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Paper short abstract:

Following the path of the colonial railway, a new railway was inaugurated in 2018, connecting Addis Ababa to Djibouti. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the layering of analogies, dissimilarities and the related development models behind the two infrastructure in Dire Dawa (Ethiopia).

Paper long abstract:

A constant stream of trucks and people moves every day between Addis Ababa and Djibouti City, the capital of the eponymous nation and one of the busiest ports in the Horn of Africa. It is from this port that most of the goods, moving to and from Ethiopia, transit, making this route a strategic economic corridor for both countries.

The importance of this route can be traced back to the colonial past when, at the beginning of the 20th century, the French built the Chemin de Fer Djibouto-Éthiopien, providing landlocked Ethiopia with railway access to the sea.

Following the path of the colonial infrastructure, a new standard gauge railway was inaugurated in January 2018: the Chinese built Ethio-Djibouti railway line connecting Addis Ababa to neighbouring Djibouti.

Echoing their own physical configuration, some parallelism can be traced among the reasons for both the railways' construction: they were seen as strategic infrastructure to boost international trade flows and contribute to economic growth.

This paper will use Dire Dawa, a secondary Ethiopian city located along the train line, as a case study. Both the French and the current Ethiopian government promoted the urban expansion, and the correlated economic growth, of Dire Dawa using the railway as a critical element. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the complex layering of analogies, dissimilarities and the related development models behind the two infrastructure. In doing this, the author compares recent Dire Dawa urban development, with previous urban plans, historical maps and field observations.