Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: Earth knowledge Bureau (ID:diqiuzhishiju), text: snow of Kilimanjaro, revised manuscript: gu Hanying / Editor: fruit Chestnut

We have talked about the unique status of the French capital in the past. The Paris metropolitan area gathers the quintessence of France, with a population of 12.27 million.

The Paris metropolitan area covers an area of 814 square kilometers

Equivalent to the area of Singapore

(satellite image: NASA) ▼

This city is famous for its romantic style.

How many people are fascinated?

(figure: wiki) ▼

But if you expand your horizons to the entire French-speaking area, the Paris metropolitan area is not the first in population, and the gap from the first is getting farther and farther away.

The mysterious first city of French-speaking population is Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo surrounded by tropical rain forest. In 2021, the population of Kinshasa will be close to 1500W, and the growth rate has not slowed down, and it is expected to break through the 20 million mark by 2030!

▼ of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Kinshasa increased by 687449 last year.

An annual growth rate of 4.4% ▼

Kinshasa can easily crush Paris, the French capital, but it is not the first among the fiercely competitive mega-cities in Africa. For example, the population of the Greater Cairo area is about 22.18 million, and the Lagos metropolitan area is approaching 24 million. Behind these are Giza and Luanda, which will soon achieve tens of millions of population achievements. Khartoum, Abidjan, Addis Ababa and Nairobi are also visible to the naked eye.

Cities with a resident population of more than 10 million are mega-cities.

There are currently three megacities in Africa:

▼ in Cairo, Kinshasa and Lagos

Compared with East Asian countries with deep aging and South Asian countries with rapidly declining birth rates, Africa is becoming a huge hotbed for the birth of new cities with tens of millions of people. But urbanization is only a starting point, and African megacities pose almost as many problems as achievements.

The reason for the rapid growth of African cities into African mega-cities is, first of all, the population base.

As the fastest-growing continent in the world, Africa had a population of 1.434 billion by the beginning of 2023, comparable to that of China, but the natural growth rate was much higher-2.73 per cent. By contrast, India's natural population growth rate is only 1.35%.

(note: population growth rate ≠ Natural growth rate) ▼

According to the United Nations, the population of Africa will double by 2050. By that time, Africa's share of the world's population will also increase from 16% to 30%.

At present, the population of Nigeria (216.7 million), Ethiopia (120.8 million) and Egypt (106.2 million) has exceeded 100 million, while the population of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (more than 95 million) is about to exceed 100 million.

Africa, more and more "crowded" ▼

However, the population is not equal to the urban population, but also multiplied by an "urbanization rate". Compared with the difficult life of agriculture and animal husbandry, cities, with or without corresponding industries, are deeply attracted to African people. Even living in suburban slums is more ambitious than staying in the countryside.

Life in poverty in the countryside is hopeless.

Moreover, many African countries rely on the export of resources, which can only create limited jobs, and the money from selling resources is concentrated in several big cities where the rich and powerful are located. if ordinary people want to participate in the distribution, they can only rely on various forms of tertiary industry. you have to squeeze into the big cities to share that little soup.

Therefore, we will find that the urbanization rate of African countries is generally very high, and 13 countries are even higher than China. For those desert countries, equatorial countries, and countries that rely on mineral resources, although the common people are very poor, the urbanization rate can easily be more than 50%. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where the first city of French is located, is directly 68%.

African countries with urbanization rates of more than 50%

Many are unknown, ▼.

As long as the population base is large enough, coupled with the soaring urbanization rate, it is easy to give birth to a city with a population of one million. But if you want to reach the tens of millions of levels, you need another key condition, and that is immigration.

The population of African countries is similar to that of one of our provinces. We can pool the efforts of one province to build strong provincial capitals such as Xi'an, Chengdu, Wuhan and Hefei, but if we want to come up with a first-tier city like Beijing and Shanghai, it is necessary to pool the population transfer of the whole country. it is equivalent to that part of Hubei's population is concentrated in the provincial capital and part of it is transferred to the first-tier city.

How many people leave their hometown to work in big cities?

Just look at the railway station on holidays.

