HIO NDIO DAR ES SALAAM SIO EAST AFRICA TU NI AFRICA KWA UJUMLA
The Bright Future of Dar es Salaam, an Unlikely African Megacity
Once isolated and overlooked, Dar es Salaam is on track to become Africa's fastest-growing urban center.
Currently a city of 4.1 million. Dar will likely grow to over 21 million midway through the century.
(Flickr/Andrew Moore)
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In 1957, in the waning years of British colonial rule, the then-unremarkable port city of Dar es Salaam sat on the coast of present-day Tanzania. It boasted a meager population of 128,000. Its humidity was relentless. Africa's independence era was getting underway, and many of Dar's neighboring cities had far glitzier exteriors with more modern infrastructure. Maputo, the capital of Mozambique to the south, would become known as
"The Pearl of the Indian Ocean." Nairobi, 560 miles north in Kenya, would be referred to as
"The London of Africa." Dar es Salaam, meanwhile, struggled to shake the English translation of its name—"the residence of peace." Tranquil, yet stagnant.
But recent years have brought unimaginable growth and change to Dar es Salaam. In terms of annual population growth, it's on pace to be Africa's fastest growing urban center. Its total population—currently about 4.1 million people—is expected to expand by more than 85 percent through 2025,
according to the African Development Bank, and could reach 21.4 million people by 2052. It's likely to achieve '
megacity' status—10 million residents or more—by the early 2030s.
(
Journal of Sustainable Development)
To put that expansion in context: New York City added roughly 4 million residents
over the past 100 years. Dar es Salaam will add 21 million over a similar span.
CityLab has written about sub-Saharan Africa's other mushrooming cities. Tanzania is already
one of Africa's most populated nations. By 2020,
according to the U.N., Africa will become the most rapidly urbanizing region of the world. Dar es Salaam is at the epicenter of a perfect storm of demographic change: A cosmopolitan city in a population-rich country amid unprecedented regional urbanization.
(
African Development Bank)
In other ways, the rise of Dar es Salaam is remarkable. For decades, urban development was actively discouraged by the state. City life, and its perceived individualism, was viewed with contempt by many of the country's socialist ideologues.
During the two-decade rule of Tanzania's first president, Julius Nyerere, Tanzanians were encouraged—or
forcibly sent, in extreme cases—to live and work in rural villages. Under the title
ujamaa, meaning "socialism" in Swahili, the nationwide farming program became Nyerere's most ambitious social program (it was structured partially after policies in Maoist China). Still, Tanzanians continued to arrive in Dar es Salaam seeking a more prosperous future. This prompted the government to go even further to quash rural-to-urban migration.
In 1974, Dar es Salaam was stripped of its title as the nation's capital, and the parliament was moved to Dodoma, a small city in the hinterlands. This was partly to encourage economic activity outside the coastal region,
according to a 2011 thesis presented to the Holland-based University of Twente, but also, "to deviate the relentless population growth in Dar es Salaam."
1985 when Nyerere resigned as president. Autarkic isolation subsequently gave way to liberalization. Dar es Salaam opened up for global trade and Tanzanians eking out a life on unproductive farms could largely move to the city without fear of reproach. But the city's reputation had been severely damaged, says James R. Brennan, associate professor of history at the University of Illinois.
"It's a fact that [Dar es Salaam] artificially pulled itself out of the running of major cities for a good couple of decades," Brennan, who was recently in Dar es Salaam doing research, says. "That kind of helped the Addis Ababas and Nairobis of the world get so far ahead in terms of international reputations."
Nationally encouraged antagonism toward city life also led to more local consequences: There was little precedent for urban planning, Brennan says. As the deluge of people heading for Dar es Salaam picked up in the 1980s, the city found itself woefully unprepared to accommodate them.