21st Century (2000–present)

Luanda Master Plan

2007 · Angola · Sub-Saharan Africa · Garden city, decentralization, and the town-country synthesis · Planned by Provincial Government of Luanda
Land-use plan of the Luanda master plan (Luanda Cidade Mundial — Plano Director Geral): territorial units, ecological green structure, industrial and tourist zones, ring roads and BRT network.
Land-use plan of the Luanda master plan (Luanda Cidade Mundial — Plano Director Geral): territorial units, ecological green structure, industrial and tourist zones, ring roads and BRT network. · © A1V2 — used with credit · A1V2 (planners of Luanda Cidade Mundial — Plano Director Geral)

Core idea

New satellite towns & ring roads

Why it matters

Post-war rebuilding at scale

Description

The Luanda Master Plan of 2007, promoted by the Provincial Government of Luanda, set a framework for the reconstruction and expansion of the Angolan capital after the end of the civil war in 2002. Its principal moves were a system of ring roads to relieve the congested colonial core and the promotion of new satellite towns and centralities on the periphery, most famously realised in Chinese-built projects such as Kilamba. The plan responded to explosive population growth and the vast informal musseque settlements surrounding the city.

Significance

The plan is significant as an instance of oil-financed, state-led reconstruction urbanism in post-conflict Africa, drawing on decentralisation and new-town ideas at a metropolitan scale. Its satellite cities have become emblematic in debates about Chinese involvement in African urbanisation, housing affordability and the gap between planned centralities and the informal city where most residents live.

What shaped it

Plans it influenced

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.