Ng'ambo

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Apartment blocks in Michenzani Urban blight at the Michenzani housing project, Zanzibar town, Tanzania.JPG
Apartment blocks in Michenzani

Ng'ambo (literally, "The Other Side"; sometimes also referred to as the "New City") [1] is one of the two main parts comprising Zanzibar City, the capital of Zanzibar, the other being the historical Stone Town. Ng'ambo is much larger and more modern than Stone Town, with office buildings and large apartment blocks, as well as slum areas. [1] [2] Ng'ambo and Stone Town are divided by Creek Road.

Zanzibar City Municipality in Zanzibar, Tanzania

Zanzibar City is the capital and largest city of Zanzibar, in Tanzania. It is located on the west coast of Unguja, the main island of the Zanzibar Archipelago, roughly due north of Dar es Salaam across the Zanzibar Channel. It also serves as the capital of the Zanzibar Urban/West Region, and qualifies as a district, formally known as Zanzibar Urban District. In 2002 its population was 205,870.

Stone Town town in Zanzibar

Stone Town, also known as Mji Mkongwe, is the old part of Zanzibar City, the main city of Zanzibar, in Tanzania. The newer portion of the city is known as Ng'ambo, Swahili for 'the other side'. Stone Town is located on the western coast of Unguja, the main island of the Zanzibar Archipelago. Former capital of the Zanzibar Sultanate, and flourishing centre of the spice trade as well as the slave trade in the 19th century, it retained its importance as the main city of Zanzibar during the period of the British protectorate. When Tanganyika and Zanzibar joined each other to form the United Republic of Tanzania, Zanzibar kept a semi-autonomous status, with Stone Town as its local government seat.

A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting mostly of closely packed, decrepit housing units in a situation of deteriorated or incomplete infrastructure, inhabited primarily by impoverished persons. While slums differ in size and other characteristics, most lack reliable sanitation services, supply of clean water, reliable electricity, law enforcement and other basic services. Slum residences vary from shanty houses to professionally built dwellings which, because of poor-quality construction or provision of basic maintenance, have deteriorated.

Contents

History

Until the mid 19th Century, Ng'ambo was a small community of African slaves. It then began to grow, and by 1895 it comprised 15 wards and was home to 15,000 people. [3] By 1922 its population was twice that of nearby Stone Town, and by the time of independence from Britain in 1964 it housed 80,000 people. [3]

After the Zanzibar Revolution, Ng'ambo was the site of the "New Zanzibar Project", a 1968 urban redevelopment scheme started by the revolutionary government. This scheme was funded, in part, by the German Democratic Republic. [4] It was to be the start of a project to provide the entire population of Zanzibar with western-style apartments, located in ten new towns. [5] The 1968 plan called for 9,992 apartments to be built in the Soviet-style on land created by the demolition of existing homes. [6] A prominent example of apartment blocks built with the GDR aid in Ng'ambo is found in the Michenzani neighbourhood. The new apartments were often reserved for ASP party members or doled out as favours and so many of those whose homes had been demolished were left without a place to live. [7] The small apartments were unpopular with Zanzibaris used to large families and construction stopped after just 1,102 apartments were built; the project was viewed as a political failure, although they have seen a resurgence in use as starter homes. [7]

Zanzibar Revolution 20th-century revolution in Zanzibar, Africa

The Zanzibar Revolution occurred in 1964 and led to the overthrow of the Sultan of Zanzibar and his mainly Arab government by local African revolutionaries. Zanzibar was an ethnically diverse state consisting of a number of islands off the east coast of Tanganyika which had been granted independence by Britain in 1963. In a series of parliamentary elections preceding independence, the Arab minority succeeded in retaining the hold on power it had inherited from Zanzibar's former existence as an overseas territory of Oman. Frustrated by under-representation in Parliament despite winning 54% of the vote in the July 1963 election, the mainly African Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) allied itself with the left-wing Umma Party, and early in the morning of 12 January 1964 ASP member John Okello mobilised around 600–800 revolutionaries on the main island of Unguja. Having overrun the country's police force and appropriated their weaponry, the insurgents proceeded to Zanzibar Town where they overthrew the Sultan and his government. Reprisals against Arab and South Asian civilians on the island followed; the resulting death toll is disputed, with estimates ranging from several hundred to 20,000. The moderate ASP leader Abeid Karume became the country's new president and head of state, and positions of power were granted to Umma party members.

Urban renewal Land redevelopment in cities

Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in cities, often where there is urban decay. Urban renewal often refers to the clearing out of blighted areas in inner cities to clear out slums and create opportunities for higher class housing, businesses, and more. Modern attempts at renewal began in the late 19th century in developed nations, and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s under the rubric of reconstruction. The process has had a major impact on many urban landscapes, and has played an important role in the history and demographics of cities around the world.

Microdistrict residential complex—a primary structural element of the residential area construction in the Soviet Union

Microdistrict, or microraion is a residential complex—a primary structural element of the residential area construction in the Soviet Union and in some post-Soviet and former Communist states. Residential districts in most of the cities and towns in Russia and the republics of the former Soviet Union were built in accordance with this concept.

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The African Great Lakes nation of Tanzania dates formally from 1964, when it was formed out of the union of the much larger mainland territory of Tanganyika and the coastal archipelago of Zanzibar. The former was a colony and part of German East Africa from the 1880s to 1919, when, under the League of Nations, it became a British mandate. It served as a military outpost during World War II, providing financial help, munitions, and soldiers. In 1947, Tanganyika became a United Nations Trust Territory under British administration, a status it kept until its independence in 1961. Zanzibar was settled as a trading hub, subsequently controlled by the Portuguese, the Sultanate of Oman, and then as a British protectorate by the end of the nineteenth century.

