Masters of the universe

The creation of a new capital should express the aspiration of a new nation, and yet increasingly we are seeing a phoney history dictate their design.

- Reinier de Graaf

I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present. That’s where the fun is. Donald J. Trump, Twitter

There is no point in planning. Planning gets in the way of opportunity: the lifeblood of a world dependent on global capital flows which — unpredictable as they are — render futile any attempt at control. Whether it is the economy or the management of ever-growing cities, the prevailing political mantra has been to disavow planning. Yet, no politics exist without planning. Nothing speaks to this more clearly than the political sphere’s planning of its own centres of power.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, at least ten governments have embarked on ambitious plans to construct new capitals. Since Trump’s tweet, another four have declared the intention to do so. Indonesia has announced the intention to move its capital from swampy, traffic-clogged Jakarta to a yet-to-be-determined location on the island of Borneo, an effort much akin to the Philippines’ plan for a back-up capital in the form of New Clark City; Egypt has launched a plan for a new administrative city east of its current capital Cairo; and even the war-torn, poverty-stricken emerging nation of South Sudan has announced a new capital to mark its fragile autonomy (in the shape of a rhinoceros).

The relocation of capitals to new, purpose-built cities is by no means a recent phenomenon, of course. In 1913, Australia, to resolve the rivalry between its two largest cities, Melbourne and Sydney, decided on the construction of Canberra as its new capital; in 1960, Pakistan, to diversify development across the country, relocated its capital from Karachi to the new city of Islamabad, and then there is of course the classic example of Washington DC.