Did Advanced nations originate Urban Planning ? That is a question we as Africans will not ponder about a lot. Indeed who cares? After all, science is European, cities are European, technology is European and Lagos in Nigeria, or Durban in south Africa are sleeping. But what if I asked - (i). why is it that the debacle of drug addiction is rampant in western democracies urban regions? (ii). Why is it that the phenomenon of homelessness originates in western societies or (iii). why is it that its western civilisation the concept ghettos, slums originates? Certainly in your village and mine, there were no people without a home, however humble that home might be! A person had a place s/he calls a home. Science is a social fact. How do we explain homelessness or rootlessness? The point I want to make is this, as of now there is no well defined and established science in urban planning. Ask too, where is the sewerage and water purification plant built - is it not along the river, a lake or wetland and so is the pattern world over! What about the fish in the lake? Kampala was full of impalas good to extract proteins. Existential for tourist attraction just kept away along the numerous valleys and wetlands. They'll certainly not do any harm faced off there. After all Africans have lived with their goats, and Europeans with their dogs and cats in their square box houses for centuries. One will mention hygiene, rightly so can animals be provided with good hygiene if people want. And indeed Africans or Europeans population have not perished from kissing dogs and their cats. What is science? I can't understand why Africans have gone to the extent of burdening school children with empty and non scientific concepts such as megalopolises, mental maps, urban sprawl, urban agglomerations, phases of urban development, which by the way are not creations of science but a mere accidents in the formulation of the ideology of westernised science without linking the to drug, homelessness, urban crime, destitution, ghettos, slums! Culture ! Now, let me first go through what is called or the basis for urban planning theory which has been fed for years on inquisitive young minds unquestioningly here: a.Natural Spatial Diffusion- here we have (1).Expansion Diffusion the type we see in Kampala, Nyendo Masaka and indeed rampant in the United state. (2). Relocated diffusion i.e. Entebbe capital moving to Kampala. Had it not been for the airport Entebbe would be dead. But we have Jinja and Namanve Kampala industrial axis. We have (3). Hierarchical diffusion which in a way is gradual incremental process. All these processes cannot be urban planning for they do not foresee the essential necessities of human settlements(I will come to this) b.Historical locations: many cities have grown because of historical factors and these have cascading factors above but some do remain in their original status. c.Transport quasi resource problematicities: Notice that most cities world over have grown along transport corridors or where there are within the proximity of resources. The transport corridors are water ways; rivers, lakes, roads, etc. Therefore people are attracted to these regions and act as a double causal force feeding forth and backwards on the already existing structures. This can't be urban planning in other words it is planning under duress. Those are at least the basic mechanisms, which have generated what we term as urban science in the western world and world over irrespective of its negative trends! And all formulations so far in urban design, have been centred around those assumptions albeit the development in transport technologies. Then comes economies of scale factored in as administrative and political invariance. This is quite problematic, for we are talking of human nature conforming to structural externalities, mechanism outside his /her control! Therefore cities can expand or implode, without a clear grasp about what is going on but rather a simplified explanation - the economy went bust! Hence urban decay African children must also accept as a fact of matter! and the drugs, madness, homelessness, desperation, despair, unemployment urban crime, red light cities for body sells etc. But what are the real human needs? Where does the environment square in, what are human physiological needs, psychological wants, emotional basis, esthetical, environmental needs fitted in? No where. A world beyond cities: Let us look at cities as ecological units - city as a human whole and trash unscientific scientism in urban planning: Create a city with farms were people will not be turn into street corner beggars, cities with small villages, were people will not become homeless, cities which defy the Newtonian mechanistic conception of science of cities (based on Newtonian universal law of gravitation!), [one could conclude the flow of elephant between Congo Kinshasa and Uganda Elizabeth national park is based on this same law], were sewerage plant systems will not be build were drinking water is pumped! The simplistic nature of mechanics - is human beings worst enemy. The debacle of Nakivubo channels now flooded with pebbles, sedimented with old cloth, oil and human excrement pouring directly if a swamp feed the lake is science! That is the science which is being taught to African children. Cities as known today are relatively new - so it can't be that Europeans knew city planning better that what Africans can understand from factors, which are ruling into their own geospheric and environment spatio-temporal state. I therefore conclude on the basis of urban problematicities elucidated on above that American literature on urban planning should be trashed or simply used as negative reference to urban planning. Don'ts. a.don't build cities along rivers and water bodies at least they should be within a three to two kilometre radius away from those sources. b.African cities must be planned along given invariance; how much waste, sewerage produced per homestead per day a city or town centre can generate and the capacity to handle the same. c.The nature of city generate policing methods - hence tracking mechanism which generate crime structures can be a variable in city planning arrays. d.How much basic necessity can provide at minimal cost like power energy, water, food, non communalised shelter (ghettos)(bugolobi, Katwe, Bukoto) e.Develop cities or towns which are fully holistic in human needs with the most basic natural necessities like agriculture farming, forestry, zooing activities as an auxiliary economic activities and protein input (cancel calories). Covering physiological, psychological, emotional, esthetical. Notice these arrays have been replaced by what is termed as high culture - cinema,(drive in), aerobics gyms, drug coffee shops, window shop in commodities and bodies as a pastime. f.Let us set a categorical limits as to how much a city or town must be in square kilometres. Expansion therefore should integrated in form of satellite urban regions in a given distance given in kilometres. By so doing you curtail emptiness of megalopolises, mental maps, urban sprawl, urban agglomerations, phases of urban development anti-scientific conceptualisation of facts of nature. Existing African cities are generating enough problems currently! g.Do not just built roads and human settlements, without the input of medical doctors, evolutionary biologist( we must have many of them), environmentalist and environmental engineers. h.Do not build massive road structures contrary to what nature can absorb. In fact this Africa because of here well served tropical ecology, would be more interested in the railway system, it development and research than motorised asphaltated road networks and technologies. i.Let us reconfigure spatial city growth into rural spatial diffusion of urban planning minus the word natural in Natural Spatial Diffusion. Bwanika - Is it __________ bwanika Logon & Join in ug-academicsdb discussion list http://www.coollist.com/subcribe.html List ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your Email address: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ url: http://uhpl.uganda.co.ug http://pub59.ezboard.com/fugandamanufacturersassociationfrm1
