Janet Abu-Lughod, in her famous article of 1965 "Tale of Two Cities: The Origins of Modern Cairo", analysed the making of Cairo as a dual city following the erection of the modern city of Khedive Ismail next to the old medieval city. She characterised this process in terms of "bifurcation", "discontinuity" and "physical duality". For her, this "small crack" in the urban fabric "widened into a gaping fissure" over the XIXth century. This communication intends to check the developments that take place in Cairo at the beginning of the XXIst century against Abu-Lughod's analytical framework, the "dual city". Cairo is indeed going through a major phase of its history. After decades of growth (mostly) at its "margins", public authorities, in conjunction with the private sector (national or from the Gulf countries) have set Cairo's future: in the desertic outskirts of the city, far from the in-built environment, promoting new economic 'globalised' activities and new ways of life - the majority of which are of an exclusive type. This bifurcation in the urban fabric seems to pave the way for a new dual city paradigm, which would juxtapose and generate a competition between different territories and different segments of society. Based on urban analysis, this presentation will discuss the extent and the limits of this new paradigm.