African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 983 Pilot Areas

Speaking of the city of Mombasa, its development has indeed far exceeded Ernst’s expectations, but it’s normal to think about it carefully.

 Mombasa’s economic development mainly relies on the Northern Railway. The western part of northern East Africa has no outlet to the sea, but is close to the colonies of Belgium, France and other countries.

This also means that the entire Northern Railway is top-heavy, and its foreign trade almost only relies on the seaport city of Mombasa.

On the other hand, if we look at the Central Railway where Dar es Salaam is located, Dar es Salaam has received much more competition. Bagamoyo City and New Hamburg Port City can both get a share of the pie, especially in the East African railway network. As they become increasingly complete, the ports of Beira, Cabinda, Benguela, Luanda, etc. can all bypass the city of Dar es Salaam.

The most important thing is that many routes are even lower in cost than Dar es Salaam. Unlike Mombasa, which almost monopolizes most of the import and export business in northern East Africa, Mogadishu and Kismayo in the north Neither Port of Lamu nor Mombasa can compete with Mombasa and can only serve a small area.

Land transportation is obviously unable to form a competitive advantage with sea transportation, not to mention that none of the neighboring countries in the north of East Africa, except for the Abyssinian Empire, is insignificant, and the economic level of the colonial countries in West Africa is even worse.

Of course, although Dar es Salaam does not have the same monopoly advantage as Mombasa, it is still the fastest access to the sea in most parts of the East African Plateau. Therefore, the East African government has always attached great importance to Dar es Salaam. Front position.

The proposal of the Dar es Salaam urban agglomeration actually means that the development of Dar es Salaam has entered a bottleneck period.

As the most developed city in East Africa, Dar es Salaam is facing tight problems in terms of population, land, transportation and other resources. However, cities such as First Town City not only have land, population, but also quite complete infrastructure construction and can undertake Industrial relocation in Dar es Salaam.

In the past, as the capital, the first town and city may not be "rare" about the industries of Dar es Salaam, but now that it has lost its aura as a capital, the location conditions of the first town and city are not considered favorable in the whole of East Africa, so and The cooperation between Dar es Salaam City and the City of Dar es Salaam seems very reasonable.

As for why there is no urban agglomeration in Mombasa, the main reason is that Mombasa does not have this condition and there are no decent cities around it, which is in line with Mombasa’s unique characteristics in the north.

The situation around Dar es Salaam is different. Although Bagamoyo is only a medium-sized city, its industrial output is nearly half that of Mombasa. Although the industries of First Town and Soga are not developed, However, the strength of education and scientific research cannot be underestimated, and can provide more talent reserves and technical support for regional development.

 The teaching and scientific research resources of the entire Maritime Province are also one of the main reasons for the birth of the Dar es Salaam urban circle.

ˆAfter East Africa invested resources that originally belonged to the First Town and Soga City to the Rhine City, the education and scientific research industries of the First Town and Soga City are actually in a state of half-life.

 To reactivate these resources, there must be industrial support, which is what No. 1 Town and Suojia City lack.

Although the scientific and educational resources of First Town and Soga City are in a state of near-abolishing after being divided up a large amount of resources by Rhine City, the strength of the two places cannot be underestimated because of this.

For example, in the previous life, the two universities in the Northern Qing Dynasty in the Far Eastern Empire were split and 70% of their teacher and student resources were taken away. It is impossible for anyone to say that the remaining 30% were not powerful. This was just because the original system had a large number of personnel. Lost and difficult to operate.

The current purpose of the central government in East Africa is to keep the remaining 30% operating, and preferably to achieve phoenix nirvana.

So Ernst said: "In the past development, the development of Dar es Salaam has been restricted to a certain extent, especially in the fields of education and scientific research, which are highly inconsistent with the economic status of Dar es Salaam. ”

"The development of industry cannot be separated from talents and technical reserves, especially the development of emerging industries, which has higher and higher requirements for talents. The best among them is Mbeya City, which is a model of the integration of science, education and industry in East Africa. If Without the high development of science and education, Harare City would have surpassed Mbeya City and become the most developed city in the interior of East Africa. As the capital of Bohemia Province (Zimbabwe), Harare City ranks second in terms of heavy industry scale. It is the largest city in East Africa and the largest city in inland East Africa, but its industrial value is far less than that of Mbeya City.

Mbeya City is currently the scientific research center in East Africa and is relatively weak in education. Soga City used to rank first in education.

 After Rhine City split the education in First Town and Soga City, Rhine City has become the education center in East Africa, and this advantage will continue to expand.

"So the industrial transformation of Dar es Salaam is inseparable from the explosion of science and education. Dar es Salaam itself cannot achieve this, but First Town and Soga City have. This This forms the integration and optimization of resources.”

“At the same time, First Town City and Soga City also need the industrial resources of Dar es Salaam City, which can alleviate the pressure on land, transportation and population in Dar es Salaam City.”

That is to say, to prevent big city diseases. Dar es Salaam is the most typical big city in East Africa, with an urban population of more than 700,000. This poses relatively important problems for urban land, drinking water, social security, education and medical resources, etc. High demands.

Of course, this does not mean that East Africa should completely restrict the development of large cities. One of the functions of cities is to save public resources and reduce vacancy rates.

Take the former First Town as an example. Although its city is small, there is serious waste in urban construction. Especially now that the population has decreased significantly, a large number of buildings and land are idle. However, the land and land in Dar es Salaam City are Population pressure is tight, so the two can complement each other.

Of course, urban development models have their own advantages and disadvantages. Big cities have the advantages of big cities, and small cities have the advantages of small cities. Urban agglomeration is an attempt by the East African government in the First Five-Year Plan of East Africa.

That is, through the urban agglomeration model, the advantages and disadvantages of large cities and small cities are combined. If this path works, then the focus of urbanization in East Africa in the future will definitely be around the construction of urban agglomerations.

As an emerging country, the focus of the East African government has completely shifted from agricultural construction to industrial construction. Correspondingly, converting the original agricultural population into an urban population is what the East African government must do.

 As the urbanization rate increases, that is, the process of increasing urban population, urban construction is the key, and the small city model is obviously unworkable. Only large cities and urban agglomerations are feasible.

 East Africa cannot require the development of urban agglomerations in every region, such as Mombasa, a place with few cities around it, and if the experiment of urban agglomeration in Dar es Salaam is successful.

 The next step in East Africa will be to build the Rhine City urban agglomeration in the center, with the Rhine City as the center, and the West Coast urban agglomeration and other urban agglomerations in the west.

 This is also the main purpose of Ernst. Industrial development is most taboo with working alone. Without division of labor and cooperation, large-scale industrial production activities cannot be formed.

The construction of urban agglomerations also requires East Africa to further refine the inter-regional transportation network within the framework of the national transportation infrastructure. This also represents the beginning of a new round of infrastructure construction in East Africa, just like a tree growing its trunk before it can further branch out. Same as Mao.

 In fact, during the construction of roads and railways in East Africa in the 1990s, the construction of branch lines has reached the same scale as the main lines. Now, in addition to water transportation, the main lines of transportation in East Africa have been relatively complete. What is lacking is the construction of branch lines.

 (End of this chapter)