a tale of two cities | a fitting retrofit The Urban Renewal strategy, part of Integrated Urban Master Plan for Luanda and Bengo, will define Luanda’s growth and in effect the livelihood of its inhabitants. Traditionally, more affluent residents have occupied the coastal Luanda Sul favoring some distance from the city center, while the less fortunate have clustered in the north-western and south-western vicinities of central Luanda where all economic activity is concentrated. The structure plan indexes the need for a renewal plan with a clearly laid-out strategy that has in sight a significant improvement of established urban areas through a series of interventions. The strategy seeks to minimize segregation in favor of a more balanced mix of population income types, services and activities across the city and newly developed district-centers. The expansion, still anchor-based around Luanda’s city center, is structured around new autonomous district-centers interconnected among each other and linked to central Luanda, but bustling with activity and job-generating developments. Public transport accessibility, construction of new schools, hospitals, markets and recreational areas within each districtcenter will re-direct growth outwards, naturally alleviating the otherwise chronic and thorny musseques problem. 1 2 redesigning, not delving into any upgrade or development initiatives for the city of Luanda. Easier and quicker to implement, the plan ignores the existing city opening the door for a growth imbalance with two parallel cities surviving side by side and competing for the same resources. The plan’s basic platform is rigid and ignores significant environmental concerns by appropriating mega-developments on eco-sensitive areas that otherwise need to be safeguarded. But the major fallout of the concentrated independent development plan is that it leaves 2.4 million inhabitants of the projected population of 15.3 million in 2030 with no economic or housing provisions. Second alternative - concentrated peripheral growth Designed around the newly developed 60-km ring road now constituting a linear barrier around the existing urban area of unplanned growth, this alternative off-centers direct remediation of urban musseques. It provides for new link routes through the existing musseques, upgrade of their basic infrastructure, but doesn’t go so far as to propose resettlement activities or urban renewal. Growth will be concentrated around Luanda’s peripheral ring road which raises a new problem: an area of 120 km2 will only accommodate 2 million of the estimated 8 million ring road population. This will require the development of new decentralized urban zones with their own infrastructure and employment base, and the road network necessary to link them to the ring road without diffusing any pressure from the central musseques. Third alternative - outward growth and land use optimization Expanding Luanda’s outward growth to a second ring-road, the new development circle will fall between the existing ring road and the proposed new one. This “outer-land” will set off immediate urban development areas around unconstrained land south of the city making speed a 3 4 Urban expansion plan: alternatives First alternative - concentrated new independent development plan An initial master plan designed by a Chinese firm and floated around for consideration, proposed the creation of a new city completely independent from the existing center. The concentrated new development plan is intended to create a series of central urban nodes with a new commercial hub reaching all the way to the Kwanza and Bengo Rivers. This approach avoids the murky territory of resettlement, rezoning, and 1 Alternative 1 2 Alternative 2 3 Alternative 3 4 Preferred alternative 20