City Profile: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Cities in Africa are experiencing fast urbanization with growing demand for basic services. The city of
Dar es Salam, one of the fastest growing cities in the region and the world, is likely to guide the urban
future in Tanzania. Dar es Salaam is the former capital city of Tanzania and retains its importance as
most of the government offices were located. However, the whole process of complete relocation of
government offices to the present capital city of Dodoma might affect the dynamics in Dar es Salaam
in the near future. Nevertheless, it is the leading commercial centre and economic hub in Tanzania
and is expected to be a mega city by 2030. The growth of the city is construed by both natural
increase and high rate of migration. However, the city’s organic growth was affected by racial-based
residential segregation under the colonial regime, whose imprints are evident to date. In this profile,
an overview of Dar es Salaam’s colonial, post-colonial, social, economic and location factors that led
to urbanization is provided. This profile highlights the previous, current and future challenges, and
explores the pathways to enhance sustainability and transformation of Dar es Salaam to be a smart city.
Poor implementation of master plans led to minimal guidance of city growth, but the current land and
and human settlement policy emphasizes on sustainable approach in urban planning including low costs
but sustainable settlements even for the urban poor. Such transformation requires government and city
management to invest in better planning implementation, creation of database that will inform future
planning, improvement in social services such as infrastructure, access to quality and affordable housing,
water and electricity supply. This paper contributes to the existing literature on nature of cities in
developing countries, which had been affected by colonialism and poor implementation of policies, and
suggest ways in which cities can to become smarter and sustainable.