In 2010 the Egyptian Ministry of Housing commissioned AS+P to elaborate a General Strategic Urban Plan for Alexandria, the country's second largest city. Alexandria, once famous for its beauty and splendour, today is a fast-growing industrial city with 4.1 million inhabitants. The city accounts for 40% of the national industrial output, while 60% of the Egyptian foreign trade are being handled in the three Alexandrian seaports. Accordingly environmental pollution (air, water, soil degradation) is one of the city's major problems. Further challenges lie in the completely unregulated urban growth with up to 150 thousand new inhabitants per year, the ubiquitious emergence of informal settlements, lacking technical utility infrastructure and an urban transit that is nearing collapse. The master plan sets out to develop concise technical planning solutions for the above vital challenges. These solutions will be exemplified in three master plans for pioneering projects and will be accompanied by economic feasibility studies. Until the end of 2012 AS+P will lead and coordinate a multidisciplinary inter­national consultant team ranging from economic experts to infrastructure and environmental engineers. AS+P themselves will elaborate all modules related to regional, urban and transportation planning.