Exploring the morphogenesis of Ethiopian cities: a comparative analysis of the urban forms of Dire Dawa city with its central and northern Ethiopian counterparts

ABSTRACT

This study intends to explore the morphogenesis of Dire Dawa through comparative analysis. Several scholars have claimed that central and northern Ethiopian cities share a common urban form tradition, and this study compares the morphogenesis of Dire Dawa, located on the country’s eastern border, to this morphological thought. The research employs a comparative analysis technique of Dire Dawa’s morphogenesis based on Conzenian urban form elements. The findings reveal that the spatial organization of the case areas of the city deviates significantly from the conventional morphological philosophy of northern and central Ethiopian cities. Thus, the establishment of new ones and the redevelopment and extension of existing urban quarters must consider urban form philosophy in the nation along with the identity and conservation of urban form features. This will enable a well-managed morphological blending that might incorporate significant new concepts with existing local knowledge without having undesirable consequences.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban morphology
• urban planning
• urban land use
• street pattern
• Ethiopia

1. Introduction

Ethiopia is a Sub-Saharan African country with a long history of nationhood and civilization dating all the way back to the first century AD’s Da’amat and Axumite eras (Akalou, 1967; Marcus, 2002; Pankhurst, 1982). This ancient culture, along with the country’s prolonged history of nationhood, has resulted in the formation of various urban areas around the country (Akalou, 1967; Pankhurst, 1982, 1985; Turok, 2015). While modern Ethiopia has a lower level of urbanization, it is witnessing an unprecedented pace of urbanization, which is accompanied by developing urban areas and their transformation (Gebre-Egziabher, 2019; Gebrekristos, 2021). This higher rate of urbanization is witnessed by the proliferation of new urban centers along with the enlargement of existing cities.

Nevertheless, the setting of Sub-Saharan Africa in general and its urbanization features, in particular, are under-researched topics of debate, with few references available (Garretson, 1974; Gulema, 2012; Ibrahim & Omer, 2014; Pankhurst, 1982). As a sub-Saharan African nation, the urban context of Ethiopia is also a little-studied discourse, and there are yet to be more studies of Ethiopia’s urban phenomena. Although there were some, until recently, they are mainly centered on the perspectives of Northern Ethiopia and Addis Ababa (Antonsich, 2000; Mamo, 2015). In addition, the lack of historical sources such as historical maps, cadastral data, and written documents has further contributed to the lack of a definitive explanation of Ethiopian cities (Shimizu et al., 2018). These gaps, coupled with the extensive urban expansion and redevelopments in the nation, have prompted the researchers to conduct a study on the morphology of Ethiopian cities, with particular emphasis on the city of Dire Dawa.

Redevelopment and expansion of existing cities require due consideration of the actual physical form of cities so that they can learn from and retain the identity of the spatial structure of previous developments in some way. In relation to this, Keven Lynch, has stated that urban identity is a critical component in promoting the urban image (Lynch, 1960). Besides, cities with distinct identities benefit from increased self-esteem, self-confidence, individual and societal well-being, and active social involvement (Oktay et al., 2015).

However, to protect the identities of urban areas and benefit from their significance, it is important to identify and comprehend the peculiar urban forms of the different segments of the city. Furthermore, Yu (2009) stated that it would be hard to give meaningful conservation support without a thorough understanding of the relationships between historic physical forms and changing urban environments. Besides, Xie (2020) noted that the past will serve as a solid foundation for the present. To this end, this study thus aims to determine the morphological setup of Dire Dawa city during its early morphogenesis era, from 1902 to 1941, and compare it to the morphological features of northern and central Ethiopian urban regions. Such investigations have several advantages, one of which is decoding the physical form of urban Ethiopia in general and Dire Dawa city in particular. The other relevance could be in terms of identity and morphological heritage.

Besides, Barke (2018); (Radoine, 2013) explained that understanding the morphogenesis of urban areas serves important cultural, philosophical, and practical purposes so that people may learn both what they should not do and how they might do things better. Therefore, the study would also help in ensuring sustained urban development in the city as well as for cities in the study region, apart from the heritage management aspect.

