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Dar es Salaam aerial picture |
Culled from: BBC.co.uk
by Joe Boyle
Visionaries
hope for a modern metropolis modelled on Singapore, but pessimists fear the
emergence of another dirt-poor city of slums. Dar es Salaam is one of the
world's fastest growing cities, and it has reached its tipping point.
In the dark
basement of the cavernous Kariakoo market, dozens of traders gather at tiny
makeshift stalls, arranging fruit and vegetables into neat piles. This part of
the market has the least sought-after plots, and all of the stallholders have
one thing in common: none of them was born in Dar es Salaam.
Rolens
Elias arrived seven years ago from a village near Morogoro, about 150km to the
west. He had been a farmer but wanted to try his luck as a trader. He now makes
about 3,000 shillings ($2; £1.50) each day selling tomatoes in the farthest
corner of the basement.
"It
has been hard to set up a life here," he says. "I came here by myself
and had to wait until I had enough money to bring my wife and family. We all
live in one room, but it's a better life than in the village."
As he
arranges his tomatoes, a group of his friends gather around and chip in with
their own stories. They are all from Morogoro, and all came to Dar es Salaam in
the hope of a better life. They all contrast the rural poverty they were born
into with the lure of Dar es Salaam and its big-city opportunities.
Their
stories are repeated many thousands of times across the city.
Every day
new arrivals flood in, many of them setting up home in hastily erected shacks,
many others sleeping on the streets. Those who cannot set up as greengrocers
hawk goods, anything from baseball caps and mobile-phone chargers to bottled water
and sweeping brushes.
The
dramatic influx has pushed the city's population up from roughly two million
two decades ago to four million today. If the government does nothing, the
population will hit eight million in 20 years, according to Nimrod Mushi, a
lecturer at the city's Ardhi university.
He is one
of the experts commissioned by the government to produce a "master
plan" to overhaul the city's infrastructure. Singapore is his role model,
and he favours big projects to clear slums and build bridges, roads and
out-of-town settlements.
"When
we went to Singapore, we could see their satellite towns, their ring-roads,
their skyscrapers and their decentralised services, and it's working very
nicely there," he says.
Read more after the cut..