Khartoum blues: the 'deplanning' and decline of a capital city

This paper deals with the creation, growth and current decline of the Sudan ese capital, Khartoum, since the early nineteenth century. It describes the distinct ways in which the two main settlements in the conurbation - Umm-D urman and Khartoum - have been planned, the former along Arab-Islamic lines and the latter as a British Colonial town. After independence in 1956, the capital enjoyed a prominent, if brief, period of flourish in most aspects of life. In the mid-1970s chaos set in. The 'deplanning' process was initia lly prompted by various motives and, since the early 1980s, has gradually b een institutionalised. The positive planning features were obliterated afte r the town planning machinery was marginalised and almost dismantled. The o nce-beautiful town was vulgarised, vandalised, ruralised and 'censored' by the state under various labels and excuses. But towns, we know, have their own ways of saying things and it is all the more interesting when what the town says is in direct opposition to what the state officially declares. Th is paper tries to document the 'deplanning' of Khartoum by interpreting the messages the town sends, tracing the symptoms of this process and suggesti ng remedies for what has not been irretrievably lost. (C) 2000 Elsevier Sci ence Ltd. All rights reserved.