Our cross-province, similar to the cross-border of Africa, a large number of Africans will emigrate to other countries by legal or illegal means.

In the past, the main immigration destination for Africans was Europe and the United States. Many people would use the mega-cities along the coast of Africa as a springboard to settle in Lagos, Abidjan, Cairo and Algiers, and then wait for a chance to go to Europe and the United States. like the "ports" of Africa, they attract a steady stream of people from inland areas.

All roads lead to Europe and the United States

As soon as the opportunity comes, we should seize the "moistening".

In recent years, with the tightening of immigration policies in Europe and the United States, Africans who cannot get out of the country can only settle down for a long time in the "port" city, which is equivalent to "big run out of the continent, small run abroad."

For example, there are only 28.3 million people in C ô te d'Ivoire, but Abidjan, the largest city, attracts millions of people from Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and other countries, reaching 7 million people. The same model has also given birth to Lagos in Nigeria, Nairobi in Kenya and so on.

Population density distribution in C ô te d'Ivoire, Nigeria and Kenya

(- figure: twitter@researchremora) ▼

In addition, internal unrest and conflicts in Africa are also driving the influx of people into big cities, which is a "refuge model" if run Europe is a "port model".

In Nigeria, for example, provinces in the north are constantly harassed by local armed forces, and many people are forced into exile to seek refuge in big cities such as Lagos.

Either run away or fight.

The recent coup in Sudan, which has been clashing in the west and south for decades, has brought a large population to the capital, Khartoum, leading to its abnormal prosperity.

This is the prosperity forced by the gun barrel.

The more prosperous it is, the more helpless it is.

The United Nations estimates that Khartoum, with a population of 1/4, came to Khartoum because of the regional conflict. Some researchers believe that the actual proportion may be even higher, even reaching half of the city's population of 6 million.

Sudan has hosted 1.1 million refugees

There are more than 3 million displaced persons in the country.

It can be said that the large population lies in the refugees.

At the same time as the "port model" and the "refuge model", there is also the urbanization driven by Africa's own economic development, which is the script that we Chinese are most familiar with, with young people for economic opportunities and in order to change their destiny. wander the big cities.

One of them is Lagos, Nigeria, which is one of the largest and busiest seaports in Africa and a city that can make money. The relatively developed finance, industrial manufacturing and entertainment industries here attract a large number of young people. The slogan here is: "if you can succeed in Lagos, you can succeed anywhere." It is equivalent to "if you come, you are from Lagos".

But Lagos is so big.

Where can I find my own success?

So although there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor and traffic jams make people doubt their lives, there are also a large number of small private vendors and small businesses that can give birth to film centers like Nollywood.

Nollywood is the second most productive film base in the world after Bollywood.

You can see the crew in business on almost every street in Lagos.

And Lagos also benefits from the first two population growth models, which are equivalent to multi-wheel drive. As Africa's most populous metropolitan area, 24 million is obviously not his upper limit, and it is only a matter of time before it breaks through 30 million.

In short, driven by a variety of forces, there will be more and more mega-cities in Africa in the foreseeable future. But this is not necessarily a good thing. In the 21st century, it is not just the size of cities that countries are competing with. If rapid urbanization cannot form industrial support and scientific and technological progress, it will only be a simple accumulation of population. Compared with the pre-modern lifestyle of relying on heaven for a living, it is certainly good, but it is nothing more than that.

In modern society, only "many people" do not necessarily have "great strength".

Un-Habitat says 60% of Africans will live in cities by 2050. But African countries are clearly unprepared for such rapid urbanization, their public facilities are scarce, and schools, hospitals, public transport and waste disposal systems are far from meeting demand.

Although you live in a city,

But it seems to be in a backward town.

The lack of public facilities has led to serious "urban diseases" in African megacities, housing shortages and slums abound, and there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor.

First of all, there is the problem of slums.

Compared with satellite images at different times, the urban expansion of Lagos is amazing, but if you take a closer look, apart from the bustling core area, most of the "urban areas" are made up of low-rise board houses.

With the rapid growth of population, the city expands crazily.

When economic development failed to keep pace, slums began to grow wantonly.

