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The preliminary census results showing the fast rising urban population must now trigger the necessary planning and other responses, especially in the major cities and most particularly in the greater Harare area where correcting any error now will be almost impossible in future decades.
Urbanisation always comes as a country develops. For a start, the amount of farming land is fixed; irrigation and the like can increase the number of farmers, but since land reform when a lot of resettlement was possible, Zimbabwe has pretty well stabilised its farming population.
This does not mean that the rural population remains stable. Development will see the rise of the small neighbourhood service centres, the places where farmers take their tractors and trucks for service, where the schools and health facilities are located where the shops are open.
Some of these will be small, what in developed parts of Europe and Asia where small farm predominate are known as the villages.
Others will grow into small towns, offering a few more services and probably being counted as urban centres, even if they have a few thousand people.
These are the sort of places where some of the initial agro-industrial processing can be done, where specialised products are made and where farmers and the like can obtain more services and equipment.
Planning here is simple, since the towns are small, and it can quite easily be worked out where the primary and secondary schools go, where the street of shops should be built, on which side of town the small industrial centre is placed and where people can build their houses. Water supply can probably be linked to local irrigation or to a few boreholes, and sewage disposal will be septic tanks.
The larger towns and cities need more care. We need to keep areas tight, both to simplify transport and to make sure we do not continue to transform large farm areas into towns.
But the tight planning also means we need to be looking at what the town will look like in decades ahead. We might see densities rise as flat blocks are built, but that means we need to set aside as early as possible the land for extra schools, for extra recreation and the like.
But even in a reasonably tightly planned modest town, anything dramatic can be added to the edge. After all the original education reserve for Harare town had to be expanded thirty years later with a large block set aside along the western edge, where the main central public boys high schools are now located. But the town was small so this was possible.
The big cities have a far more severe problem. One can assume that some suburb will remain tiny houses on tiny plots, that another will be medium houses or large houses on bigger plots.
And then we get land values rising as land becomes short, developers moving in and blocks of flats going up. And suddenly the local school needs to be doubled or tripled in size.
If someone smart had set aside the extra land years ago, this is no problem. If they did not what do you do?
We need to also remember that the population, rising as it is and urbanising as it is, will all be involved in Vision 2030. And one point in a middle income economy is that a lot of people will be living in middle income housing. In rural areas this is simple. Looking at middle income countries will modest family farms one sees the respectable farm houses at regular intervals, with the well or borehole, plus pump, indoor bathrooms and septic tanks. As farmers get better and richer they can build and perhaps all the Government need do is ensure mortgages are available.
The urban settlements are different. In some countries former low standard housing is demolished and replaced by high rise flats.
In others there is more stress on seeing what can be done through conversions, at times two or three cottages knocked together. Some use both approaches.
Almost everywhere, the large private garden plots vanish and are subdivided. Small cheap houses on a large valuable plot usually go, and cluster housing and flats are put up instead.
We see this in some low-density suburbs already. But again we now need to ensure that we planned for extra schools, extra parks, extra sports fields.
In the case of greater Harare the problems suddenly become exceptionally severe, One problem is the lack of an effective master plan. The last one was drawn up in the 1980s and is now so out of date as to be useless, although some missed opportunities might make planners wish for a time machine.
Within Harare Province itself there are three local authorities: Harare City, Chitungwiza and Epworth, the first, third and fifth largest urban centres. Just outside there is Ruwa, the 10th, and Norton, the 12th.
Plus the surrounding rural district councils have their own planned and unplanned small settlements for Harare commuters basically.
Many of these towns and settlements are merging. There is no longer a gap between Harare and Epworth. The gap between Harare and Ruwa is the bed of a small stream. The gap between Harare and Chitungwiza is the Manyame River, with illegal building going right up to the banks on both sides.
We are creating a solid expanse of concrete and brick for kilometre after kilometre, and the land barons have even sold off school sites as well as trying to sell off wetlands, the obvious areas to retain not just for the environment, but also to give urban people some open space.
The only real central planning authority that makes sense would be the province itself.
This would first of all require that where the urban conurbation has overflowed into the surrounding provinces, the resulting town boards are moved into Harare Province, where the main master planning authority must be located, along with we would think the water and sewage and the highways authority.
The side roads and the water distribution and the suburban planning could be local, but the master plan, public transport and trunk services probably need to be provincial.
And then we probably need to do what other countries have done, ring Harare province with a greenbelt to stop continued spreading and force the city and towns to push upwards. We cannot continue to spread the city with individual detached houses. There simply is no room.
Meanwhile, the other cities and towns must be looking at attracting more of the new industry and services, rather than having everyone move to Harare. More spread development will make the whole country more attractive to live in, and easier to live in. Why fight Harare traffic for an hour when you stroll to work in 15 minutes?
So the census is, among other things, a call for us to start thinking on how we want to run our urban areas, and what sort of plans and services do we need to make them grow better, rather than end up worse.
Online Reporter