African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 1067 Urbanization and National Power

Simply put, rural areas with good development potential and other favorable conditions will definitely receive key attention, so that limited resources can be fully utilized.

During the First and Second Five-Year Plans, although East Africa emphasized balanced development, it was inevitable that East African cities, especially large cities, had a huge advantage in industrialization and were developing significantly faster than other regions.

This was actually a problem faced by the Soviet Union in the past. Although the Soviet Union's early urban development policy emphasized controlling the development of large cities, decades of time have proven that it has hardly achieved much effect.

Ernst once tried to develop East Africa according to the German urban model, but decades of practice have proven that this is not feasible.

In terms of population and land area alone, it is unrealistic. For example, Germany currently has a land area of ​​less than 650,000 square kilometers, accounting for only one-twentieth of East Africa. However, Germany’s population is as high as More than 60 million, a little more than half of East Africa.

Therefore, Germany's population density and topographic factors support the German urban development model, but it is not suitable for East Africa. East Africa wants to learn from the German model. At least the population of East Africa has increased by more than three times, because the area of ​​East Africa is slightly larger than that of Europe as a whole, but its population is larger than that of Europe. Much less overall.

The current urban development model in East Africa is mainly a block model, especially the three major sectors of the central, eastern and western regions, which form regional urban groups and realize nationwide industrial production cooperation through national transportation. After all, a province in East Africa is basically It is equivalent to the area of ​​a medium-sized European country, and its three to four provinces are almost the same size as Germany, France, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

East Africa is different from similarly large countries such as the Far Eastern Empire, Russia, and the United States. Among the above countries, except for East Africa, the development of the countries is more uneven. For example, the economic center of gravity of the United States is in the northeast, Russia is in the west, and the Far Eastern Empire is in the southeast.

Although there is some gap between the west of East Africa and the east, this gap is not as obvious as in other countries. This also shapes the urban layout of East Africa. From the perspective of balanced urban distribution, East Africa is between Europe and other regions in the world. between.

Generally speaking, East African cities are not as balanced as Germany, nor are they as overly concentrated as other countries, which involves issues such as resource utilization efficiency.

In urban development, the efficiency of public resource utilization is closely related to population. If a large city has a large population, it can improve resource utilization and thus reduce construction costs.

Take gas stations for example. Due to the concentration of people in gas stations in big cities, the usage rate is generally higher than that in small and medium-sized cities. However, in rural areas, the usage rate is even lower, especially in remote areas.

The same is true for typical public resources such as schools and hospitals. For example, Ernst’s primary school in his previous life was a typical village school. When Ernst was in school, there were hundreds of students. When Ernst grew up, there were many schools all year round. It is even difficult to maintain more than thirty students, and some village primary schools even have single-digit students, which will cause a serious waste of resources.

Of course, public resources such as schools and hospitals are industries closely related to people's livelihood, and sometimes economic benefits cannot be considered unilaterally. Therefore, when investing in resources in East Africa, we must consider multiple aspects to maximize comprehensive benefits.

This is the main reason why Ernst asked government officials to consider the problem from multiple perspectives. Today, with rapid industrialization, East Africa must make some trade-offs and sacrifices to achieve sustainable development.

Ernst: "Our country's population is now in a stage of high growth, so many problems will not appear yet, but population growth will eventually reach a limit. It is difficult for us to predict when this limit will be. Through my country's urbanization, especially Judging from the speed of urbanization during the First and Second Five-Year Plans, it is assumed that my country’s urbanization rate will increase by approximately five percentage points every ten years.”

"It may take seven to eighty years to increase my country's urbanization level to about 70 percent, so we can even use seventy years as a time period to consider the allocation of public resources in my country's cities and rural areas. Of course, Judging from the urbanization experience of European and American countries, it may take only four to fifty years for our country to achieve the current level of industrial power in Europe and the United States, and I prefer the latter. "

Today, Germany's urbanization level is more than 60%, while when Germany was unified, the urbanization rate was about 35%. This means that it took almost 40 years for Germany to reach its current level. The current level of urbanization in East Africa is not as good as the situation when Germany was unified, but it is not far behind. Therefore, according to the speed of German industrial development, it will take at least forty years for East Africa's urbanization to reach the current level of Germany, and it will take at least 40 years to reach 7%. Ten will take at least fifty years.

It can be seen that industrialization is not simple for any country. Germany’s rapid industrialization stage can be said to have mastered the three major advantages of time, location, and people. Counting from before the reunification of Germany, it also took nearly a hundred years.

The difficulty of industrialization in East Africa is no less than that of Germany. It is almost impossible to become fat in one bite. Thinking about it this way, the same was true for the Soviet Union in the past.

Before World War II, the Soviet Union's urbanization level barely exceeded about 32%. In other words, even if the first two five-year plans were completed, the Soviet Union's industrialization level would only be similar to the level in East Africa today or when Germany was unified.

Therefore, in the first two five-year plans, the Soviet Union did not actually complete industrialization. It only turned the Soviet Union into an industrial power. This was based on the huge size of the Soviet Union.

Now that East Africa defines its country as a semi-industrial country, the Soviet Union before World War II could only be a semi-industrial country according to East African standards.

If according to what Ernst said, ideally it would take at least four to fifty years for East Africa to achieve complete industrialization, then the Soviet Union would also need almost that long.

This was only an ideal state. In fact, the development of the Soviet Union was not ideal. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, urbanization had not reached 70%, the industrialization threshold in Ernst's view. Therefore, the Soviet Union was not considered as such from the beginning to the end. Completely complete industrialization.

Of course, the "slowness" of East Africa's industrialization further inspired Ernst's desire for a war to break out in Europe. If it could catch up with this opportunity, East Africa could greatly reduce the time for its own industrialization.

And if we encounter this kind of opportunity, the urbanization growth rate in East Africa can even exceed the effect of the two five-year plans. In the previous life, the war lasted nearly four years. If this time is longer, it will be more harmful to East Africa and other countries outside the region such as the United States. favorable.

If the Great Depression in post-war capitalist countries is rationally planned, East Africa can further narrow the gap with the industrial powers of Europe and the United States.

If World War I and the Great Depression of capitalist countries could be fully utilized, East Africa could ideally shorten its development time by at least fifteen years and bridge the gap with European and American countries.

In fact, if the urbanization level in East Africa reaches about 50%, East Africa can achieve the same influence as the Soviet Union in the past. After all, East Africa and the Soviet Union are both large countries. In fact, the United States has already set an example for East Africa. The urbanization level of the United States is currently around 45%, but its economic level has firmly ranked first in the world. Even though the urbanization levels of the United Kingdom (mainland) and Germany exceed 60% and 70% respectively, It is also impossible to close the gap in economic size with the United States.

When the urbanization level in East Africa exceeds 50%, basically no country other than East Africa itself can influence the subsequent economic development of East Africa.

Of course, the level of urbanization is an important reference standard for industrial strength, but it is not the only standard. After all, there were a lot of "parallel imports" from South America in the previous life. The urbanization levels frequently exceeded 80% or 90%, but the actual economic level was a mess. exist.

(End of chapter)