Integrated Planning Badya City, Cairo, Egypt

The design of a complete city incorporates a variety of land uses extending from housing to employment, as well as supporting functions such as retail, culture, and entertainment, making it a true 24/7 city. The urban core - with a retail area, university, and sports club compound - is surrounded by six districts. This poly-centrical and multi-faceted city structure allows every resident to live close to one of these centres and its offers.

Badya City's finely developed network of green linear parks represents the backbone of the overall connective tissue in between each neighbourhood of the cycling and walking city. Each neighbourhood is developed around the idea of the 'Living Street' - with the street being an extended community space rather than a car circulation area. An average population density of about 125 people per hectare allows an efficient public transport system with stops always being situated in close proximity to each resident.

Badya is a user-oriented, green and resource-saving city of short distances. The entire city is planned in such a way that the inhabitants can fulfil almost all of their day-to-day needs within a short distance either on foot or by bicycle. The café or the restaurant is just around the corner, as are leisure offerings for the whole family. What’s more, the individual districts within Badya City are interconnected via a large network of parks and green spaces and the pathways that lie within them, so cars are far less necessary here than in other places. This spatially integrated urban planning is also combined with the latest communication infrastructure, which likewise saves long journeys and thus time and space. The result is an attractive, highly livable alternative to life in Cairo’s city center.