one of the most densely populated countries in Africa and yet one of the least urbanized, with more than 80% of its population living in rural areas. In 2013, the World Bank ranked Malawi 171 out of 189 countries to do business in. By 2020, it had risen to 109th (Eritrea is 189th). But the fact that a supranational institution has flagged up that foreign investors should be alert to the opportunities to make a profit in Malawi is not necessarily a good thing. Malawi is in desperate need of investment and financial assistance, but such external intervention has long imposed an overbearing and patrician burden on society.
Rural poverty continues to increase and Malawi requires significant development to pull it out of poverty. While “sustainable” development is the new préfixe du jour, it is premised on restraint and the precautionary principle rather than on societal ambitions and transcending “basic needs”.9 As one (controversial) US policy analyst writes, “Poor countries need sustained development, not sustainable development, if they are ever to take … their rightful place among the Earth’s prosperous people.”10 Conversely, a recent submission to the UK’s International Development Committee dealing with Malawi’s priorities condemned its development and population growth and lauded the country’s “direct dependence on natural resources”. It resolved that Malawi “must conserve its valuable environmental resources”, noting that the government “faces many challenges including … satisfying foreign donors that fiscal discipline is being tightened”.11 Neocolonialism aside, a modernization, industrialization, and urbanization strategy surely cannot be built on those flimsy fawning foundations (Figure 3.2).
Figure 3.2 The stifled development of Lilongwe, Malawi. (Source: MarcPo/Getty Images.)
China’s development by contrast is reasonably well documented. From a low point in the 1970s, when it was reviled as a Communist pariah state, to delivering the opening speech at the home of global capitalism at the World Economic Forum in Davos, China has turned its fortunes around and raised the living standards of its people to a remarkable degree. It has transformed its socioeconomic status out of all recognition to a generation ago.12 It has built more shopping malls, hotels, office buildings, and housing estates (as well as golf courses and theme parks) than any other country in the world. According to some, since 2005 it is on track to build 20 cities a year for 20 years, having already urbanized the equivalent of the entire US population in the first decade of this millennium.
What are less well known are China’s environmental credentials. Within a short time, China has become the global leader in wind energy and aims to provide 100 million homes with wind-generated electricity by 2021. One BBC report claims that China is installing one wind turbine every 30 minutes. In addition, China is now the biggest player in global cleantech: it has the world’s largest hydrogen production capacity, it is the number-one lithium-ion investor, and it is the biggest solar panel manufacturer. Once known as the biggest polluter on the planet, the Chinese foreign minister now feels confident to criticize the former US President for leaving the Paris Agreement.
China has reinvented itself as an ecological champion. In this way, its environmental transition is an opportunity for growth and the next round of accumulation. China was one of the first countries in the developing world to strategically introduce sustainable development at a national and regional policy level and has been using it as a way to promote a new direction for its urban development. The government announced in 2010 that 300 new cities would be built by 2025, of which approximately 20 would be eco-cities. By late 2015, it announced that they already have at least 284 eco-cities dealing, in some way or another, with a list of ecological problems. These include smart cities, green cities, sustainable cities, low-energy cities, recycling cities, sponge cities, etc. These generic eco-cities – admittedly many of which are indistinguishable from non-eco-cities – are a test bed for some of the new industries, research facilities, innovation themes, quality assurance, social policies, business opportunities, and ways of working that will continue China’s insatiable drive towards modernization (Figure 3.3).
Figure 3.3 Rapid urban development in China. (Source: FilippoBacci/Getty Images.)
For example, the coastal city of Rizhao in Shandong province was given central party approval to “seriously implement the scientific concept of development, based on the advantages of the sun”.13 Dutifully, all houses were mandated to incorporate solar panels and solar thermal water heaters. The traffic signals, street-lights, and park illuminations were converted to photovoltaic solar cells, thus reducing the need for coal-fired grid power by, some say, up to 30%. The fact that Rizhao is one of China’s largest liquid petrochemical ports and home to vast asbestos mines didn’t distract from the city achieving the designation “National Model City of Environmental Protection”.
While the West advocates low growth and sustainable development, China still needs and wants material progress and real development. Not for China the sacrosanct nature of restraint or limited growth. Here, sustainability and consumerism are not seen as contradictory: development is good, sustainable development is growth. It may be guided by the global discourse on the environment, but it clearly intends to be in control of its own destiny and use eco-labels to its own advantage. Beijing, says one commentator, “does not appreciate being criticized, lectured, or even mentored”.14
Emerging from Nature
When Malawi gained independence in 1964, it formally withdrew from its capital city in Zomba and established a new capital at Lilongwe. Malawi’s second city, Blantyre (named after the Scottish birthplace of David Livingstone), still remains the industrial and financial centre of the country, but Lilongwe is the administrative, commercial, and political capital. The population in the national capital continues to increase and now stands at around 1.1 million, and it seems likely to continue to rise to a predicted 1.6 million by 2030.
In 1968, the city implemented the Lilongwe Master Plan to cater for increased immigration into the city from its rural surroundings and to create zoned districts for key, managed development. As one report notes: “From the beginning there was a concern to create a high-quality environment with spacious living standards, as befits a capital city.”15 This follows the urban ambitions and constitutional settlements of many newly liberated nations: whether India’s Chandighar or Abuja in Nigeria. The expression of modernity and change, of political rebirth through conscious masterplanning of new towns and cities has also been a hallmark of urban development and national pride in places such as Brasilia in Brazil (Figure 3.4) and Islamabad in Pakistan (Figure 3.5).
Figure 3.4 Brasilia. (Source: tirc83/Getty Images.)
Figure 3.5 Islamabad. (Source: Danish Khan/Adobe Stock.)
After the Malawian government had implemented a number of structure plans and zoning schemas, a draft masterplan was drawn up in 2013 (with the help of