Dodoma, Tanzania

With an already established town at a major crossroads, the Dodoma region, in the nation's geographic centre, had an agreeable climate and room for development, Its rural environment was seen as the ujamaa heartland and therefore appropriate for a ujamaa capital that could see and learn from neighbouring villages and maintain a close relationship to the land.

A new capital was seen as a more economically viable alternative than attempting to reorganise and restructure Dar es Salaam and was idealised as a way of diverting development away from continued concentration in a single coastal city that was seen as anathema to socialist unity and development. Objectives for the new capital included that it become a symbol of Tanzania's social and cultural values and aspirations; that it be supplemented by industrial-commercial development; and that the mistakes and features of colonial planning and modern big cities, such as excessive population densities, pollution and traffic congestion, be avoided.

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) invited three international firms to submit proposals for the best location and preparation of a master plan: Project Planning Associates Ltd., of Canada; Doxiadis Associates International, of Greece (who had worked on Pakistan's new capital of Islamabad); and Engineering Consulting Firms Association, of Japan. A fourth firm from Germany submitted a proposal without invitation.

The winner, decided by the CDA together with independent American consultants, was Project Planning Associates, the same Canadian consultants whose plan for Dar es Salaam was seen as inadequate and not responsive enough to the local conditions and needs for Tanzania's largest city. Their plan envisaged a city of 400,000 persons by 2000 and 1.3 million by 2020.

The official capital since 1996, Dodoma was envisaged as the first non-monumental capital city as opposed to the monumentality and hierarchy of other planned capital cities such as Abuja, Yamoussoukro, Brasília and Washington, D.C. It rejected geometrical forms such as grid iron and radial plans as inappropriate as the urban form was intended to undulate and curve with the existing topography and not in conflict with it so as to retain its rural ujamaa feel. As befitted Tanzania's development at the time, the car was seen as secondary in importance to public transports such as buses which were then utilised by much of the population.

In 1974, Dodoma had a population of 40,000 and was chosen as the site of the new capital as opposed to nearby Hombolo or Ihumwa. The existing population size was not seen as an impediment while existing infrastructure would reduce construction costs.

The city, designed over 2,500 acres (1,000 hectares), was meant to be "the chief village in a nation of villages", built at a human scale meant to be experienced on foot. Its basic principles follow the garden city model of a town set amongst a garden with green belts separating segregated zones for residents and industry.

As part of the move of the government, a capitol complex was envisaged and designs by international teams offered competing visions and versions of the siting and layout of a capitol complex. These competing proposals, some paid for by foreign governments as a form of aid and others by the firms involved, were presented as early as 1978.

In 2006, the Chinese government delivered a finished parliament building in Dodoma. It was not in its originally intended location in the master plan; that location was developed as a site for a university.

As much of the initial design never came to fruition over the past 40 years, government offices and embassies have resisted moving offices to Dodoma. As a result, many government offices remain in Dar es Salaam, which remains Tanzania's commercial and de facto capital.

Dodoma was envisaged as a nation-building project to cement a newly post-colonial independence identity and direction in Tanzania, and is similar to projects in Nigeria (Abuja), Côte d'Ivoire (Yamoussoukro), Botswana (Gaborone), Malawi (Lilongwe) and Mauritania (Nouakchott).