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  #61  
Old Posted Dec 1, 2021, 9:08 PM
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Originally Posted by Obadno View Post
To be fair there is nowhere in north America that looks like an African slum.
The closest thing in the US would be the growing tent cities on the West Coast which are basically less permanent favelas.

Still better than that picture of Lagos though, holy shit that's horrifying. These people are living above sewage water?
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  #62  
Old Posted Dec 1, 2021, 9:14 PM
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Originally Posted by Obadno View Post
To be fair there is nowhere in north America that looks like an African slum.

You can find a block abandoned rowhouses in Camden and an abandoned factory in Detroit that comes close, but they are abandoned.

There is nothing like the Slums of India, or Africa or South America in the USA and hasn't been for at least a century if truly ever.
Not urban slums, but there might still be slums in the rural south.
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  #63  
Old Posted Dec 1, 2021, 9:16 PM
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Originally Posted by The North One View Post
The closest thing in the US would be the growing tent cities on the West Coast which are basically less permanent favelas.

Still better than that picture of Lagos though, holy shit that's horrifying. These people are living above sewage water?
That picture is Makoko, a famous "floating slum" in Nigeria. It always looks like that. That's actually just bay water, though I'm sure it's plenty polluted. About 85,000 people live there.

Link to Youtube video - for some reason embed isn't working.
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  #64  
Old Posted Dec 1, 2021, 9:25 PM
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Originally Posted by Obadno View Post
To be fair there is nowhere in north America that looks like an African slum.

You can find a block abandoned rowhouses in Camden and an abandoned factory in Detroit that comes close, but they are abandoned.

There is nothing like the Slums of India, or Africa or South America in the USA and hasn't been for at least a century if truly ever.
No, I just meant you can show drastically different conditions for predominantly white vs predominantly black neighborhoods in the US, just as was being shown in South Africa.

It makes sense, considering both countries had entrenched legal segregation for much of their histories. The standards of living are obviously much higher in even the poorest of US neighborhoods compared to the developing world, but there is still a pretty startling contrast of living conditions between racial groups in many cities.
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  #65  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 12:12 AM
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I give you Antananarivo (pop 3.5 million), Madagascar - one of Africa's poorest countries, but also one of the most aesthetic













Last edited by muppet; Dec 2, 2021 at 12:27 AM.
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  #66  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 2:52 AM
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Lagos in Motion
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  #67  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 2:57 AM
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^^^ here is some more of his work

Kigali in Motion (4K) - Rwanda
Video Link


Abidjan in Motion (4K) - Ivory Coast / Côte d’Ivoire
Video Link


Lome in Motion - Togo
Video Link


Cotonou in Motion (Part 2) - Benin
Video Link


Johannesburg in Motion (4K) - South Africa
Video Link

Last edited by Nite; Dec 2, 2021 at 3:36 AM.
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  #68  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 5:16 AM
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Last edited by muppet; Dec 2, 2021 at 5:39 AM.
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  #69  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 5:17 AM
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These cities need to up their game. We can post pictures of western or asian style skyscraper and mall districts all day long to insinuate that these places are modern, but in the year 2021 in a globalized world there is nothing special about such things. Luanda looks like it could be a city in Brazil with like 1/5 the population and household incomes that have a few extra zeroes at the end.

I think the first step would be some kind of metro system. At a minimum, you could get around the city reliably. And the metro would be pretty self contained, it would have its own electric utility and water supply.
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  #70  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 5:44 AM
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Sure but they gotta start somewhere - 2022's gonna be a big year actually for transport aficionados.

Luanda's light rail is being built this year - the first phase (49km of 149km) will serve about 4 million, or half the residents:

https://www.verangola.net/va/en/0720...-this-year.htm



Also the bus network's getting 900 extra buses

https://allafrica.com/stories/202107060247.html
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  #71  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 10:27 AM
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The growth rate of Africa is mind boggling, granted a lot of the continents’ population live in dire conditions and there are problems over corruption, stability and transparency, but the trajectory is broadly positive on an unprecedented scale. A decade ago I doubt many in finance circles would have been looking at Africa, today though is a completely different proposition, and I’m personally working on several opportunities.
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  #72  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 12:54 PM
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
A billion Indians have lived in squalor for decades. Africa will very likely triple in population. It is the second largest continent, and has a lot of room to grow. I suspect that Africa will be the largest source of immigrants for many countries in the future, including many formerly people-exporting countries in East Asia (despite massive opposition to such schemes, but when you have shrinking populations and millions of elderly citizens to support...).
The problem is all those elderly to support. The human population needs to decline, and it can’t do so if we’re all living so damn long.

There will need to be a generation that is the first in history to decide when they want to die. No animal has ever done that; the instinct is to continue to live for as long as possible. But unless science can cure ageing itself (as opposed to just the diseases that lead to death), it is ultimately going to need to become the norm.
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  #73  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 12:57 PM
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Originally Posted by llamaorama View Post
These cities need to up their game. We can post pictures of western or asian style skyscraper and mall districts all day long to insinuate that these places are modern, but in the year 2021 in a globalized world there is nothing special about such things. Luanda looks like it could be a city in Brazil with like 1/5 the population and household incomes that have a few extra zeroes at the end.

