Towards a sustainable and cooperative city

Its night already and the moisture sticks in the skin. The heat is an effective narcotic that tranquilizes. It is the last sunday near the lake victoria. How to forget the shinning stars, the crickets' melodies, the sound, far away, from the mosque. 

Serengeti National Park

On Saturday we had a visit to the Serengeti National Park. Zebras, gazelles, elephants, lions, pitons, hippos; it is still fascinating how can someone can find this kind of places in the world. In the middle of no where, with the sun over our heads we were witness of the most primitive way of life: the survival of the fittest. 

It seemed as if the ecosystem wouldn't have realized that we are in the 21 century and that humans are no longer cohabiting with wild beasts. Nowadays cities expand demolishing everything that surrounds them, everything that would interfere with its progress. Its a living machine turning rural into urban, farmers into business men, wild beasts into souvenirs.

This is a call for attention to architects, urban planners and politicians. If this is all that we have left, 14,763 km2 of savanna and wild life, lets stop our tyrant way of building cities. Lets rescue the essentials of what Mwanza represents and transform this polis into a healthy and sustainable place to live under the african sun.

Serengeti National Park

Sustainable Awareness Poster by WWF

A very important milestone was set during wednesday. The team had planned to talk with the different parties that are normally involved in planning a city: the electric company, private architecture offices, housing department, water management, waste management, the architects and urban planners of the city, the transport department, etc. We had pictured just a talk with them, asking several questions that we meticulously thought. However, we didn't realized that a small chat will turn into a meeting were all were present at the same time.

Stakeholders at meeting

We started by giving a small introduction of our findings and our ideas. Everybody listened in silence. At some point we were hesitating if a formal meeting will allow everyone to fill comfortable to participate, however, as we started asking questions to each one of them, the reunion started to turn into a brainstorming workshop. All the stakeholders were participating, willing to talk about their concerns and also giving ideas. At the end everybody said a final comment about what they would like Mwanza to become. Ideas kept coming.

At the end of the day we were happy with the result, yet what really made us feel satisfied was one general comment. It turned out that they have never been part of a meeting were everybody who concerns the master plan was present. And what was even more gratifying was that they felt pleased of being taken into consideration by the urban planners. No need to say, everybody is now expecting regular meetings to follow up on the master plan.

Tampere Team at the meeting

Tampere Team at the meeting

This is a key point when planning a city (or at least trying to plan). A city is not planned by a few for all, but by everyone for all. It cannot be expected to work when only few minds are taking into consideration. Lets take Tampere as an example. When a new plan is introduced all the stakeholders should revise, comment and agree on the new plan. If there are comments to be done, then the urban planning department takes them into consideration and redesigns the plan to meet most of the demands. In this case, even regular citizens from Tampere are invited to give their feedback. This is the ideal state, however it is a hard quest that takes severals years.

We are now starting our last week in Mwanza finishing a final presentation that is going to be given to the city. This will contain more specific details about the master plan and some best practices that Tampere is currently following. We strongly believe that Mwanza can move from a developing to a sustainable city avoiding the downsides that other cities had faced before.

By: Natalia Rincon