The obelisk-shaped Iconic Tower skyscraper that juts out high above the Egyptian desert 45 kilometers (27 miles) east of the country’s capital, Cairo, is a glistening centerpiece of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s signature new $59 billion New Administrative Capital that will host Egypt’s government offices and eventually aims to house some 5 million residents. 

The unfinished building is already the tallest building in Africa and is only one component of a superlative-laden city with grand ambitions. The New Administrative Capital, set to open in mid-2023, will also house the Octagon for Egypt’s armed forces, a complex that is set to surpass the United States' Pentagon in size to be the world’s largest military headquarters in the world. The city will also contain a central park twice the size of New York City’s, the second-biggest mosque in the world (behind Mecca) and the second-largest sports stadium in Africa.  

For now, the yet-to-be-named New Administrative Capital is largely as barren as the desert that surrounds it, with only several dozen workers milling around the site and a steady buzz of construction vehicles passing in and out of its gates. The payoff of building the city is also not entirely clear. Despite the grandeur and potential to relieve some congestion in Cairo, detractors say the city is largely a vanity project for Sisi and the benefits of it will not trickle down to the masses most in need.  

“Poverty is on the rise, inflation is intense, and instead of really focusing on these more essential issues, we find Egypt spending enormous sums of money on new cities,” says Timothy E. Kaldas, a policy fellow at The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. “I don't understand why it is a priority — other than vanity, of course.”