Photo Essay - Addis Ababa Condos and Houses

- Photo Essay April 1, 2007– Addis Ababa Condos & Houses

The city of Addis Ababa is growing at a very interesting rate. Its population is almost 4 millions with the 5 million mark only perhaps 10-15 years away. The old neighborhoods of Seratgena Sefer, Lideta, Kazanchis, Iri Bekentu, Giorgis, Intoto Menged, Qebena, Cherqos, Aware, Qera, Gola Sefer, Geja Sefer, etc have simply run out of land.

Even the relatively new neighborhoods of Bole and Shola are filling up fast. To this, add the new generation of Ethiopian expatriates who want to own property in Addis Ababa and the significant amount of remittance money flowing to the country from the Arabian Gulf, Europe and, of course, the US. And then, there is EPRDF money and its million tentacles that want to gobble up every square meter of property in the city. As a result, thousands of units of residential units (condos, apartment buildings, and detached houses) are being built in new neighborhoods like the new part of Shola, Kotebe, Gerji, CMC, Asko, etc.

The well to do Ethiopian expatriates, various type of shady people who have made money in the EPRDF-era, political appointees and cronies like the suburbs of Shola. As we say in Addis Ababa, these types of houses shown on the left are G+1,2, and 3. Hyat is a veteran in this business and has made the Arabic word hyat (life) part of our lingua. Hyat has built many units in and outside CMS - the neighborhood started in the last days of the Dergue for diplomats and its top cronies.

Sunshine Construction which has an interesting beginning and which has grown to be a major company in the past 10-15 years used to concentrate in building mid-rise buildings for low-income people (who is not low-income person in Addis Ababa, anyway?). Now, it is going after the lucrative high-end detached homes rarely seen in the country.

All said, construction of these units is changing the look of Addis Ababa. We are not architects and social scientists but as just casual observers, we notice that our beloved city, Addis Ababa, continues to acquire a new personality that is a sort of a mix of the old Addis Ababa of Itege Taytu - Ze Berhane Ethiopia and the noisy and haphazard traits of cities like Nairobi, Bombay, and Cairo. For us, the telling sign of the new face of this new "New Flower" are the places of worship such as the Ethiopian Orthodox church shown below that accompany every new development.

Notwithstanding our suspicion that EPRDF is out to control the new neighborhoods by filling it up with its cadres and loyalists (in view of the next 'election' in 2010 where they don't want to repeat the embarrassment of 05), we - nonetheless- salute our city as it enters a new Ethiopian millennia. Paranoid or not, we think, this sentiment is shared by many.

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