African Entrepreneurship Record

”By 1905, in terms of transportation, the national railway mileage should reach 150,000 kilometers; in urban rail transit, two new metro lines and intercity railways will be built in Dar es Salaam City, connecting First Town, Rhein City, and Soga City; the metro network of Rhein City will be expanded; cement and asphalt roads will exceed two million kilometers; twelve new canals will be constructed to link the water transport network between Mozambique and the central regions.”

After the capital was relocated, the political status of what was originally First Town declined, which meant that First Town lost its political industry. So if First Town is not to be abandoned, it can only continue to develop by merging with Dar es Salaam City, because with the capital moved, First Town’s own resources can no longer support its continued development.

On the enlarged map of Marine Province (formerly Central Province), Sivert circled Dar es Salaam City, Bajamojo City, First Town and Soga City respectively with a red pen.

”Please look here, these four cities in the eastern part of the map. I believe everyone is familiar with them, since the vast majority of us previously worked in First Town.”

”The issue now is that in the past, First Town was able to develop because it enjoyed top-priority political resources—hospitals, schools, transportation, industries, and so on—all of which were built around serving politics.”

”But with the completion of the capital relocation, the original urban ecosystem of First Town can no longer be sustained, and most of its medical, educational, and industrial resources have been split off and reassembled in Rhein City, leaving First Town with a population of less than fifty thousand.”

At this point Ernst added: ”Although First Town lost its original status after the relocation of the capital, it is still currently the political center of Marine Province and one of its transportation hubs, with fairly complete urban construction. Therefore, the plan for First Town is to make full use of its advantages and ensure its subsequent development. My current idea is to incorporate First Town into the Dar es Salaam City economic zone, which will facilitate a strong–strong alliance.”

Although the capital of East Africa has changed, the government of the former Central Province, now Marine Province, is still located in First Town. During its time as the capital, First Town accumulated a large amount of medical, educational, and administrative resources. Even though most of these were transferred to Rhein City along with the capital, the remaining resources are still quite considerable in both scale and quality.

It is similar to the previous-life situation in the Far East Empire, where after administrative divisions were adjusted, the educational resources of some abolished administrative units still remained in place; First Town is a similar case.

As the saying goes, ”a starved camel is still bigger than a horse”; that is exactly the situation of First Town. Although its economic scale is far inferior to Dar es Salaam City, in terms of public resources such as administration, education, and healthcare, First Town is even more developed than Dar es Salaam City.

Sivert continued: ”First Town can serve as a satellite city of Dar es Salaam City, and together with Soga City form the science and technology, political, and cultural center of eastern Marine Province, building a Greater Dar es Salaam City economic development cluster, thereby overtaking the megacities of Europe and America.”

”By having Dar es Salaam City, Bajamojo City, First Town, and Soga City develop as a group, the combined urban population in the region will exceed one million, and in the fields of economy, culture, education, healthcare, and transportation, they will also be in the country’s first tier. To achieve coordinated development among the four cities, the core issue is to resolve transportation bottlenecks.”

”At present, First Town and Soga City, as well as Dar es Salaam City, are all directly connected by the Central Railway; Bajamojo City and Dar es Salaam City are linked by the Eastern Coastal Railway; and there is a canal between First Town and Bajamojo City. This forms a triangular transportation network; in addition, highways connect all four, giving them an obvious innate advantage in transportation.”

”It is just that in the past this transportation network was centered on First Town, whereas now First Town clearly cannot shoulder the task of guiding regional economic development.”

”At the same time, in order to unleash the economic vitality of Dar es Salaam City, build a new Indian Ocean economic bridgehead, promote the division of labor among eastern cities, and upgrade our national industries and manufacturing, cluster-based development is the inevitable choice.”

”On this basis, further improvements to local transportation, and a plan to achieve coordinated development of the four cities, have naturally been placed on the agenda.”

Previously, although the four-city area around Dar es Salaam had a well-developed transportation system, the network already built there primarily served the whole country. After all, Dar es Salaam City is one of East Africa’s main eastern ports. When the territory of East Africa in its early days was limited to the East Africa region, it was the only important outlet to the sea, at a time when Mombasa had not yet developed.

Correspondingly, there is still much room for improvement in the coordinated development among the cities of Marine Province. In the past, due to the constraints of the era, local transportation was oriented toward serving the whole country. Now the East African Government intends to make transportation there serve regional economic integration.

Obviously, East Africa cannot abolish the original functions of the existing local transportation infrastructure, so it can only, on that basis, re-plan and build a new transportation network dedicated to the integration of local economic industries, with intercity railways and highway construction as the key.

Sivert went on: ”That is to say, we will build an intercity railway loop around Dar es Salaam City, linking Dar es Salaam City, Soga City, First Town, and Bajamojo City together, to ensure the smooth flow of people, goods, and information.”

”At the same time, we will construct intercity expressways, that is, direct highways between the four cities, to facilitate future road traffic such as automobiles. In this way, we can both ease the pressure on the original transportation network and further enhance the capacity for coordinated development among the four cities.”

”Meanwhile, the new Dar es Salaam City metropolitan area will cover the educational and research resources originally located in First Town and Soga City, driving the development of emerging industries; it will also integrate the shipbuilding industries of Bajamojo City and Dar es Salaam City, while providing large amounts of developable land and more industrial labor, thereby promoting a more efficient development of Marine Province’s economy.”

In fact, the educational and research resources of Dar es Salaam City and Bajamojo City were already quite good. Once they are integrated with those of First Town and Soga City, their research capacity and potential will directly surpass Mbea City, East Africa’s current research center.

After all, each of these four cities, taken alone, already belongs to the first tier among East African cities in terms of educational and research resources.

And educational and research resources are only one aspect; industrial integration is the main part. Dar es Salaam City and Mombasa City are already all-rounders among East African cities, with no obvious weaknesses in many industrial sectors. If they are further merged with Bajamojo City, their industrial scale will be raised to an even higher level.

Bajamojo City is not a small city in the current East African urban system, but a relatively developed medium-sized city, and it is presently East Africa’s shipbuilding center, with a population of more than three hundred thousand. So just the combination of Dar es Salaam City and Bajamojo City already gives a population of over one million; adding First Town and Soga City brings the total to more than one million.

In terms of distance, these cities are relatively close to one another, with no distance between them exceeding sixty kilometers. If this were the first-tier metropolitan area of the later Far East Empire, that would be enough to achieve full urban integration.

Of course, in the 19th century, East Africa clearly has no way of doing that, since transportation cannot yet achieve seamless connectivity. So the concept of a metropolitan area is a more suitable description for Dar es Salaam City and the other three cities.

The only local shortcoming is probably the insufficiency of mineral resources, and it is also impossible to achieve the inland economic depth of the Far East Empire’s Shanghai. After all, the physical geography of East Africa determines that in the future, the East African coast will form multiple centers, rather than a single hegemony dominated by Dar es Salaam City alone.

After all, in the past, when the East African coast only comprised the coasts of Tanzania and Kenya, Dar es Salaam City was already unable to firmly suppress Mombasa City.