Chapter 983 Pilot Area
Speaking of Mombasa, its development is indeed far beyond Ernst’s expectations, but it’s normal if you think about it carefully.
Mombasa’s economic development mainly relies on the Northern Railway, and 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.
Looking 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 after the East African railway network becomes increasingly complete, Beira Port, Cabinda Port, Benguela Port, Luanda Port, 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, Kismayo and Lamu Port cannot compete with Mombasa and can only serve a small area.
Land transportation obviously cannot form a competitive advantage with sea transportation, not to mention that none of the neighboring countries in the north of East Africa except the Abyssinian Empire are insignificant, and the economic level of the colonies in West Africa is very poor.
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 areas of the East African Plateau. Therefore, the East African government has placed great emphasis on Dar es Salaam. attention is always placed at the forefront.
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, and infrastructure The construction is quite complete and can undertake the industrial transfer of Dar es Salaam City.
In the past, as the capital, Dar es Salaam's industries may not be rare in the first town, but now that it has lost its aura as a capital, the location conditions of the first town are not 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 a city agglomeration is not established 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 value is nearly half that of Mombasa. First Town and Soga City Although the industry is not developed, the educational and scientific research capabilities 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.
After East Africa invested resources that originally belonged to First Town and Soga City to Rhine City, the education and scientific research industries of First Town and Soga City were actually in a state of survival.
To reactivate these resources, there must be industrial support, which is what First Town and Sojia 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 Qing Dynasty in the Far Eastern Empire were split and took away 70% of their teacher and student resources. It is impossible for anyone to say that the remaining 30% are not powerful. Because the original system was difficult to operate due to a large loss of personnel.
The current purpose of the East African central government is to keep the remaining 30% operating, 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 and the development of Dar es Salaam. There is a high degree of mismatch in economic status.”
"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 The city has long surpassed Mbeya to become the most developed city in the interior of East Africa. "As the capital of Bohemia Province (Zimbabwe), Harare ranks first in terms of heavy industry in East Africa and is also the first in the interior of East Africa. A large city, 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. In the past, Soga City ranked 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 the first town and city Suojia City has it, which forms the integration and optimization of resources.”
"At the same time, the 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."
Also It is 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 puts forward high requirements for urban land, drinking water, social security, education and medical resources, etc. Require.
Of course, this does not mean that East Africa must 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. The pressure on land and population in Lamu City is relatively 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 East Africa First Five-Year Plan.
That is to say, 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 in the past. Correspondingly, the East African government must transform the original agricultural population into an urban population. thing.
The increase in urbanization rate is the process of increasing urban population. In this process, urban construction is the key, and the small city model is obviously unworkable. Only large cities and urban agglomerations have the same characteristics. feasibility.
East Africa cannot require every region to develop urban agglomerations, such as Mombasa, a place with few cities around it, and if the Dar es Salaam urban agglomeration experiment succeeds.
The next step in East Africa will be to build the Rhine City agglomeration in the center, with the Rhine City as the center, and the West Coast city agglomeration and other urban agglomerations in the west.
This is also the main purpose of Ernst. Industrial development is most taboo against 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 Mr. Tree growing its trunk, Only then can it flourish further.
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)