Planning in Bangui

Assignment:

1. Upload and rectify an early plan of your city. Analyze core differences between this early plan and the current city plan. Mark these differences and provide related screen shots. What, if anything do these changes convey about difference and identity in your city. 

2. Discuss briefly the subject(s) you would like to address in your final paper on your city.

This map is from the article “Les kodro de Bangui: un escape urbain ‘oublié’” (The kodros of Bangui: a forgotten urban space) by Madame Marie-France Adrien-Rongier. The map was produced by CAR architect E. Lemotomo in 1977. Lemotomo uses master plans from 1946, 1967 and 1971 to distinguish planned sections of the city from the somewhat informal or autonomously constructed parts of the city. The article by Adrien-Rongier details the growth of Bangui and the various dichotomies present in the juxtaposition of the kodros to the city center. In the city center homes were preplanned and organized for atomized families. They are colonial fabrication, built with imported materials and continue to be repurposed for administrative and social uses. In the kodros materials are local and the houses are organized by the family to fit the purposes of the local ethnic group.

Below the map is spread across the existing amenities in Bangui. Sites previously labeled as formal, administrative and planned still hold a majority of Bangui's resources such as government buildings, schools and points of interests. Interestingly the religious sites are the one amenity that are spread throughout the city equally.

In my final paper I would like to explore urban planning as it relates to displacement as a result of natural disasters and conflict. Flooding and politic and political conflicts have caused a significant amount of movement and destruction in and around Bangui. In the final paper I will compile comparative case studies and frameworks for post-disaster social, economic and infrastructure reconstruction.