Chapter 1067 Urbanization and National Strength
To put it simply, rural areas with good development potential and other relatively favorable conditions will definitely receive focus, so that limited resources can be fully utilized.
During the First and Second Five-Year Plans, although East Africa emphasized balanced development, it is inevitable that East African cities, especially large cities, have a huge advantage in industrialization and are developing significantly faster than other regions.
This is 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 thought about developing 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.
So 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 more than tripled, because the area of East Africa is larger than the entire Europe. A little, but the population is much smaller than Europe as a whole.
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, forming regional urban groups and realizing nationwide industrial production cooperation through national transportation. , after all, one province in East Africa is basically equivalent to the area of a medium-sized European country, and three to four provinces are almost the same size as Germany, France, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
East Africa is different from other super-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 the United States is in the northeast, Russia is in the west, and the Far Eastern Empire Then in the southeast.
Although there is a gap between the west of East Africa and the east, this gap is not as obvious as that of other countries. This also shapes the urban layout of East Africa. From the perspective of balanced urban distribution, East Africa is between between Europe and the rest of the world.
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.
For example, gas stations. Due to the large population concentration of gas stations in big cities, the usage rate is generally higher than that in small and medium-sized cities. However, when going down to rural areas, the usage rate is even lower. If it is in remote areas Some more so.
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 Ste grew up, it was difficult to maintain more than thirty students all year round, and some village schools even had single-digit students, which would 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. By my country's urbanization, especially during the First and Second Five-Year Plans, looks at the speed of urbanization growth. Assuming that my country's urbanization rate will increase by about five percentage points every ten years in the future."
"Then my country's urbanization level will increase. It may take seven to eighty years to reach about 70% , so we can even use seventy years as a time period to consider the allocation of urban and rural public resources in our country. Of course, judging from the urbanization experience of European and American countries, our country may be able to achieve this in only four or fifty years. Regarding the current level of industrial power in Europe and the United States, I also prefer the latter.”
Today’s urbanization level in Germany is more than 60%, while when Germany was unified, the urbanization rate was about 35%. In other words, it took almost forty 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 40 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 level of urbanization in the Soviet Union was only about 32%. In other words, even if the first two five-year plans were completed, the level of industrialization in the Soviet Union would only be the same as that of East Africa or Germany today. The level was almost the same.
So 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 itself 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 is only an ideal state. In fact, the development of the Soviet Union was not ideal. By the time of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, urbanization had not reached 70%, which in Ernst's view was the industrialization threshold. Therefore, the Soviet Union never Industrialization is not completely completed from beginning to end.
Of course, the "slow" speed of industrialization in East Africa also further stimulated Ernst's desire for a war to break out in Europe. If this opportunity can be caught up, East Africa can 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 have a negative impact on East Africa. The more advantageous it is with foreign countries such as the United States.
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 It has 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 have exceeded 1% respectively. In the 60s and 70s, it is 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, and the urbanization level frequently exceeded 80% or 90%. The actual economic level is in a mess.
(End of this chapter)