Al-Ahram Weekly interviews Hazem El-Quweidi, chairman of the General Organisation for Physical Planning (GOPP) Can you explain the mandate of the General Organisation for Physical Planning? The GOPP was established in 1973 as an independent public entity under the jurisdiction of the minister of housing and reconstruction. It is the agency responsible for setting the general policy for physical planning in the country. We get the annual plans of all the ministries and then we start working on ours -- we make decisions as to whether a bridge can be built here, or a city there. We present our studies to the ministry [concerned], and then it's up to them to decide what they will do with it. What kind of expertise does this entail? We have specialists in architecture, sociology, economics, politics, and development. We cooperate with all the ministries, because for example, when we are planning a city, we don't just mean the buildings, we are talking about a way of life. We plan cities from all standpoints -- economical, environmental, social and political. Do you consider Cairo to be well planned? How old are we compared to Cairo? I didn't plan Cairo. Yet Egypt is one of the most highly developed countries in the science of planning. We make overall plans: we do a lot of studies. But as planners, we can't be held responsible for what happens after we submit our prototypes. Suppose I build a utopia and then other people come and ruin it -- what can I as a planner do? This is true in the case of the new satellite cities as well -- and I argue that we should not try and evaluate these cities until they have been there for 25 years. I cannot control people's personal behaviour. In addition, a governor often refuses to spend money on a new city, and thus its fate remains in the hands of the ministry. What is your latest project? Our latest project is developing the Nile Corniche. Major changes are needed in this zone, or else all the buildings and bridges on the Nile could well collapse. Many newspapers are against the expansion project, but they are not specialists. We have specialists here who tell us that the buildings on the Corniche will collapse in 30 years if the situation remains as it is. Is yours a thankless job, then? We work very hard and all we get is negative criticism. No one ever expressed their gratitude for our work on building Stanley Bay Bridge and expanding the Corniche in Alexandria. No one said thank you for planning Sharm El-Sheikh, which is now widely considered to be one of the best cities in the world. I hope that all the non-specialists will stop spouting negative criticism and try to do something useful instead! Interview by Lina Mahmoud
