Chapter 983 Pilot Areas

Speaking of Mombasa, its development has indeed greatly exceeded Ernst's expectations, but it is normal if you think about it carefully.

The economic development of Mombasa mainly relies on the Northern Railway, while the western part of northern East Africa has no access to the sea, but is close to the colonies of Belgium, France and other countries.

This means that the entire northern railway is top-heavy, and its foreign trade almost only depends on the port city of Mombasa.

On the other hand, the Central Railway where Dar es Salaam is located has more competition in Dar es Salaam. Bagamoyo and New Hamburg can all get a share, especially after the increasingly sound East African railway network, Beira Port, Cabinda Port, Benguela Port, Luanda Port, etc. can bypass Dar es Salaam.

The most important thing is that many routes are even lower in cost than Dar es Salaam. Unlike Mombasa, which almost monopolizes most of the import and export business in northern East Africa, Mogadishu, Kismayo and Lamu Port in the north cannot compete with Mombasa and can only serve a very small area.

Obviously, land transportation cannot form a competitive advantage over sea transportation. Moreover, except for the Abyssinian Empire, none of the northern neighbors of East Africa is a big deal, and the economic level of the colonies in West Africa is very poor.

Of course, although Dar es Salaam does not have the monopoly advantage of Mombasa, it is still the fastest sea route for most parts of the East African Plateau, so the East African government always attaches great importance to Dar es Salaam.

The proposal of the Dar es Salaam city cluster is actually that the development of Dar es Salaam has entered a bottleneck period.

As the most developed city in East Africa, Dar es Salaam faces the problem of population, land, transportation and other resource constraints, while cities such as the First Town City not only have land and population, but also have quite complete infrastructure construction, which can undertake the industrial transfer of Dar es Salaam.

As the capital city in the past, the First Town City may not be "scared" by the industries of Dar es Salaam City, but now that it has lost the aura of the capital, the location conditions of the First Town City are not favorable in the whole of East Africa, so cooperation with Dar es Salaam City seems very reasonable.

As for why the city cluster is not established in Mombasa, it is mainly because Mombasa does not have this condition. There are no decent cities around it, which is in line with the characteristics of Mombasa's dominance in the north.

The surrounding areas of Dar es Salaam are different. Although Bagamoyo City is only a medium-sized city, its industrial output value is nearly half of that of Mombasa. Although the industries of the First Town City and Soga City are not developed, their education and scientific research strength should not be underestimated, and they can provide more talent reserves and technical support for regional development.

The teaching and scientific research resources of the entire Coastal Province are also one of the main reasons for the birth of the Dar es Salaam City Circle.

After East Africa invested the resources originally belonging to the First Town and Soga City into Rhine City, the education and scientific research industries in the First Town and Soga City were actually in a half-dead state.

To reactivate these resources, there must be industrial support, which is exactly what the First Town and Soga City lack.

Although the scientific and educational resources of the First Town and Soga City are close to being abolished after a large number of resources were divided by Rhine City, the strength of the two places cannot be underestimated.

For example, the two universities of Tsinghua and Peking University in the Far East Empire in the previous life, assuming that 70% of the teachers and students were split away, it is impossible for anyone to say that the remaining 30% is not powerful, but because the original system is difficult to operate due to the large number of personnel losses.

Now the goal of the East African Central Government is to keep the remaining 30% running, and it is best to be able to reborn from the ashes.

So Ernst said: "In the past, the development of Dar es Salaam was restricted to a certain extent, especially in the fields of education and scientific research, which were highly mismatched with the economic status of Dar es Salaam."

"The development of the industry is inseparable from talents and technical reserves, especially the development of emerging industries has higher and higher requirements for talents. Among them, Mbeya is the best, which is a model of the combination of science, education and industry in East Africa. If there is no highly developed science and education, Harare would have surpassed Mbeya and become the most developed city in the inland area of ​​East Africa."

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

Mbeya is currently the scientific research center of East Africa, and its education is relatively weak. Soga used to rank first in education.

After Rhine split the education of the First Town and Soga, Rhine has become the national education center of East Africa, and this advantage will continue to expand.

"Therefore, the industrial transformation of Dar es Salaam is inseparable from the explosion of science and education, and Dar es Salaam itself cannot achieve this, but the First Town City and Soga City have it, which forms the integration and optimization of resources."

"At the same time, the First Town City and Soga City also need the industrial resources of Dar es Salaam City, which can alleviate the pressure of land, transportation and population in Dar es Salaam City."

That is to prevent big city diseases. Dar es Salaam City is the most typical big city in East Africa, with an urban population of more than 700,000, which puts forward high requirements for urban land, drinking water, social security, education and medical resources, etc.

Of course, this does not mean that East Africa will completely restrict the development of big cities. One of the functions of cities is to save public resources and reduce vacancy rates.

Take the former first town as an example. Although the city is small in size, there is a serious waste in urban construction, especially now that the population has decreased significantly, a large number of buildings and land are idle, while the land and population pressure in Dar es Salaam is relatively tight, so the two can complement each other.

Of course, each urban development model has its own advantages and disadvantages. Large cities have their own advantages, and small cities have their own advantages. The urban agglomeration is an attempt by the East African government in the East African First Five-Year Plan.

That is, through the urban agglomeration model, the advantages and disadvantages of large cities and small cities are combined. If this road works, the focus of urbanization in East Africa in the future will definitely be around the construction of urban agglomerations.

As an emerging country, the focus of the East African government's work has completely shifted from agricultural construction in the past to industrial construction, and correspondingly, transforming the original agricultural population into urban population is what the East African government must do.

The increase in urbanization rate is the process of increasing urban population. In this process, urban construction is the key, and the small city model is obviously not feasible. Only the two roads of large cities and urban agglomerations are feasible.

It is impossible for East Africa to require every region to develop an urban agglomeration, such as Mombasa, where there are no cities around. If the Dar es Salaam urban agglomeration experiment is successful.

The next step for East Africa will be to build the Rhine City urban agglomeration in the middle of the country with Rhine City as the center, and the West Coast urban agglomeration in the west.

This is also Ernst's main purpose. Industrial development is most taboo to fight alone. Without division of labor and cooperation, large industrial production activities cannot be formed.

The construction of urban agglomerations also requires East Africa to further refine the regional transportation network on the framework of the national transportation infrastructure. This also represents the beginning of a new round of infrastructure construction in East Africa, just like a tree grows a trunk first, and then it can further grow branches and leaves.

In fact, in the construction of roads and railways in East Africa in the 1990s, the construction of branch transportation had reached the same scale as the trunk line. Now, except for water transportation, the trunk lines of East Africa are relatively complete, and what is lacking is the construction of branch lines.