[HN Gopher] Yes in My Bamako Yard
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Yes in My Bamako Yard
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 56 points
Date : 2025-07-28 18:22 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (asteriskmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (asteriskmag.com)
| ryanalam wrote:
| Great read, thx for sharing
| savanaly wrote:
| This is a great article; not the first time Asterisk has
| published an article that has important implications for the
| growth of poorer countries, the other one I recall being the
| provocatively titled "Want Growth? Kill Small Businesses" [0]. I
| think this topic of what approaches will let Africa grow quickly
| over the next century is among the most important for world
| prosperity and peace we can be discussing.
|
| [0] https://asteriskmag.com/issues/07/want-growth-kill-small-
| bus...
| liotier wrote:
| In 2016, I visited a call center in Bamako - it was powered by an
| Asterisk VOIP system... And that is what I expected the article
| to cover...
|
| Anyway, yes... Think America is the land of infinite suburban
| sprawl ? Meh - Africa is where it's at, with the obvious severe
| negative impact on urban development, mass transportation etc.
| Similar challenges as the USA, but a tenth of the resources.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| This is partly why we are not going to save the climate and
| environment...
| aatd86 wrote:
| That's interesting but I am wondering in which order to
| prioritise capital deployment:
|
| 1. Education and Health
|
| 2. Agriculture for self-sufficiency
|
| 3. Infrastructures
|
| 4. Housing and Urban planning?
|
| The second, third and fourth items are related but also slightly
| projection based. Number one is urgent. And also related to the
| second item. How many top universities on the whole continent? To
| be fair, when we speak about universities, even in Europe, we
| think about American ones. Except Oxford, Cambridge and LSE in
| finance perhaps.
|
| Also, the issue that comes after Education is to have policies
| that favor development of the private sector in order to have
| jobs. Obviously that would be driven from the items above.
|
| Just that driving housing development too hard too soon based off
| of population growth projections could be easily sketchy.
| Especially since there is a scarcity of available capital due to
| numerous factors. I'd tend to think that Housing will solve
| itself according to supply and demand trends, unlike some of the
| other priorities.
| yorwba wrote:
| When it comes to prioritizing capital deployment for education,
| it's probably better to start with primary schools before
| thinking about top universities. https://wid.world/news-
| article/china-vs-india-how-human-capi... suggests that this
| played a role in the economic divergence between India and
| China: India had a higher tertiary school enrollment rate than
| China until about 2000, but China had universal primary school
| enrollment much earlier, so more people could transition out of
| working in agriculture.
| aatd86 wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| And yes, implicitly, if there are top-universities, that
| would mean that the full educational system is functioning
| properly. It's mostly to be understood as a signal.
|
| Thank you for the article. It's quite enlightening.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Saying "Africa" is too broad.
|
| This is not actionable advice when jurisprudence and institutions
| are heavily state dependent.
|
| The problems that afflict urban planners in Mali (Bamako) are
| different from those that Mozambique, and each African country
| will have to resolve issues and innovate institutional solutions
| that match their own states.
| smegma2 wrote:
| I mean, I feel like there's plenty of useful information in the
| article despite that. Africa is a large continent sure, but
| there are also useful things to say about the state of housing
| and urban development in 'the West' and most of the world. I
| don't think those topics are too broad either.
| alephnerd wrote:
| That's my point though.
|
| Saying "Africa" or the "West" or "Asia" is too broad.
|
| Housing and urban planning norms, regulation, and laws are
| very dependent on regional, jurisdictional, and institutional
| norms.
|
| Slum redevelopment in a democracy like Nairobi, Kenya is
| going to be very different from authoritarian Kigali, Rwanda.
|
| And even within a large country like Kenya, with norms and
| personas in Nairobi City County being distinct from those in
| neighboring Kiambu County.
|
| Jurisdiction and institutional norms vary significantly given
| how governance has been so distinct from African country to
| African country. Some were governed under British colonial
| legislation and retain British colonial codes. Others were
| governed by French colonial codes. Others yet completely
| rewrote their legal codes after revolutions or reformist
| movements.
|
| Giving a broad recommendation without taking into account
| local governance context is just ridiculous.
| smegma2 wrote:
| Fair enough
| trhway wrote:
| >In the next 25 years, Africa is projected to add around 900
| million new urban residents -- more than the current urban
| population of Europe and the United States combined. The scale
| and speed of this growth are historically unprecedented
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S222658562...
|
| "estimated that approximately 500-550 million rural residents had
| transformed into cities and towns from 1978 to 2017 in China"
|
| and if we add newly born in the cities then it would result in
| about the same number of new urban residents.
| Imnimo wrote:
| It's also interesting to look at what happened in Luanda. During
| the civil war, a large portion of the population fled to the
| capital for safety. The city went from half a million in 1970 to
| ~9 million today. Now downtown Luanda is one of the most
| expensive places in the world to live, and the city is surrounded
| by endless stretches of slums that are visible on satellite maps.
|
| They are making progress on building new housing, but it's a very
| uphill battle.
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