telegraph.co.uk
"New Kabul City" - a shiny new, multibillion-dollar project - sounds like a pipe dream to people living practically on top of each other in Afghanistan's war-battered capital, where most streets are unpaved and security forces are on constant watch for suicide bombers.
But urban planners, investors and government officials working to develop the modern urban area about a 30-minute drive north of Kabul say it will be home to an estimated 1.5 million people when it's completed in 2025.
The $34 billion public-private project - planned to span across 290 square miles at the foothills of the majestic Safi Mountains - is bigger than the existing Kabul.
Elham Omar Hotaki, who works with the government authority developing the project, said the city would include homes and apartments, shops, mosques, a library, a fire station, areas for farming and light industry and even picturesque parks.
"When each mega project starts, everyone thinks it won't happen," Mr Hotaki said, acknowledging that some people are dubious the development will ever be built.
"After World War II, who could imagine that New York would look like it does - a big city? No one. Everyone thought it was impossible, impossible, impossible."But I think it's possible."
Planning for new Kabul City began in 2006 when President Hamid Karzai set up a board of Afghan and foreign experts to develop a new city to provide additional housing for residents of the capital, which is bursting at its seams.
About 4.5 million people live in the city, which was built to handle about 700,000, said Gholam Sachi Hassanzadah, deputy chairman of the Independent Board of New Kabul City Development.
"In 15 years, the population will be more than 6.5 million or 7 million. There is no space for that," he said.
In 2009, the Afghan Cabinet endorsed a master plan to build the new city in three phases spanning 15 years. By 2025, the project is expected to create 500,000 jobs - 100,000 in agriculture, 100,000 in industry and 300,000 in service and other sectors.
The first phase, to be completed in 2015, is to provide 80,000 housing units for 400,000 people. Contracts are to be awarded this year for developing the first 18,400 units, and construction could start as early as January 2013.
"The only thing which can possibly stop this is not a good security situation," Mr Hassanzadah said. "If we have good security, you will see that development will go very, very fast."
Many challenges remain. Insurgent attacks must be curbed, investors need to sign deals and Afghans have to want to buy and rent the homes and businesses to be built.
The plan is for international donors and the Afghan government to supply $11 billion over the next 15 to 20 years to build water and sewer lines, electricity and roads. Japan, which is already working on water feasibility studies, and the Asian Development Bank have pledged to help build streets, initial infrastructure and power lines. Project officials said they could not yet disclose how much Japan and ADB had pledged.
Private investors in Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Azerbaijan also have expressed interest by seeking more information about the development, the officials said.
All told, an estimated $23 billion worth of private sector money for constructing the city after infrastructure is in place is expected to be invested in the project.
Mahmoud Saikal, senior adviser to the Independent Board of New Kabul City Development, said the project requires security and cooperation from Afghan government ministries.
"In Afghanistan, there is an expression that the road to paradise doesn't go through a Persian rug," Saikal said. "It means the road to getting this project materialised is not an easy one."
Though corruption has become endemic in Afghan society, Mr Hassanzadah said it will not be tolerated as New Kabul rises.
"It is a clean project," he said. "We are committed to transparency. Corruption is a two-way road. We expect investors and developers to be transparent as well. ... We will not allow for public money to be abused."
Sayed Daud, a businessman who owns about 150 acres at the site, said only recently has he started seeing a flurry of government and business officials at the site, carrying maps and cameras.
"All this activity is giving us hope," Daud said
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