I think the first step would be some kind of metro system. At a minimum, you could get around the city reliably. And the metro would be pretty self contained, it would have its own electric utility and water supply.
I don’t know how many African cities you have been to, but the first step would be consistently paved roads. Because right now that’s not even the case in places like Nairobi, in relatively wealthy Kenya.
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  #74  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 1:56 PM
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Some really great photos and videos of African cities on this page. Kigali, Luanda and a few others don't look bad at all...in fact, they are quite attractive.
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  #75  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 2:18 PM
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The problem is all those elderly to support. The human population needs to decline, and it can’t do so if we’re all living so damn long.

There will need to be a generation that is the first in history to decide when they want to die. No animal has ever done that; the instinct is to continue to live for as long as possible. But unless science can cure ageing itself (as opposed to just the diseases that lead to death), it is ultimately going to need to become the norm.
This is false. Most of the rise in life average expectancy is due to curing causes of premature death like infectious disease and preventable accidents. Medical interventions in old age only add an average of four years to the average human lifespan.

Now, those last four years typically have bad quality of life, but just ceasing medical interventions at that point won't stop the ballooning of the elderly population, which is more due to a decline in birth rates than anything else. Unless you want to go full-on Logan's Run and kill healthy elderly people, it's not going to make an appreciable difference.
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  #76  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 2:52 PM
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
Some really great photos and videos of African cities on this page. Kigali, Luanda and a few others don't look bad at all...in fact, they are quite attractive.
Yes, but unfortunately these are the nice areas that generally only represent a portion of the city, while much of the rest of the city and urban area is made up of unconscionable (for us, anyway) squalor.

The difference between the best and worst one is the relative % of the former vs. the latter.

None of these cities really has even a relative absence of widespread squalor, sadly.

Also, nice buildings, roads and greenery don't take away other problems. A city like Abidjan (one of the best-looking ones in West Africa) has in recent years become beset by extremely serious crime and terrorism issues.

(Though sure, some cities are safer than others.)
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  #77  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 3:00 PM
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Luanda only looks like that in a very few select areas. I have it on pretty good authority (friends who have worked there) that the skyline is quite deceiving - it's not a great place to be. It being the "most expensive" city in the world was largely due to the fact that expats had very few options as to where it was safe to live / go out.

Kigali is apparently a very clean city and is known for a burgeoning arts scene. The former is do to some heavy handed policies on littering but I guess the end result worked.

Since we're posting pics here's some of Johannesburg by a photographer there who's work I enjoy:

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  #78  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 3:25 PM
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Every African country has a fairly large and even huge unskilled rural peasant population that generally flocks unrestrictedly to the big cities looking for work. These people have to live somewhere, and these shantytowns are generally where most of them end up living. I doubt this will change much in the foreseeable future even as the HDI of many of these countries continues to tick upwards. Though perhaps the share of nice areas in the cities will grow appreciably.

A country like China would also have this phenomenon if left unchecked but there the government structure is stronger and keeps a tighter lid and leash on stuff like internal migration and infrastructure and housing capacity and development.
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  #79  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 3:55 PM
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The poor state of things didn't shock me when I visited Ghana in 97 and doesn't now. Africa's rise to global prominence was cut short by invaders who formed a philosophy that saw Africans as the lowest form of subhuman species, giving them the "right" to subject Africans to any oppression and torture they saw fit to further their interests. That trauma takes time to heal.

What's unsaid is how these places are creating geniuses. I remember visiting a class where the schoolchildren were learning calculus at 9-10 years old, with no computers, no calculators, just a chalkboard. That's testing the minds ability to improvise, so when they do have access to the tech, its easy. There's people learning code without ever having used a computer! Also, there has to be some effect on the mind to be bombarded with all that stimuli everyday. No street life compared to what I saw in Ghana in 97. Sure, Tokyo was busy, but it was an ordered busy. In Ghana, you have crowds going every which way, with people shouting at you, trying to sell you stuff, with hundreds of thousands of options to buy per square mile, and conflicts everywhere. Somebody is always arguing about something, and some kind of obstruction is always occurring. Its madness. To navigate this madness and keep a cool head is surely activating the brain in ways we can't imagine.
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  #80  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2021, 4:07 PM
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Originally Posted by Segun View Post
The poor state of things didn't shock me when I visited Ghana in 97 and doesn't now. Africa's rise to global prominence was cut short by invaders who formed a philosophy that saw Africans as the lowest form of subhuman species, giving them the "right" to subject Africans to any oppression and torture they saw fit to further their interests. That trauma takes time to heal.

What's unsaid is how these places are creating geniuses. I remember visiting a class where the schoolchildren were learning calculus at 9-10 years old, with no computers, no calculators, just a chalkboard. That's testing the minds ability to improvise, so when they do have access to the tech, its easy. There's people learning code without ever having used a computer! Also, there has to be some effect on the mind to be bombarded with all that stimuli everyday. No street life compared to what I saw in Ghana in 97. Sure, Tokyo was busy, but it was an ordered busy. In Ghana, you have crowds going every which way, with people shouting at you, trying to sell you stuff, with hundreds of thousands of options to buy per square mile, and conflicts everywhere. Somebody is always arguing about something, and some kind of obstruction is always occurring. Its madness. To navigate this madness and keep a cool head is surely activating the brain in ways we can't imagine.
You definitely notice that where I live, as the sub-Saharan immigrants we have been getting of late tend to be a noticeably high(er) class of people in terms of education, culture and even upbringing. They're significantly more educated than the native-born in fact.

Though the question is how damaging the obvious brain drain of these types of people to the "West" is to their countries of origin.
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