Sunday, August 29, 2010
Rhino City (Juba), Sudan
Ninety percent of South Sudan’s population lives on less than $1 a day. Its annual budget is $1.9 billion. And yet leaders of the region, which may become an independent nation next year, want to spend $10.1 billion to transform their cities into the shapes of animals and fruit.
Yes, animals and fruit.
Over a 20-year span, as part of an urban renewal program that would create tens of thousands of new houses, South Sudan would turn the capital of Juba into a rhinoceros. Police headquarters would be situated at the rhino’s mouth, an amusement park at the ear, an industrial area along the back and residential housing along the four legs.
The city of Wau would be restructured into a giraffe, with the sewage treatment plant located (where else) under the giraffe’s tail. Another city, Yambio, gets to be a pineapple. The plans have been presented by two companies, Juba-based Abu Malek Companies and UAS Canada.
-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
Animal, Vegetal, Municipal: South Sudan’s Zoomorphic Cities (by Frank Jacobs, Big Think)
A City Shaped Like a Giraffe? Southern Sudan Unveils Big Plans (by Maggie Fick, Associated Press)
South Sudan Plans $10.1 Billion Animal-Shaped Cities (by Alan Boswell, Bloomberg)
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