Angola's Grand New City

A new city being built outside of the capital Luanda, Kilamba Kiaxi, is considered the largest social housing project & EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract in Africa and one of the newest, emergent Smart Cities. In the Kimbundu language the name means Land (Kiaxi) of Kilamba.

Built by the China International Trust and Investment Corporation, the city is designed to accommodate 500,000 people and includes 750 eight-story apartment blocks, occupying 880 hectares.

Located 20 km from the center of Luanda, the Kilamba project is the most advanced to date of the five new cities that are being built around Luanda alone and carries a price tag of $3.5bn.

Angolan officials are employing such a grand urban development scheme as a means of providing housing for the millions of Angolans who are without formal housing, 12 years after the end of the civil war.  During the war years, little social housing was built, with the result that ¾ of the 4.3 inhabitants of Luanda live in mussekes or informal settlements.

Constructing new city centers on the outskirts of existing cities is a new urban planning method employed to eliminate the difficulties involved in relocating populations who already live on development sites.

The Kilamba Kaixi buildings include 20,002 apartments and 246 shops, containing 24 (KG) kindergartens, 9 primary schools, 8 secondary schools, 2 substations, 1 sewage treatment plant and 1 water treatment plan, with primary & secondary municipal roads.  Beyond the normal municipal systems such as water supply, power supply, telecommunications, sewage, drainage, traffic signals, the original development plans entailed the integration of electronic systems to enable an Internet interconnectivity of housing and municipal systems. (Consolidated Consulting Group, African Business Magazine)