"There's a chance to build it right the first time, notably with respect to the roads, bridges, water, and power that will determine both economic competitiveness and quality of life for decades."- John D. Macomber
Greetings.
As of 01st July, Uganda has upgraded the following municipalities to city status; Arua, Fort Portal, Gulu, Jinja, Masaka, Mbarara and Mbale. The matter was tabled before parliament in April, and all but one MP voted against it. The dissenting opinion of Sarah Opendi was well documented by The Daily Monitor, noting that "it would not be necessary to vote for cities at a time when government is struggling to finance newly created sub counties and town councils."
These sentiments were echoed by The Daily Monitor editorial from last week;
"Too many administrators and legislators will not develop Uganda. Industrialists and prudent public expenditure will."
By the latest population estimates, the 7 proposed cities have a combined population of 640,509 people compared with Kampala's population of 1.65 million people (the daytime population is way higher). In terms of budgetary allocations per head, the new Cities are currently allocated a portion in the region of UGX 210,535 (vs. UGX 231,830 for Kampala), with this figure expected to rise.
With certain sections firmly against the new development, why would we proceed to create new cities?
For starters, there is no problem with having 15, or even 100 cities. As John K. Sentongo often emphasized, the problem is not in the school having a population of 1,000, but at what rate do you get to that population size, with respect to the available resources? At what rate do we get to that number of cities, vis-a-vis the resource endowment?
The cautious move would have been to create one city, to serve as a learning curve in terms of the logistics, administrative needs, public expenditure and institutional performance. From this one city, we would be in a position to gain insight into the mechanics of developing a city for an emerging economy like ours. I got insight on this from a medical doctor, who suggested perchance the powers that be could have considered setting up these cities, with particular specializations i.e. one could focus on industrial production, another on services, another on agriculture, etc. His Smithesque division of labour after all is a vital cog in the laissez faire system, and could work in this situation.
Furthermore, the opening quote of this blog points out the importance of getting this right from the very beginning. The author of the quote, who happens to be a Professor of Finance at a world-renowned institute, goes on to warn of the dangers of developing countries messing up their city projects from the start;
"If this chance is missed, new urban conglomerations will be characterized by informal sprawl and new settlements will be hard to reach after the fact with power, roads, and sanitation."
Why we are getting new cities
Macomber states, as the reason behind the current buzz pushing for smart cities, elites (political leaders and academics) are "distracted by cool technology and tourist-friendly innovations." They are easily seduced by the dream of opportunities available from the emergence of a new city, often citing examples of already existing cities (i.e. looking at Nakuru, Mombasa across the border, one may want to dream). However, they tend to forget "the messy truth that cities are not the same, and even the most innovative approach can never achieve universal impact."
Or alternatively, you could picture a hypothetical scenario of a post-Covid Uganda. During an election year, at a future date, a certain candidate will be introduced by the District (or City) Party Chairperson thus, "Please welcome, the one and only, the man who gave us a city ..."
Ceteris. Paribus.
References
Aluma, C. (2020, 29 April). 7 new Cities start July 1. The Daily Monitor. Retrieved from https://www.monitor.co.ug/
Macomber, J. D. (2016, 18 June). The 4 Types of Cities and How to Prepare Them for the Future. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/
Editor (2020, 30 June). Government should not create new constituencies. The Daily Monitor. Retrieved from https://www.monitor.co.ug/
