African Entrepreneurship Record

Speaking of Mombasa City, its development indeed greatly exceeded Ernst’s expectations, though upon reflection, it seems reasonable.

Mombasa’s economic development primarily relies on the Northern Railway, while the western part of northern East Africa does not have an outlet to the sea; it borders the colonies of countries like Belgium and France.

This means that the entire Northern Railway is top-heavy, with its foreign trade almost entirely dependent on Mombasa, a single seaport city.

In contrast, Dar es Salaam City, located on the Central Railway, faces much more competition. Bajamojo City and New Hamburg Port City can also share in the trade, especially as the East African railway network becomes increasingly complete. Bela Port, Cabinda Port, Benguela Port, Luanda Port, and others can bypass Dar es Salaam City.

The most important point is that many routes are even cheaper than through Dar es Salaam City, unlike Mombasa, which virtually monopolizes most of the import and export business in northern East Africa. Northern cities like Mogadishu, Kismayo, and Lamu Port cannot compete with Mombasa and can only serve very small areas.

Moreover, land transportation clearly cannot compete with maritime transport, not to mention that among the northern neighboring countries of East Africa, apart from the Empire of Abyssinia, the others are not significant, and the economic level of the colonies in western Africa is especially poor.

Of course, although Dar es Salaam City does not have the monopolistic advantage of Mombasa, it is still the fastest sea outlet for most regions of the East African Plateau, so the East African government always places a high level of importance on Dar es Salaam City.

The proposal of the Dar es Salaam metropolitan area indicates that the city’s development has actually entered a bottleneck period.

As the most developed city in East Africa, Dar es Salaam City faces tight resources like population, land, and transportation, and cities such as First Town have land, population, and well-developed infrastructure, enabling them to undertake industrial transfers from Dar es Salaam City.

Before, as the capital, First Town might not have ”cared” about the industry from Dar es Salaam City, but now, having lost its capital status, the geographical conditions of First Town aren’t particularly advantaged in all of East Africa, so cooperation with Dar es Salaam City makes good sense.

The main reason why a metropolitan area hasn’t been established in Mombasa is that Mombasa doesn’t have the conditions; it has no decent neighboring cities, fitting its dominant characteristic in the north.

However, it’s different around Dar es Salaam City. Although Bajamojo City is only a medium-sized city, its industrial output is almost half that of Mombasa. Even though First Town and Soga City are not industrially advanced, their education and scientific research capabilities should not be underestimated, as they can provide more talent reserves and technical support for regional development.

And the teaching and research resources of the entire Marine Province are also one of the main reasons for the birth of the Dar es Salaam metropolitan area.

When East Africa invested resources originally belonging to First Town and Soga City into Rhein City, the education and research sectors of First Town and Soga City were in a moribund state.

To reactivate these resources, industrial support is necessary, which is exactly what First Town and Soga City lack.

Even though First Town and Soga City’s educational and research resources were nearly abolished after being divided by Rhein City, this shouldn’t make one underestimate their strength.

For instance, if the two major universities in the Far East Empire, Tsinghua and Beijing University, were to lose 70% of their staff and students, no one would say the remaining 30% isn’t formidable; it’s just that the original system is difficult to operate due to the massive loss of personnel.

The current goal of the East Africa Central Government is to keep the remaining 30% operational, and hopefully undergo a phoenix-like rebirth.

So, Ernst said, ”In past developments, the progress of Dar es Salaam City was somewhat restricted, especially in the fields of education and scientific research, which did not match its economic status.”

”Industrial development is inseparable from talent and technical reserves, especially as new industries demand more from talent. Mbeya City does this best, serving as a model of the integration between scientific research and industry in East Africa. Without the highly developed scientific and educational endeavors, Harare would have already surpassed Mbeya City as the most developed inland city in East Africa.”

Harare City, as the capital of the Bohemia Province (Zimbabwe), ranks first in heavy industry scale in East Africa and is the largest inland city in East Africa, but its industrial value is far less than that of Mbeya City.

Mbeya City is currently the research center of East Africa, but its education is relatively weak. Previously, Soga City ranked first in education.

After Rhein City split the education resources of First Town and Soga City, Rhein City has become the national education center of East Africa, and this advantage will continue to grow.

”Therefore, the industrial transformation of Dar es Salaam City is inseparable from the explosion of scientific and educational endeavors, something Dar es Salaam City itself cannot achieve. However, First Town and Soga City can, thus forming an integrated and optimized resource.”

”Meanwhile, First Town and Soga City also need the industrial resources of Dar es Salaam City, which can alleviate the land, transportation, and population pressures on Dar es Salaam City.”

This is to prevent the problems of a large city. Dar es Salaam City is the most typical large city in East Africa, with an urban population exceeding 700,000, which places high demands on urban land, water, public security, education, and medical resources.

Of course, this does not mean East Africa wants to completely restrict the development of large cities. One function of cities is to save public resources and reduce vacancy rates.

Take First Town in the past, for example, although its city was small in scale, it suffered from severe construction waste, especially after the massive population decrease, leaving many buildings and land idle. The land and population pressure in Dar es Salaam City is quite tight, so the two can be complementary.

Of course, each mode of urban development has its advantages and disadvantages. Large cities have the merits of large cities; small cities have the merits of small cities, and the metropolitan area is an attempt by the East African government in the first five-year plan of East Africa.

This is to combine the strengths and weaknesses of large and small cities through the metropolitan area model. If this path is feasible, the focus of future East African urbanization will certainly revolve around the construction of metropolitan areas.

As an emerging nation, the focus of the East African government’s work has shifted completely from agricultural development to industrial development, and in tandem, converting the agricultural population into urban population is inevitable.

And as the urbanization rate increases, which is the process of increasing the urban population, urban construction is the key, and the small city model is clearly impractical, with only the models of large cities and metropolitan areas being feasible.

East Africa can’t require every region to develop a metropolitan area, such as places like Mombasa that have no nearby cities. But if the Dar es Salaam metropolitan area experiment succeeds.

Next, East Africa will build the Rhein City metropolitan area centered on Rhein City in the central region, and the West Coast metropolitan area and others in the western region.

This is also Ernst’s main goal, as industrial development must not be isolated, and without division of labor and cooperation, large-scale industrial production activities cannot form.

The construction of metropolitan areas also requires East Africa to further refine the regional transportation network on the national transportation framework, indicating the start of a new round of basic construction in East Africa, like a tree growing its trunk first before its branches and leaves can flourish more.

In fact, during the nineties’ road and railway construction in East Africa, the scale of branch line construction was on par with that of the main lines, and now, apart from water transport, East Africa’s main transportation arteries are relatively complete, with the current deficiency being in the construction of branch lines.