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Rapid population growth challenges urban planning in Egypt sincethe 1970s. To stop the loss of valuable agricultural lands to informal urbanization, official strategies aim to deviate urban growth away from the Nile Valley. New Towns subsequently were established in the desert as New Urban Communities (NUC) complemented by large agricultural reclamation schemes to securethe country’s food provision. During the last decades, informal urbanization onagricultural lands continued and intensified following the 2011 upheavals (Arabspring) while most formal urban development concentrated in the NUC in the desert. 

The NUC depend on water that has to be brought from the Nile and thus is a scarce and expensive resource. Underdeveloped public transport facilities, long distances to places of work or markets are characteristic of the desert cities. Masterplans of most NUC largely adopt western urban models and conceive residential areas as neighbourhoods with a central service area and a public open spaceor park. (Med-Enec 2013, 11, 15). All residential typologies (social housing and private sector housing) show remarkably large shares of open space either as shared public space or private green space. Brought to the desert, this typical feature of western urban planning is challenged by local conditions of economy, society and climate. The layout and character of residential typologies in the NUC and the quality of their respective open spaces varies notably according to targetedincome group. All residential schemes conceptualize open space as urban greenwhich has to be heavily maintained.

Financially consolidated middle and upper classes can afford a lifestyle based on car ownership and are attracted to live in the NUC that offer lush green open spaces and fresh air. Low income families on the other hand are not attracted tolive in the NUC, as they depend on cheap transportation and a set of strategies to support their livelihoods including social networks, informal employment or subsistence food production which hardly thrive in regulated environments asthe NUC. Strict land use regulations discourage appropriation or any use of open spaces going beyond ornamental greening and beautification. The applied urban model in the context of social housing produces fallow, neglected open spaces that stigmatize their residents while in the context of upscale housing it consumes scarce water resources without delivering any benefit beyond representation or visual attraction. 

Social division and immense resource consumption (land, water) question the sustainability of this urban model and landscape conception. Investigating potential to transform a wasteful system towards more sustainability therefore is an imperative. In the context of formal residential typologies of the NUC this researchexplores possibilities to transform public and private open spaces towards multi-dimensional landscapes that can become productive in many ways. Appliances that comply with local climate, society and economy are the focus. Empirical research compares the conditions of open spaces across a set of residential typologies typically found in the New Urban Communities around Cairo. Drawing from Google map images, site photos, interviews and observations made by the authors and a group of students during a course taught at GUC in 2016, typology, character and conditions of existing open spaces are analysed. Cross referencing the findings of the analysis with local business experiments reveal transferable productive strategies for the context of New Urban Communities in Egypt.