(figure: earth.google) ▼

The Makoko district of Lagos, for example, is a stilt house slum built on the edge of Lake Xerox. It is home to about 100000 people who make a meagre living by fishing and small businesses. They are actually an agricultural community on the edge of the city in very difficult conditions.

A dense little house was built on the water.

It's hard to imagine that tens of thousands of people live in this place.

Similar communities abound in Lagos, where most of the population lives in such cramped environments that several people sleep in the same room, either back-to-back or face-to-face, known locally as "face-me-i-face-you" rooms.

Such a small space can be simultaneously

Bedroom, living room, laundry, kitchen and study

The same is true in Lagos and Kinshasa, where the Kintambo district is a reserved community designated by Belgian colonists. More than 60 years after independence, it is still full of shantytowns.

As the "home" of the extremely poor in Kinshasa, muddy roads, chaotic law and order and a shortage of running water constitute the picture of life here. Similar mega-slums in Africa include Kibera in Nairobi and Soweto in Johannesburg, with a population of hundreds of thousands, moving poor rural areas to the edge of the city rather than part of the city.

Live in the same city

But lead a very different life.

But at the same time, the rich are not far away from them, but out of reach. The rich move into the residential areas built for themselves by the colonists, build high walls and pull up barbed wire, and their wealth and children are often sent to Europe and the United States. firmly believe that they have a bright future.

Not far away, there are green grass and tall buildings.

But it was muddy, crowded and messy.

(Kiberatu, Nairobi: wiki) ▼

The gap between the rich and the poor is already so wide that state-led redistribution is very important, but the governance capacity of African countries is generally weak, which leads to a serious underinvestment in public goods. For example, in Lagos, which has a population of more than 15 million, public transportation is maintained by 100000 dilapidated "danfo" buses, most of which are obsolete products of developed countries decades ago, without air conditioning, and Lagos is right next to the equator, so the experience can be imagined.

"danfo" can carry 14 to 18 passengers after modification.

Galloping through the busy streets of Lagos

(figure: wiki) ▼

Lagos had planned to open its first rail transit in 2011, but the project has been delayed due to a shortage of funds and government changes. It was not until January 24, 2023 that the first phase of the Lagos rail transit blue line project was completed by the China Civil Engineering Group.

This light rail line is not easy to come by.

(photo: newsroom) ▼

Apart from transportation, electricity and water use are also very worrying. except for a few elites who have access to VIP services, most people can only be resigned to fate. For example, only about 50 per cent of households in Kinshasa have electricity. But this is already the capital level of treatment, put in the whole of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the figure is only about 10%.

In the countryside of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Solar panels are rare.

Where is the future of African cities?

Although the problems of slums, the gap between the rich and the poor and underinvestment are so serious, urbanization is still the hope of Africa, which is a necessary process, and African countries are also trying to build their own cities.

For example, Nigeria, Angola, Sudan, Tanzania, Egypt and other countries have launched huge public investment programs, including the new capital plan of Egypt, which we talked about before. if there are projects, they need to invest and build capacity.

Towards the smart city of the new era, let's go!

(figure: twitter@CSCEC_EGYPT) ▼

China-Africa cooperation provides an important support for urban construction in Africa. We have provided a lot of infrastructure financing to African countries, and at least 46 ports and 34 airports across Africa have received direct investment from China.

At the same time, China has also undertaken many projects, such as the Lagos subway project mentioned above. at the same time, we are also the financier and builder of the light rail in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. the participation in African railway construction is innumerable.

Addis Ababa light rail, capital of Ethiopia

It is the first light rail and rapid transit in sub-Saharan Africa.

China's excess construction capacity and the lack of infrastructure in Africa are perfectly complementary, and they also provide a new driving force for the growth and upgrading of African cities. But construction is only the first step, a large number of African cities with a population of 10 million in the future, from industrial employment to health care, education, human settlements, etc., up to national capacity, down to urban governance experience. African countries still have a long way to go in this regard.

Reference:

1. Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Africa_by_population

2. Https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/the-top-10-most-populated-cities-in-africa-in-2023/tpnkx6l

3. Https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/africa-cities/

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