Kafue, Zambia, Africa
 
 
Year1967latitude: -15° 46'
longitude: 28° 11'
Period
Initiator(s)
Planning organization
Nationality initiator(s)
Designer(s) / Architect(s) Doxiadis Associates
Design organization
Inhabitants162,262 (2000)
Target population100,000
Town website
Town related linksOn restoration of wetlands: http://www.unep.or.jp/ietc/publications/techpublications/techpub-11/7-1a
Literature- * Doxiadis Associates, Zambia: the Lusaka Peri-Urban Area & Kafue New Town, Ekistics 1973, nr 231, 193-204

- * 'DA Review', vol 4 # 47 November 1968

type of New Town: > scale of autonomy
New-Town-in-Town
Satellite
New Town
Company Town
> client
Private Corporation
Public Corporation
> policy
Capital
Decentralization
Industrialization
Resettlement
Economic
 
In the sixties Zambia became independent (1963) and Doxiadis was hired to develop two studies: Lusaka Peri-Urban Area Existing Conditions (1969) and Kafue Master Plan and Community Layout (1967). Zambia's economy was looking brightly at that point with an avergae growth rate between 1964-1966 of 17% per year. It was derived mostly from copper-export, mined in the Copperbelt, a corridor to the north of Lusaka -a dynapolis avant la lettre. Consumption and average income were slowly rising and prospects were positive.
Kafue was an existing city 40 km south of the capital city Lusaka, already of the 'highest centrality value' according to Doxiadis' study: a Grade I study.
According to projections the population of Kafue would rise to 100.000 by 2000 and employment to 40.000, based on the existant and expected growth in the industrial sector. Based on a comparison with similar cities (not cited) a prediction was made on population, income and occupation. Based on this prediction a distribution of lower, middle and higher incomes were projected on the housingplan.
The plan of Doxiadis is not published in its entirety in Ekistics, but consisted in its final phase of two Communities Class V, with 50.000 people each. The planning follows the familiar Doxiadis-principals of a hierarchic layout, with possibility of extending the city in a linear way, westwards in this case. Of the basic Neighbourhood Units, (Community Class IV) with 10.000 people, there was one completed in 1970 and three more were under construction. The units were connected by a main linear center, extending along he national road Lusaka-South. This center was connected to the various centers of the units (the centers Class IV).
-vehicular roads serve the housing plots
-separate pedestrian circuit
-each Class IV consists of 3-4 communities, each with a local center
-Low income housing is grouped together near places of work.
-A full range of income groups in every community
The pictures of the realized developement of communities 5 and 6 show mostly high density low rise housing, built in rows with green squares at regular intervals. But there's also maisonettes, apartment buildings (walkup flats) and high income bungalows.

After the prize of copper droped dramatically in the seventies, Zambia has been mostly dependend on foreign aid. In the river Kafue a dam was constructed in 1972 for hydro-electricity, which had negative environmental effects. They were corrected in 2004 by an initiative to reconstruct the wetlands around Kafue from the Zambian government and WWF. Kafue suffers from pollution by the fertilization plant that used to operate from this area. From Encyclopedia Brittanica: "The town's industrial area, which gets its power supply from the Kafue hydroelectric scheme, houses an ammonium nitrate fertilizer plant, a textile mill, an iron and steel complex, a firm producing fibreglass fishing boats, a leather tannery, a pulp and paper mill, a copper-processing unit, a bag and sacking plant, and an assembly and equipment repair plant. A greenbelt separates Kafue's industrial zone from its residential area, where use is made of higher-density housing, a phenomenon that is comparatively rare in Zambian urban settlements."
Kafue flats and Kafue Park are wellknown wildlife parks and natural reservations. Kafue Town is a city seldom visited by tourists.

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