Chapter 1067 Urbanization and National Strength

Chapter 1067 Urbanization and National Strength

In short, rural areas with good development potential and other favorable conditions will definitely receive special attention, so that limited resources can be fully utilized.

During the First and Second Five-Year Plans, although East Africa emphasized balanced development, it was inevitable that East African cities, especially large cities, had great advantages in industrialization and developed faster than other regions.

This is actually a problem faced by the former Soviet Union. Although the Soviet Union's early urban development policy emphasized controlling the development of large cities, decades of time have proved that it has hardly achieved much effect.

Ernst once thought that East Africa would develop according to the German urban model, but after decades of practice, it has been proved that this is not feasible.

In terms of population and land area alone, it is not very realistic. Take Germany as an example. Its land area is less than 650,000 square kilometers, accounting for only one twentieth of East Africa, but Germany's population is as high as more than 60 million, a little more than half of East Africa.

Therefore, Germany's population density and terrain factors support the German urban development model, but it is not suitable for East Africa. East Africa wants to learn from the German model. At least the population of East Africa is increasing by more than three times, because the area of ​​East Africa is slightly larger than the whole of Europe, but the population is much smaller than Europe as a whole.

At present, the urban development model of East Africa is mainly a block model, especially the three major blocks of central, eastern and western regions, forming regional urban groups, and realizing national industrial production cooperation through national transportation. After all, one province in East Africa is basically equivalent to the area of ​​a medium-sized European country, and three to four provinces are almost equivalent to the area of ​​Germany, France, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

East Africa is different from the Far Eastern Empire, Russia, the United States and other super-large countries. Among the above countries, except East Africa, the development of countries is more uneven. For example, the economic center of the United States is in the northeast, Russia is in the west, and the Far Eastern Empire is in the southeast.

Although there is some gap between the western part of East Africa and the eastern part, this gap is not as obvious as in other countries. This also shapes the urban layout of East Africa. From the perspective of balanced urban distribution, East Africa is between Europe and other regions in the world.

In general, East African cities are not as balanced as Germany, nor as over-concentrated as other countries, which involves issues such as resource utilization efficiency.

In urban development, the efficiency of public resource utilization is closely related to population, and the large population of large cities can improve resource utilization, thereby reducing construction costs.

For example, gas stations in large cities are generally used more frequently than those in small and medium-sized cities because of the concentration of population. In rural areas, the utilization rate is even lower, especially in remote areas.

The same is true for typical public resources such as schools and hospitals. For example, Ernst's primary school in his previous life was a typical village school. When Ernst was in school, there were still hundreds of students. When Ernst grew up, it was difficult to maintain more than 30 students all year round. Some village schools even had only single-digit students, which would cause serious waste of resources.

Of course, public resources such as schools and hospitals are industries closely related to people's livelihood, and sometimes economic benefits cannot be considered unilaterally. Therefore, for the investment of resources in East Africa, multiple considerations must be made to maximize the comprehensive benefits.

This is the main reason why Ernst asked government officials to consider issues from multiple perspectives. With the rapid development of industrialization today, East Africa must make some trade-offs and sacrifices to achieve sustainable development.

Ernst: "Nowadays, my country's population is in a high growth stage, so many problems will not appear yet, but population growth will eventually reach a limit. It is difficult for us to predict the specific year of this limit. Through my country's urbanization, especially during the first and second five-year plans, the urbanization rate is increased. Assuming that my country's urbanization rate will increase by about five percentage points every ten years in the future."

"It may take seven or eight decades for my country's urbanization level to increase to about 70%, so we can even use 70 years as a time period to consider the allocation of public resources in cities and rural areas in my country. Of course, from the experience of urbanization in European and American countries, my country may only need 40 or 50 years to achieve the current level of European and American industrial powers. I am more inclined to the latter."

Today, Germany's urbanization level is more than 60%, and the urbanization rate was about 35% when Germany was unified, which means that it took Germany almost 40 years to reach its current level.

The current urbanization level in East Africa is not as good as that of Germany at the time of its unification, but the difference between the two is not far. Therefore, according to the speed of German industrial development, it will take at least 40 years for East Africa's urbanization to reach the current level of Germany, and at least 50 years to reach 70%.

It can be seen that industrialization is not easy for any country. Germany's high-speed industrialization stage can be said to have mastered the three advantages of time, place, and people. It took nearly a hundred years from before the unification of Germany.

The difficulty of East Africa to complete industrialization is no less than that of Germany. It is almost impossible to become a fat man in one bite. So think about it, the same is true for the Soviet Union in the past.

Before World War II, the urbanization level of the Soviet Union barely broke through about 32%, which means that even if the first two five-year plans were completed, the level of Soviet industrialization would be similar to that of East Africa today, or the level of German unification.

Therefore, in the first two five-year plans, the Soviet Union did not actually complete industrialization, but only turned the Soviet Union into an industrial power, which was still based on the huge size of the Soviet Union.

Now that East Africa defines itself as a semi-industrial country, the Soviet Union before World War II could only be a semi-industrial country according to East African standards.

If, as Ernst said, East Africa needs at least 40 to 50 years to fully realize industrialization under ideal conditions, the Soviet Union will need about the same amount of time.

This is only under ideal conditions. In fact, the Soviet Union did not develop well later. When the Soviet Union collapsed, urbanization did not reach 70%, which was the threshold of industrialization in Ernst's view. Therefore, the Soviet Union was not completely industrialized from beginning to end.

Of course, the "slow" pace of industrialization in East Africa further stimulated Ernst's hope that a war would break out in Europe. If this opportunity could be caught, East Africa could greatly reduce the time for its own industrialization.

Moreover, if this opportunity were encountered, the growth rate of urbanization in East Africa could even exceed the effect of two five-year plans. The previous World War I lasted for nearly four years. If this time is longer, it will be more beneficial to East Africa and foreign countries such as the United States.

If the economic depression of capitalist countries after the war is rationally arranged, East Africa can further narrow the gap with European and American industrial powers.

If the First World War and the Great Depression in capitalist countries can be fully utilized, East Africa can at least shorten its development time by 15 years in an ideal state and make up for the gap between East Africa and European and American countries.

In fact, if the urbanization level of East Africa reaches about 50%, East Africa can achieve the same influence as the Soviet Union in the past. After all, East Africa and the Soviet Union are both large countries. In fact, the United States has already set an example for East Africa. The urbanization level of the United States is currently around 45%, but its economic level has already ranked first in the world. Even if the urbanization levels of the United Kingdom (mainland) and Germany exceed 60% and 70% respectively, it is impossible to close the gap in economic size with the United States.

When the urbanization level of East Africa exceeds 50%, except for East Africa itself, basically no country can affect the subsequent economic development of East Africa.

Of course, the urbanization level is an important reference standard for industrial strength, but it is not the only standard. After all, there were a lot of "parallel imports" in South America in the past, and the urbanization levels of each country exceeded 80% and 90%, but the actual economic level was a mess.