My honest views about Dar es Salaam that I noted in my 3 day stay.
Positive
1. From the TPA tower, you can get some amazing views of Dar of the sides adjacent to the ocean.
2. Dar has amazing street food.
3. There's positive infrastructural growth in Dar.
4. The BRT is being well implemented.
5. There's a more organized public transportation system than Nairobi. You're less likely to find Daladalas parked anyway or loading and dropping passengers at odd places.
Neutral
1. Dar still has lots of open spaces and is considerably less dense than Nairobi.
2. Most women dress in Dera or dera-like clothing.
3. Tanzanians are short. I'm 6'2". The tallest guy I met in 3 days was my height. In Nairobi, there's no way I can go out and not meet someone taller than me.
4. Tanzanians love lowrise residential buildings.
5. I don't know whether this is negative or positive but Dar metro is not bigger than Nairobi metro. From Bagamoyo, you start seeing serious built up area at about 40-45km from CBD. In Nairobi, from namanga you'll start seeing serious built up area at about 37km from CBD. From Thika, you'll see the continuous built up area at about 40km. Remember the nairobi CBD is in the middle of the city while the Dar CBD is on the edge. Remember Nairobi is also denser than dar. My assertion is, Nairobi is still the bigger metro. My random estimate, Nairobi metro beats Dar by at least 1M people.
6. The SGR terminus is nice but much smaller than the Nairobi one. About half the size of Nairobi terminus.
Negative.
1. When I saw
instanbul decry Kenya's parliament road, I almost started feeling like the Dar CBD roads had greatly improved from my last time there. The truth is, other than Sokoine Drive (which is amazing btw), the rest of the roads have not changed a bit. You can't compare Dar CBD to Nairobi CBD, not even a competition. Minus those 3 blue towers, most towers are short and beat up. Ngara could give the rest of the CBD a run for it's money. Infact other than TPA PSPF, MNF and Mzizima Tower, Kariakoo has better buildings than the CBD. Hell I saw an untarmaced road in the CBD.
2. Dar is dusty, I see people here talking about red soil in Nairobi. Yeah, Nairobi has red soil which is very visible but Dar is even dustier. They're lucky their soil is sandy hence tries to hide how dusty the city is but it's super dusty
3. Mikocheni has nothing on Kilimani. Not even close. I don't even want to say more because comparing the two is laughable. Generally, high end neighborhoods in Nairobi are way ahead of those in Dar.
4. Uswazis are real. Tanzanians need to stop the narrative that there are no slums in Dar. Those things you call uswazis are slums. Wake up
5. The daladalas are more beat up than our matatus. They also overload more. You struggle to breath just being in one at rush hours.
6. Other than the main roads, access roads are crap. Nairobi beats Dar hands down in that sector
7. Dar lags behind on both budget and high end accomodation. Interesting for a coastal city.
8. Kilindini harbor is bigger than Port of Dar
9. I see people here share about flooding in Nairobi laughing and one may feel Dar is better. A little drizzle in Dar and there are ponds everywhere. I'm sure heavy rains would bring lots of flooding.
10. Some road construction in Dar is taking forever to complete. Even the locals are complaining lowkey. If that was in Kenya, we would have flooded twitter with photos complaining which would have provided some simpletons here with ammo for bashing us. Tanzanians are too meek.
Photo: Ponding in Dar after some drizzle.
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