4 ms·

Yep, it's the only reason. Sisi wants to make sure that there's no second Arab Spring some day. It's so weird that media does not pick up on how this is a rep

Yep, it's the only reason. Sisi wants to make sure that there's no second Arab Spring some day. It's so weird that media does not pick up on how this is a repressive move and nothing else. Eg when Kazachstan moved their capital to the frozen, desolate, middle-of-nowhere northeast, there were lots of giggly BBC articles about how that weird President over there moved his capital because a dream had told him to, haha! But few media wrote about how all that was cheap smoke and mirrors for making sure that everybody who lived near the capital was a civil servant, ie dependent, with their livelihoods, on a stable government. EDIT: I changed my mind, I jumped to conclusions. This capital is only ~30km away, a suburb of Cairo really, which means that likely civil servants will be able to live in Cairo and commute to work (and vice versa some day). I bet protests will still be harder to organize than on the Tahrir square, but not impossibly so (unlike eg Kazachstan, Equatorial Guinea, Myanmar, Brazil etc) In fact I wonder why they didn't build it 500km further down the Nile (but I'm glad they didn't), that's exactly what I'd expect of an authoritarian government like Sisi's.

skissane 6y ago
> I bet protests will still be harder to organize than on the Tahrir square, but not impossibly so (unlike eg Kazachstan, Equatorial Guinea, Myanmar, Brazil etc) Brazil's capital was moved from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília to try to solve the perceived problem that the Brazilian federal government was focused on the needs of the coastal area around Rio, and moving it to a more central location would make it more responsive to the needs of the country as a whole. I don't think avoiding protests was a major part of the decision. It was planned for decades – article 3 of the 1891 constitution [0] said the capital should be moved to central Brazil, but the move wasn't actually implemented until 1960. Australia is another country with a planned capital – Canberra. In Australia's case, both Sydney and Melbourne wanted to be the capital. The compromise [1] was that the capital would be located in a federal territory to be carved out of New South Wales, more than 100 miles from Sydney, and Melbourne would serve as the temporary capital until then. [0] https://pt.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitui%C3%A7%C3%A3o_de_1891_dos_Estados_Unidos_do_Brasil/I#Art.3%C2%BA https://pt.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitui%C3%A7%C3%A3o_de_189... [1] https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution/~/link.aspx?_id=C35446C31199453CA339251CE317C7B1&_z=z https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practi...
- skrebbel 6y ago
  I had always assumed that that was just the official story, but that not getting millions of angry rioters over was a key (unspoken) motivation. But it seems I was wrong about that, too. I can't find a single source to back up my assumption, I don't know where I got it from. I really should stop assuming.
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
    As long as you remain open to change your mind, you’re doing better than almost anybody online. Keep assuming as you please.
  - brabel 6y ago
    Brasilia is, today, a large metropolis of nearly 3 million people (the 5th most populous metropolitan area in Brazil). One of the stated motivations to build the city near the geographical center of the country was exactly to get more people to move to that region of Brazil, which was, and still is to some degree, severely underpopulated compared to the coast (and has a great terrain for sustaining large populations). Very large protests are commonplace, so if getting away from angry rioters was in the mind of certain politicians at some point :) it definitely did not work (as others said, the project was planned since 1891, started in the 1920's and only finished in 1960).
  - frozenlettuce 6y ago
    You are not wrong, Brasilia has a large population, but the poor regions can't really reach the center of power just by walking (it's an extremely pedestrian-unfriendly city). It also has a flat landscape, unlike Rio that has lots of mountains - which makes this city of city planning much easier.
CapitalistCartr 6y ago
Thirty km is far enough to build a far more secure capitol, with defensible street design, and large clear zones for tank maneuvering.
tim333 6y ago
It may be close to Cairo but it has massive walls with tower like structures. The walls look rather like Trump's wall prototypes. Without knowing about it I drove past it on a bus the other week and was think that the hell is that thing? It looks a bit like a huge military base but grander. The entrance gates are quite something, about the size of 10 story buildings. Pic I took from the bus, assuming it's the right thing https://imgur.com/bb5KE9Y https://imgur.com/bb5KE9Y It looks surrounded by open ground and looks made with security in mind.
zaphirplane 6y ago
The parent obviously has strong political views There is nothing substantial to support that theory, capitals are moved because of unfixable infrastructure, reducing overcrowded capital, historic realigning to actual cultural centres or public spending for economical reasons or to have it in a region ethnically aligned with the politically dominant group Revolutions happen when a lot of people are demanding change not when people are rioting in the capital

