Cities are born out of planning, not naming

Uganda currently has only one city, Kampala, and 14 municipalities. Creating more cities , therefore, come as an excitement for many Ugandans. For the politicians, this will be specially the politicians who will likely benefit from more parliamentary and local administration slots made available by creation of new administrative divisions in the new cities. In fact Jinja and Mbarara have already been clamouring for city status.

Be that as it may, it is important for both the policy makers and the public in the proposed cities to understand that a city is not just a name and it does not become one by mere pronouncement. A city should come with commensurate infrastructure, services, planning systems, etc.

Yes at least Shs450 billion financed by the World Bank has been earmarked under the Municipalities Infrastructure Development Project towards this effort.

However, for the city infrastructure to be sustainable, there has to be requisite population with good purchasing power. The level of urban poverty in these proposed cities is currently excruciating and has given rise to big slums in the municipalities. This has not been helped by the near total collapse of urban planning.

In fact if you visit any of the traditional urban centres in Uganda like Tororo, Mbale or Jinja, the only part of the municipalities worth the name is the old sector.

This is the part that was planned and built mostly during colonial times and the early years of independence. The new sector, though expansive, is one huge slum without planned streets, planned buildings, and proper utilities like water and electricity. Kampala itself that passes for Uganda’s only city has not been spared the disorder.

More than half of its population lives in unplanned suburbs full of dust and garbage. The road network is appalling, there is lack basic public sanitation, the public transport system is archaic and chaotic, to mention a few.

The formation of new cities must, therefore, be preceded by the return to urban planning. This planning should not start after an urban area has grown into a monstrous slum; it should grow with the trading centre so that as it becomes a town council, municipality and eventually a city, there is commensurate infrastructure and a population to sustain it.

Then there will be no need to “artificially” baptise urban areas cities just by name for political or social reasons when they are nothing but big slums because they [cities] will have evolved naturally influenced by the forces of the markets, migration and planning.