African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 386: Chapter 63: 50 Steps Laughing at 100 Steps

Through the First Railway, it doesn’t take long to reach Soga. Ernst and his entourage arrived in Soga before nightfall. Soga is still under construction; the southern urban area has been completed, and the National Library is located slightly south of the center of Soga.

The Soga National Library is even larger than the Habsburg Royal Library, the largest in the German regions of Austria. It also features a Baroque style, covering an area of 5 hectares with a total building area of 39,500 square meters. The thirty thousand sets of books Ernst brought this time are not even enough to fill the gap.

Ernst places great importance on the planning of Soga. Currently, the three cities in the Central Province—First Town, Dar es Salaam, and Bajamojo—form a strategic triangle. However, geographically, Dar es Salaam is relatively southern compared to Bajamojo and First Town, so from the map, Dar es Salaam always looks somewhat empty to the west.

First Town is the political and cultural center of East Africa, Dar es Salaam is the economic center of the Central Province, and Bajamojo is the shipbuilding center of East Africa, each with its own strengths. Hence, Ernst feels that the Central Province still lacks a research center, which is the fundamental reason for the development of Soga City.

Although Soga City is not yet needed now, it is being built first to avoid being caught off guard when East Africa needs to attract talent in the future. Although East Africa’s education hasn’t caught up yet, with the economic crisis looming, Ernst believes East Africa can attract some talent to develop there during the economic downturn.

Soga plays the role of settling talents. Science and technology, according to Ernst, can exert greater power when concentrated. Scientists and inventors living in one city can always communicate with each other, inspire ideas, and correct mistakes.

Therefore, Soga is built to the highest standards, comparable to the Capital First Town, to make future talents who come to live in East Africa feel at home.

First is the living environment; Soga is a garden city in the truest sense, with parks of all sizes spread throughout the urban area. Due to its tropical location, Soga will be a riot of color and lush greenery all year round.

The climate doesn’t have anything special but is relatively stable. There is no winter, lingering between spring and summer. During the rainy season, one must be prepared for possible heavy rains at any time, but the drainage facilities are quite complete, and it’s also close to the sea, so there’s no need to worry too much.

The road construction adopts the highest standards: currently, it mainly uses stone roads, but the width meets future standards, and green belts are used, making the project huge, convenient for future replacement with asphalt roads. This is for the main roads, with specially designed pedestrian paths; Ernst even reserved a lane for motorcycles, but the construction workers don’t know the function of designing an extra lane. The pedestrian path can be explained, but that motorcycle lane doesn’t differ from most European city roads.

Currently, European road design is very rough—just a single road, with pedestrians, carriages, and livestock all squeezed together, without detailed division, and the roads aren’t wide. Even Paris and London don’t have such exaggerated city road construction as East Africa. In the eyes of the designers, it’s sheer wastefulness, which is why Soga City is referred to as Ernst’s big toy.

Moreover, Soga City is very convenient for concentrating talents. After the railway opens, it’s less than half an hour to Dar es Salaam City, facilitating their commutes between Europe and East Africa.

This is very important. If the talents are not domestically cultivated in East Africa, they will have a great need to travel worldwide, including returning home to visit family, conducting external academic exchanges, going on business trips, or even finding new opportunities and leaving East Africa. Ernst can’t use a rope to tie them to East Africa.

During the economic crisis, talents recruited in an unfavorable employment environment did not choose East Africa as their first choice, but out of life pressure, they had to develop in East Africa.

Whether East Africa can keep their hearts depends on East Africa’s sincerity. After all, Africa has always been synonymous with backwardness, and talents have always flowed into economically developed regions.

Here, Ernst believes Hefei in his previous life did very well by striving to retain Keda in Hefei, which was an extremely important decision. According to the layout of Far Eastern education in his previous life, Anhui had no advantages, given its proximity to Jinling. Jinling’s role was to concentrate educational resources in the region, similar to Xi’an and Wuhan.

Ernst is very satisfied with the urban construction of Soga. This is a very important step, so he asked his subordinates, ”If you were to choose to live in Soga, would you consider it?”

”Your Highness, if only considering the environment and transportation, then I think nowhere in Europe or the world can far exceed Soga. However, whether Soga can attract residents primarily depends on employment opportunities. Without jobs, there is no source of income, so no one will stay here. Secondly, it is the hardware facilities of a city. In this respect, Soga does very well, even somewhat excessively wasteful, but wider roads are not necessarily a bad thing. Then there’s the climate, where Soga is not bad. Finally, living in a place requires considering the city’s commercial environment, safety, entertainment facilities, the overall citizen atmosphere, and city culture, etc.”

Ernst was very pleased with this answer, and he continued to ask, ”Do you think Soga has any weaknesses?”

”As for weaknesses, nothing can be seen now. After all, this city is still an empty city. It will take some time for people to move in and live to show. However, Your Highness, what is your purpose in building this city? I’ve never understood this.”

Ernst: ”You’ll know the answer in a couple of years. All I can say is that Soga City will be of great significance to East Africa. Also, regarding the issue of excessive wastefulness in your evaluations of Soga City’s construction, I’d like to say that urban development changes day by day. While it seems advanced now, the future is uncertain. Think of Paris, which was like this once. At that time, many Parisians thought Napoleon III’s massive constructions were for show. Indeed, there was that reason, but now Paris is a model for transformations worldwide. I think Paris might be overtaken by some North American cities in two or three decades. So, starting Soga City at a high point isn’t a problem.”

”Your Highness, you are right. In any case, the indigenous people in Africa are countless, and it’s fine to conduct some grand projects. Besides, this isn’t Europe. European cities have long been completed, and any change has to be more considered than in East Africa, whereas East Africa is a blank canvas that allows more freedom for imagination.”

The construction of Soga City required great efforts from the indigenous people, and this city was built within a very short time, far more challenging than the transformation of the Dar es Salaam urban area. Dar es Salaam retained many previous buildings, including the Zanzibar Palace turned into a luxury hotel, whereas Soga was entirely built anew from scratch.

Thinking of this, Ernst suddenly felt a tinge of pain in his conscience. What was unseen in Europe didn’t trouble him, but in Africa, he became more sentimental, striving to suppress the ”sympathy” within his heart.

Ernst said, ”East Africa’s construction cannot do without the natives. A reasonable use of the natives is very important for East Africa. It doesn’t need to be like the US where the indigenous people are exterminated. Some natives, when the time comes, we need to find them a good place. After all, they have worked for East Africa for so many years, whether it’s farming, working on construction sites, or digging canals and building roads. This has also taught them some means of survival in modern society, so that when they leave East Africa in the future, they can find some workmates to survive.”

”Your Highness, you are too kind-hearted, but this is the difference between our German nation and the North American brutes.” He said with a somewhat proud expression.

What are you proud of! One must not mock others while thinking oneself to be saintly. At least East Africa is fifty steps fewer! But Ernst didn’t argue further. The times are as they are, and even with East Africa just taking fifty fewer steps, it’s much better than the Americans. Going head-to-head with the good isn’t an option, but in terms of being lesser evil, America still wins.