REUTERS/Joe Penney
African countries keep building new cities to meet rapid urbanization even if people won’t live in them
By 2050 an estimated 2.5 billion more people
will be added to urban areas, with 90% of this growth taking place in
Africa and Asia. According to Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Romer,
this will mean the building of more urban areas in the next 100 years than currently exist today.
If
managed effectively, Africa’s cities will drive the continent’s
economic growth, and thereby help reduce poverty. To date, however,
Africa has yet to realize the positive gains of rapid urbanization
experienced elsewhere. Instead, increasingly concentrated populations
have become a major stress on the limited infrastructure and services,
such as housing, employment, health, education, and safety.
Retrofitting cities, where cities already exist, can be up to three times more expensive
than planning for infrastructure in advance of settlement. Therefore,
some leaders see the construction of whole new cities as the overall solution to overcome the pressures on existing ones.
The
idea of constructing new cities to solve urbanization challenges is not
new. In Africa, for example, the first post-independence wave came with
some governments deciding to move their capital cities. The motivations
for this varied. In the case of Yamoussoukro, which was declared the
capital of Côte d’Ivoire in 1983, the move reflected the desire of the
then president Houphouët-Boigny to have the capital
located in his home town. Nigeria, on the other hand, Abuja became the
new capital in 1991 to relieve population pressures in Lagos. The choice
of the site for Abuja was motivated by the fact that it was located in
the centre of the country. It is also more ethnically neutral
as it was located between the country’s northern, majority Muslim
population and southern, largely Christian population. The creation of
the city of Abuja, therefore, was also to help bridge the divisions in
the country in terms of politics as well as economic opportunity.
The fortunes of Yamoussoukro and Abuja offer important lessons for current planners of new cities—120 are being built in 40 countries.
Although some people were attracted to Yamoussoukro by the prospect of a newly constructed international airport, and even the world’s largest church,
most stayed away. While it continues to be the country’s administrative
capital, most government institutions remain in Abidjan. On top of
this, Abidjan is still the vastly more popular city. It is the economic
hub of the country, with an estimated population of close to 4 million. Yamoussoukro’s population is approximately 200,000, making it only the 6th largest city in the country.
REUTERS/Thierry Gouegnon
Any
new city takes time to grow. Abuja, though still much smaller than
Lagos, which remains Nigeria’s economic hub, has, however, already
experienced rapid population growth since it was founded. In 1987 its
population was only about 15,000 people. Today, it has a population of over 3 million.
Although not without its own challenges, there were two major advantages of Abuja. Firstly, at the time of its conception, the Nigerian government had a large amount of petrodollars. This meant that major investments in its infrastructure, such as water lines, could largely be made in advance of people settling.
In
addition, unlike Yamoussoukro, major government institutions were moved
to Abuja. This spurred initial population movement, as the government
civil service had an incentive to move there.
The myth of smart cities
The
current wave of new city building is largely focused on leap-frogging
economic development and moving Africa’s cities directly into the age of
futuristic, technologically advanced, so-called ‘smart cities’. Plans
for these types of cities are sprouting up across the continent; from Kenya, Mauritius and Senegal.
Leading the way is Nigeria with five current on-going new city projects, which, when completed, are set to cover a landmass of 25 million square meters. The agenda of new city building is not only being pushed by governments, but by a vast array of construction, real estate and technology companies, who stand to profit from the city construction boom, as well.
Yet these new cities will want to avoid pitfalls of places like Cyberjaya, Malaysia. Cyberjaya was the Malaysian government’s attempt to emulate Silicon Valley and pioneer such a hub in Asia.
Cyberjaya was built on 2,800 hectares of undeveloped land, 40 kilometers south of Kuala Lumpur.
The idea behind the city was to create a space where intelligent minds
from across the globe could reside comfortably and just concentrate on
innovation. Malaysia hoped that its first mover advantage in the smart
city arena would attract investors. They also believed that Cyberjaya
could be a model for the city of the future.
Yet Cyberjaya has failed to live up to its reputation.
In particular, a fundamental design flaw was the lack of understanding
that people move to cities not only for the infrastructure but also the
amenities, as well as to build networks and to integrate into existing
networks. In conceptualizing Cyberjaya, the Malaysian government largely
ignored this.
Rather the city was envisaged
only for the highly educated elite, who, it was assumed, did not
require many further amenities outside a suitable work environment. As a
result of the failure to understand the human aspect of cities, many parts of Cyberjaya have remained vacant to date.
Many
of Africa’s upcoming “smart cities” exhibit similar conceptualization
flaws. Senegal’s futuristic city Diamniadio, a core part of president Macky Sall’s 2035 plan,
is meant to be a “city of knowledge”. It will comprise an industrial
park with entertainment facilities and residential areas. However, when
the city is completed, which is intended to be by 2035, it is unlikely that the majority of Senegalese will be able to afford to live there.
REUTERS/Nellie Peyton
An estimated $100 billion is being invested in new city projects across Africa; Diamniadio alone will cost the Senegalese government an estimated $2 billion.
The assumption is that these investments will pay off. The logic is
that these cities will attract the best and the brightest. In turn this
should drive productivity increases that ultimately will repay the large
loans.
In addition, as the new city of Eko Atlantic City in Nigeria has shown, land prices may increase substantially. So, if the government can capture these through land based taxes, this can help recoup costs too.
But
failure invariably comes with large debt bills that African countries
cannot afford, and may leave large, unfinished ghost cities in its wake.
Not easy
As
the case of Cyberjaya and other failed new city projects globally
demonstrate, successfully designing new cities from scratch is not easy.
Cities are complex systems. They require the necessary infrastructure
to function. Silicon Valley has been successful
as the infrastructure and regulatory environment has meant firms have
clustered and learned from each other, spurring innovation.
But
none of this matters without people being willing to live there. And
what attracts people into cities are opportunities for social
interaction and the socio-economic networks. In the case of Silicon
Valley’s success, for example, it’s clear that the entrepreneurs
employed by the firms themselves care about the business environment as
well as the quality of life for themselves and their families.
Building
new smart cities, in the hope people will follow, may be a higher-risk
gamble that most African governments cannot afford. A surer bet is to
study where people are already moving, which means where future urbanization is likely to happen.
Laying the foundations for this urbanization to happen in an orderly
and well-managed fashion, such as delineating basic road systems and
investing in basic infrastructure before settlement takes place, as was
done in Abuja, will go a long way to harness the potential of Africa’s
urbanization.
Astrid R.N. Haas, Senior Country Economist (Cities) and Manager of Cities that Work, International Growth Centre
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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