Chapter 1080: Chapter 89: Urbanization and National Strength
In simple terms, rural areas with good development potential and relatively superior conditions will definitely receive focused attention, so that limited resources can be utilized to their fullest.
During the first and second five-year plans, although East Africa emphasized balanced development, it was inevitable that cities, especially large ones, had a significant advantage in industrialization, with development speeds noticeably faster than other regions.
This issue was also faced by the Soviet Union in the previous life, where despite the initial city development policies emphasizing control over large city growth, decades proved that almost no significant impact was achieved.
Ernst once considered the development of East Africa according to the German city model, but decades of practice have proven this is not feasible.
Simply put, in terms of population and land area, it’s not very realistic. Take Germany for example: its land area is less than 650,000 square kilometers, only one-twentieth of East Africa, but its population is over sixty million, slightly more than half of East Africa’s.
Therefore, Germany’s population density and geographical factors support the German urban development model, which is not suitable for East Africa. For East Africa to learn from the German model, the population would have to increase by more than three times, because East Africa’s area is slightly larger than the whole of Europe, but its population is much less.
The current urban development model in East Africa primarily follows a block pattern, especially in the central, eastern, and western regions, forming regional city clusters, achieving nationwide industrial production cooperation through large national transportation methods. After all, one province in East Africa is equivalent to the size of a medium-sized European country; three to four provinces roughly equal the area of Germany, France, or Austria-Hungary.
Unlike other super-large countries like the Far East Empire, Russia, and the United States, East Africa’s development is more balanced. For instance, the economic focus in the United States is in the Northeast, Russia in the West, the Far East Empire in the Southeast.
The west of East Africa, though lagging behind the east, doesn’t have as striking a gap as seen in other countries, which also shapes East Africa’s urban layout. In terms of balanced city distribution, East Africa falls somewhere between Europe and other regions globally.
In general, the urban areas of East Africa are not as balanced as those of Germany, nor as overly concentrated as in some other countries, which involves issues like resource utilization efficiency.
In urban development, the efficiency of public resource utilization is closely related to population, and large city populations can raise resource utilization rates, thereby reducing construction costs.
For example, in large cities, gas stations, due to population concentration, generally have a higher usage rate than those in medium or small cities, and even lower in rural areas, especially remote ones.
Schools, hospitals, and other typical public resources are similar. For example, Ernst’s elementary school in his previous life was a typical village school, which had over a hundred students when he was studying there. By the time Ernst grew up, maintaining over 30 students per year became difficult, with some village schools having only single-digit student numbers, leading to severe resource waste.
Of course, schools and hospitals are closely related to people’s livelihood, sometimes economic benefits can’t be the sole consideration. Therefore, in resource allocation in East Africa, various aspects must be considered to maximize comprehensive benefits.
This is why Ernst requires government officials to consider issues from multiple perspectives, as in today’s rapidly industrializing era, East Africa must make some trade-offs and sacrifices to achieve sustainable development.
Ernst: "Currently, our country’s population is in a high growth phase, so many issues have not yet manifested. However, population growth will ultimately reach a limit, which is difficult to predict when exactly this will occur. Based on urbanization seen during the first and second five-year plans, if we suppose that our future urbanization rate increases by roughly five percentage points every decade."
"Then it may take seventy to eighty years for our urbanization level to reach around seventy percent, so we can even consider seventy years as a time frame to address the allocation of public resources between cities and towns. Of course, considering the urbanization experience of Europe and America, our country may achieve the industrialized strong nation status in four to five decades, which I tend to favor."
Currently, Germany’s urbanization level is over sixty percent, whereas at the time of German unification, the urbanization rate was about thirty-five percent, suggesting it took roughly forty years for Germany to reach its current level.
East Africa’s urbanization level is still below that of Germany during unification, but the difference is not huge. So, according to Germany’s industrial development speed, it would take East Africa at least forty years to reach Germany’s current urbanization level, and at least fifty years to reach seventy percent.
This demonstrates that industrialization is not simple for any country. Germany, during its rapid industrialization stage, capitalized on three major advantages: timing, location, and harmony among people, taking nearly a hundred years starting from before German unification.
For East Africa to accomplish industrialization, the difficulty is no less than what Germany faced; achieving it rapidly is almost impossible. Thinking back to the Soviet Union in the previous life, it was similar.
Before World War II, the Soviet Union’s urbanization level barely surpassed thirty-two percent. Even after completing the first two five-year plans, the Soviet industrial level was only comparable to the current situation of East Africa or Germany at unification.
Thus, during the first two five-year plans, the Soviet Union didn’t fully realize industrialization, merely transformed into an industrial strong nation on a vast scale.
Currently, East Africa defines itself as a semi-industrialized nation, so prior to World War II, the Soviet Union under East African standards would also be considered semi-industrial.
According to Ernst, ideally, East Africa needs at least four to five decades to completely realize industrialization, and the Soviet Union would require a similar timespan.
This is only under ideal conditions; in reality, Soviet development later proved far from ideal. At its dissolution, Soviet urbanization hadn’t even reached the seventy percent industrialization criterion Ernst considered, indicating the Soviet Union never truly completed industrialization.
Moreover, the "slow" industrialization speed of East Africa further fuels Ernst’s desire for a major war in Europe. If catching such an opportunity, East Africa could significantly shorten the time needed for its own industrialization.
And should such a chance arise, the rate of urbanization might even exceed the results of the two five-year plans. World War I lasted nearly four years in the previous life, and the longer this period extended, the more beneficial it was to East Africa and offshore countries like the United States.
If rationally arranging the post-war economic great depression of capitalist nations, East Africa could further narrow its gap with the industrialized powerhouses of Europe and America.
Ideally, through fully leveraging World War I and the capitalist nations’ economic depression, East Africa could shorten its development time by at least fifteen years, compensating for the gap with Europe and America.
In actuality, once East Africa’s urbanization level reaches about fifty percent, it can gain influence similar to the Soviet Union’s previous life impact, since East Africa, akin to the Soviet Union, belongs to large-scale countries. The United States has already set an example for East Africa; with an urbanization level at approximately forty-five percent, its economic status is already firmly positioned as the world’s leader.
Even though the urbanization levels in the United Kingdom (mainland) and Germany exceed sixty and seventy percent respectively, these don’t close the economic size gap with the United States.
Once East Africa’s urban level surpasses fifty percent, except for East Africa itself, fundamentally no nation can influence East Africa’s subsequent economic development.
Clearly, urbanization level is a critical benchmark of industrial strength but isn’t the only factor, since in the previous life there were many "inferior goods" in South America, with urbanization levels reaching over eighty or ninety percent, yet displaying extremely poor economic conditions.