skissane 6y ago

> I bet protests will still be harder to organize than on the Tahrir square, but not impossibly so (unlike eg Kazachstan, Equatorial Guinea, Myanmar, Brazil etc) Brazil's capital was moved from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília to try to solve the perceived problem that the Brazilian federal government was focused on the needs of the coastal area around Rio, and moving it to a more central location would make it more responsive to the needs of the country as a whole. I don't think avoiding protests was a major part of the decision. It was planned for decades – article 3 of the 1891 constitution [0] said the capital should be moved to central Brazil, but the move wasn't actually implemented until 1960. Australia is another country with a planned capital – Canberra. In Australia's case, both Sydney and Melbourne wanted to be the capital. The compromise [1] was that the capital would be located in a federal territory to be carved out of New South Wales, more than 100 miles from Sydney, and Melbourne would serve as the temporary capital until then. [0] https://pt.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitui%C3%A7%C3%A3o_de_1891_dos_Estados_Unidos_do_Brasil/I#Art.3%C2%BA https://pt.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitui%C3%A7%C3%A3o_de_189... [1] https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution/~/link.aspx?_id=C35446C31199453CA339251CE317C7B1&_z=z https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practi...

skrebbel 6y ago
I had always assumed that that was just the official story, but that not getting millions of angry rioters over was a key (unspoken) motivation. But it seems I was wrong about that, too. I can't find a single source to back up my assumption, I don't know where I got it from. I really should stop assuming.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  As long as you remain open to change your mind, you’re doing better than almost anybody online. Keep assuming as you please.
- brabel 6y ago
  Brasilia is, today, a large metropolis of nearly 3 million people (the 5th most populous metropolitan area in Brazil). One of the stated motivations to build the city near the geographical center of the country was exactly to get more people to move to that region of Brazil, which was, and still is to some degree, severely underpopulated compared to the coast (and has a great terrain for sustaining large populations). Very large protests are commonplace, so if getting away from angry rioters was in the mind of certain politicians at some point :) it definitely did not work (as others said, the project was planned since 1891, started in the 1920's and only finished in 1960).
- frozenlettuce 6y ago
  You are not wrong, Brasilia has a large population, but the poor regions can't really reach the center of power just by walking (it's an extremely pedestrian-unfriendly city). It also has a flat landscape, unlike Rio that has lots of mountains - which makes this city of city planning much easier.

CapitalistCartr 6y ago

Thirty km is far enough to build a far more secure capitol, with defensible street design, and large clear zones for tank maneuvering.

tim333 6y ago

It may be close to Cairo but it has massive walls with tower like structures. The walls look rather like Trump's wall prototypes. Without knowing about it I drove past it on a bus the other week and was think that the hell is that thing? It looks a bit like a huge military base but grander. The entrance gates are quite something, about the size of 10 story buildings. Pic I took from the bus, assuming it's the right thing https://imgur.com/bb5KE9Y https://imgur.com/bb5KE9Y It looks surrounded by open ground and looks made with security in mind.

zaphirplane 6y ago

The parent obviously has strong political views There is nothing substantial to support that theory, capitals are moved because of unfixable infrastructure, reducing overcrowded capital, historic realigning to actual cultural centres or public spending for economical reasons or to have it in a region ethnically aligned with the politically dominant group Revolutions happen when a lot of people are demanding change not when people are rioting in the capital