High-rise building tall building; as opposed to a low-rise building

A high-rise building is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined by its height differently in various jurisdictions. It is used as a residential, office building, or other functions including hotel, retail, or with multiple purposes combined. Residential high-rise buildings are also known as tower blocks and may be referred to as "MDUs", standing for "multi-dwelling unit". A very tall high-rise building is referred to as a skyscraper.

Public housing residential properties owned by a government

Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local.

Apartment self-contained housing unit occupying part of a building

An apartment, flat or unit is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building, generally on a single storey. There are many names for these overall buildings, see below. The housing tenure of apartments also varies considerably, from large-scale public housing, to owner occupancy within what is legally a condominium, to tenants renting from a private landlord.

Tenement multi-occupancy building

A tenement is a multi-occupancy building of any sort. In Scotland it refers to flats divided horizontally in an established building type, including desirable properties in affluent ares, but in other countries the term often refers to a run-down apartment building or slum building.

Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects building

The Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects were the largest residential housing project owned by the city of Detroit, located in the Brush Park section on the east side of Detroit, Michigan, near the Chrysler Freeway, Mack Avenue and St. Antoine Street. The housing project is named after Frederick Douglass, African American abolitionist, author, and reformer.

Multi-family residential is a classification of housing where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building or several buildings within one complex. Units can be next to each other, or stacked on top of each other. A common form is an apartment building. Sometimes units in a multifamily residential building are condominiums, where typically the units are owned individually rather than leased from a single apartment building owner. Many intentional communities incorporate multifamily residences, such as in cohousing projects.

Sultanate of Zanzibar 1856-1964 monarchy in the Indian Ocean

The Sultanate of Zanzibar, also known as the Zanzibar Sultanate, comprised the territories over which the Sultan of Zanzibar was the sovereign. Those territories varied over time, and at one point included all of what is now Kenya as well as the Zanzibar Archipelago of the Swahili Coast. Later, the kingdom's realm included only a ten mile wide coastal strip of Kenya and Zanzibar. Under an agreement concluded on 8 October 1963, the Sultan relinquished sovereignty over his remaining territory in Kenya. On 12 January 1964, Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah was deposed and lost sovereignty over the last of his dominions, Zanzibar.

People have lived in Zanzibar for 20,000 years. History properly starts when the islands became a base for traders voyaging between the African Great Lakes, the Arabian peninsula, and the Indian subcontinent. Unguja offered a protected and everyone like le harbor, so although the archipelago had few products of value, Omanis and Yemenis settled in what became Zanzibar City as a convenient point from which to trade with towns on the Swahili Coast. They established garrisons on the islands and built the first mosques in the African Great Lakes.

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Altitude 25 is an apartment building on Fairfield Road in the London Borough of Croydon, London. It is Croydon's second tallest building after Saffron Square Tower. The development was intended to regenerate a brownfield site near to East Croydon station. The building was completed in 2009, and has 26 floors of apartments up to floor 25, hence the name Altitude 25, a roof height of 82.00 and a structural height of 94 m (307 ft). It is part of the Croydon Vision 2020 regeneration project for a new generation of buildings in the town.

Michenzani Neighbourhood of Zanzibar City

Michenzani is a large neighbourhood of Ng'ambo, the more modern part of Zanzibar City in Tanzania. It is located just across Creek Road, that separates the historical part of the city, Stone Town and Ng'ambo. The place is mostly known for the Plattenbauten, i.e., the large apartment blocks that were built here in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the aid of East Germany.

Wyndham Court grade II listed building in Southampton, United kingdom

Wyndham Court is a block of social housing in Southampton, England. It was designed by Lyons Israel Ellis for Southampton City Council in 1966, and is located near Southampton Central station and the Mayflower Theatre. Wyndham Court includes 184 flats, three cafes or restaurants and 13 shops, and was completed in 1969.

Cressingham Gardens

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Antoni Folkers Dutch architect, urbanist and researcher

Antoni Scholtens Folkers is a Dutch architect, urbanist and researcher. Folkers studied at the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning at Delft University of Technology where he also received his Ph.D. in 2011. His doctoral dissertation was later published as the book Modern Architecture in Africa. Folkers is one of the founding partners of the research and educational platforms ArchiAfrika and African Architecture Matters.

References

  1. 1 2 Zanzibar Town
  2. ↑ Michael Pacione, Applied Geography: Principles and Practice, p. 339: "Colonial Heritage Problems in Stone Town, Zanzibar"
  3. 1 2 Shillington 2005 , p. 1710
  4. ↑ Myers 1994 , p. 452
  5. ↑ Myers 1994 , p. 453
  6. ↑ Myers 1994 , p. 455
  7. 1 2 Myers 1994 , p. 457

Bibliography

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In computing, a Digital Object Identifier or DOI is a persistent identifier or handle used to identify objects uniquely, standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). An implementation of the Handle System, DOIs are in wide use mainly to identify academic, professional, and government information, such as journal articles, research reports and data sets, and official publications though they also have been used to identify other types of information resources, such as commercial videos.


Coordinates: 6°09′49″S39°11′54″E / 6.16367°S 39.19841°E / -6.16367; 39.19841

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.


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