Assignment, Week 7

1. How do factors of migration, movement and transportation affect your city?
2. Using Google Earth, mark the nearest airport, rail and bus/taxi hubs, market (commercial center) and political center of your city. Measure the distance from the airport, rail station and bus/taxi hubs to the commercial center using Google Earth. Provide a screenshot of Google Earth with each of these points marked.
3. Continue to rectify the African city plans assigned to you (2–3 cities). Provide screenshots of these rectified maps on your blog.

Migration is a big issue in Bangui, mainly because it just keeps growing. This has been the case since the early 20th century, as discussed in earlier posts, but the reasons have changed. During the colonial era, it was the prospect of finding work that brought tens of thousands of workers from the countryside to Bangui’s cramped peripheries (Villien et al. 43–44). Today, to some extent, that factor still exists, but an additional draw is the fact that Bangui is the only part of the country over which the national government has any semblance of control. Everywhere else is perennially unstable, rendering the capital—whether by mythicized view or objective comparison—a desirable alternative.

Movement is difficult, as are many other things in Bangui. The city has a public transit system which consists of green buses and yellow taxis, all of which are known for being dangerously overcrowded due to deficiencies in fleet size and poor maintenance (State Department 2012). The city’s main bus station is the Gare Routière, 2.14 miles (3.44 kilometers) from the Central Market. Buses leave from here to go to other cities and towns like Bouar and Ndélé (Gheos).

Subway? Light rail? Freight trains? Don’t be silly. The nearest rail station is 355 miles (571 kilometers) away in Bondo, D.R. Congo (U.N.). Most raw materials are transported to Bangui by truck, then put on boats and transferred downriver to Brazzaville, then brought to Pointe-Noire by rail before going on to Europe, Asia or North America for refinement (C.I.A.). River transport is probably among the better-developed domains of regular movement in Bangui, as it provides large-scale transport of raw materials and ferries across the Ubangi in the absence of a bridge.

Bangui has the country’s only international airport, Bangui–M’Poko, which has one of the country’s two paved runways. BGF (its I.A.T.A. code) is a recent construction—it is not shown on a regional map from 1963, though information about its exact date of construction is not easily available. The 1963 map shows a military airport occupying the area around what is now the National Assembly a few miles outside of the city center. This appears to have been completely demolished and replaced by the new one, which is 5.11 miles (8.22 kilometers) northwest of the city center and has a longer runway (Zarhy 25).

The pushpins are, starting at the top, Bangui-M’Poko International Airport; the Gare Routière (bus terminal); the Palais Presidentiel (political center, surrounded by other government buildings); and the Marche Central (commercial center). To find a train station, follow these directions: From the city center, walk to the river and take a ferry across. Drive 93 kilometers southeast on the gravel-paved N23, make a sharp left and follow the N6 for 832 kilometers, then turn right onto the N4 for another 123 kilometers until you reach Bondo. Alternatively, charter an airplane.

Maps

I have continued with my rectification. I rectified two more maps of Libreville, shown below. These were really hard, because there weren’t too many solid reference points I could use. Both, from 1964, showed very little development and lots of dense forest. Currently, one of the two areas has been completely incorporated into metropolitan Libreville—and the other is still dense forest. I’m not sure which was harder to rectify. I ended up having to use coastlines (which looked like they had changed a bit) as references for both, but they came out O.K.

References

“Bangui.” Gheos World Travel Guide. 25 March 2012.Web. 25 March 2012 <http://gheos.com/atlas/index/place.php?Bangui>.

“Central African Republic.” The C.I.A. World Factbook. 21 March 2012.Web. <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ct.html>.

“Central African Republic: Country Specific Information.” Travel.State.Gov. 2 March 2012.Web. 25 March 2012 <http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1085.html.

Democratic Republic of the Congo. New York: United Nations, 2011.

Villien, François, et al. Bangui, Capitale d’un Pays Enclavé d’Afrique Centrale : Étude Historique et Géographique. 4 Vol. Talence: Centre de Recherches sur les Espaces Tropicaux, Institut de Géographie, Université de Bordeaux III, 1990. Print.

Zarhy, M. Les Centres Urbains et Régionaux de la République Centrafricaine. Jerusalem: Institut de Planification et de Développement S.A., 1963. Print.