Kigali City Urban Planning visit, Rwanda

Spotless streets and glassy office buildings. Kigali City Office is promoting a new city plan aiming to become one of the major urban cities in Africa. Staffs from Italy, the United States, Korea, and Singapore work in its City Planning Division. Reiko Chikada visited the Kigali City Office as a member of the Japan Urban Design Institute (JUDI) and received explanations on the city plan from the mayor and the city planning division chief. In 1994, Rwanda experienced the genocide dividing the country into two. President Paul Kagame who took office after the genocide held out the ideal of making Kigali a city open to the world. Kigali City is expected to embrace a population of 3-5 million over the next 50 years. Mr. Carl A. Worthington, an Architect in the United States, developed Kigali City master plan 9 years ago. We were guided to the large Business Center site (scheduled to be completed in 2025), the new bus terminals, the exclusive residential district development area, and the houses for the poor people and the people injured in the genocide. When we asked if there's any people protesting the eviction from the redevelopment area, the answer was "no." The city staffs explained to us that it is because all the evictions are decided by the community association called "UMUGANDA" consisting of 5 members selected from the local communities. UMUGANDA exists in the town and village level, the province level, and the national level. Many residential areas are redeveloped in the process of the rapid urbanization. I felt a little scary about the communities without any opponents. I also questioned about the urban lighting plan which is essential for safety in the city of "Clean, Green, and Safety." And their answer was: "We recognize the importance of urban lighting, but we cannot provide a sufficient budget for lighting." Three heritages in Rwanda are: a maze of streets in the Muslim residential district, the prison, and the residential district of "forest people" who live in the style of olden times. It is a crucial stage for Rwanda to advance modernization while maintaining its own cultural tradition.