1982), and National Urban Policy Study (N.U.P.S.), It was found that the new communities policy (even as satellites or self sustained) is the best solution which accommodate a major part of the expected population of Greater Cairo region and halts the conversion of agricultural lands for urban uses.
To confirm this policy a ministerial decree no. 59/1979 initiated the formation of a supreme committee for new communities in order to encourage the construction of new communities in desert lands and redistribute population. Therefore a lot of communities were constructed allover Egypt, especially around the overcrowded region of greater Cairo. These new communities were planned related to different policies in terms of their planner’s point of view, Accordingly, different theories were put and the construction of these communities was started. This study is mainly directed to discuss these new communities experience in order to avoid the disadvantages and encourage the advantages of this experience in Egypt.
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