20 August 2010

Sudan Plans Cities Shaped Like Fruits And Animals

Southern Sudan’s government revealed this week a multi-billion dollar plan to build new urban centers in all ten of its state capitals. The price tag may make some gasp, but the real surprise? The cities would be animal and fruit-shaped.

The $10.1 billion plan proposes remaking cities in Sudan’s south into shapes found on regional flags. Blueprints and maps illustrate Juba in the shape of a rhinoceros, Yambio fashioned after a pineapple and Wau as a giraffe.

The Undersecretary for Housing and Physical Planning, Daniel Wani, says he hopes the plans will demonstrate the housing ministry’s desire to think creatively about how to remake southern Sudan for the future.

“This is very innovative. That is our thinking. It is unique,” says Wani. “It is from the Ministry of Housing thinking innovation; that we have to be different, so that people can see what we are trying to tell them.

But the plan may also send a very different message – one about the planning capacity of a government still trying to recover from decades of war.
Read more at Voice of America News

Via Arbroath

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