This research, like many others, has certain limitations in terms of data and methodology. In the investigation, antique images and maps were used, with very limited or no written explanations in some cases. Furthermore, the comparative study is done manually and is based on qualitative data, making it impossible to express the outcome in quantitative terms, which some feel is a direct mirror of comparison. The researchers used as much relevant data as was feasible from available sources and incorporated map representations of both comparable entities to mitigate the influence of the limiting factors on the study outcome.

2. Literature review

Urban morphology is the study of urban environments, or more accurately, the spatial forms of urban systems (Oliveira, 2016), and these spatial forms are continually transformed and developed (Trisciuoglio et al., 2021). These transformed and developed spatial forms in the morphogenesis of urban areas are liable to the creation of evolving morphological features (Alobaydi & Rashid, 2017; Feng et al., 2012). These changes, in some instances, could end up having undesirable effects that may not reflect the identity that the community inherits for long. Urban form studies thus help to uncover patterns in the structure, production, and evolution of the built environment in order to get a better understanding of how the different components interact (Kropf, 2014), which would help in the guidance of urban growth and contribute to the physical protection of cultural heritage in cities (Barke, 2018; Whitehand & Gu, 2010; Wu et al., 2022).

One of the primary avenues through which planners intervene in the urban system is through the physical structure of cities (Sharifi, 2019). Due to the differences in these physical structures, there are different urban forms in various parts of the world, which are reflections of the context of those respective areas. These urban forms could be influenced by different factors, where an urban plan is the basic one (Ahmed et al., 2014). Depending on the type of planning intervention made in a particular area, the development scenario of a city or its different parts could exhibit quite distinct urban forms, where some of their fundamental aspects have a lengthy lifespan and can lock cities into either desirable or unfavorable paths (Sharifi, 2019). From these, one can deduce that planning interventions have to be carefully assessed prior to implementation since their impact could be difficult to reverse if it is undesirable. There may not be formal planning acts in some areas, but these areas grow and retain some form of physical structure that could be accounted for as their urban form.

From the Ethiopian perspective, there is a theoretical discourse about an indigenous urban form of Ethiopian cities promoted by various urban historians such as Richard Pankhurst, (Pankhurst, 1982, 1985; Pankhurst & Breternitz, 2009), Akalou Wolde Mikael, (Akalou, 1967; Wolde-Michael, 1973), Donald Crummey (Crummey, 1980, 2003), and Genet Alem (Alem, 2016). This theoretical discourse implies that throughout the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, the urban spatial form of northern and central Ethiopian towns took on a circular shape. This circular form has developed in a colony that surrounds the rulers’ residences as well as the Ethiopian Orthodox Church’s complex on high terrain. Additionally, Genet Alem (Alem, 2016) asserts that the circular pattern resembles the spatial configuration of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, tying the geographical layout of cities to the many entities inside the church site.

Ethiopia’s urban areas have evolved as a result of several circumstances, one of which is the conversion of garrisons to urban settlements, which some refer to as ‘garrison towns’ (Alem, 2016; Antonsich, 2000; Griaule, 1934; Horvath, 1968, 1969; Mamo, 2015). According to Akalou (1967), military camps have been the most common way of life for Ethiopian sovereigns and their retinue since the fourteenth century, and it is from these camps that urban centers have evolved, as has their urban form. For those that have been garrisons during their evolution, the physical setting of military camps has had an impact on their present morphology.

Early models representing the plans of garrisons, as depicted in Figures 1 and 2, and the early morphology of the city of Addis Ababa, as indicated in Figure 3, illustrate that settlements were structured based on their significance in a circular manner. Their morphological layouts have been designed in such a way that the gibi (the royal palace or its local representation through the administration ladder) was built first and located on a high hill for prestige and security reasons. The king’s military officers and their followers positioned themselves in various locations around the specified place according to their varied military ranks surrounding the main palace. The morphology of the minor palaces was all circular in form, surrounded by their respective followers, and developed as distinct sections around the larger palace (Alem, 2016; Antonsich, 2000).

Figure 1. Plan of the camp of Dejach Goshu, dignitary of Gojam.

Source: (Griaule, 1934)

Figure 2. Plan of Emperor Minilik the II sefer during Adwa expedition, 1986.

Source: produced based on Gu`ebr`e Sellassi´e, 1932, Atlas, sited in Antonsich, M. 2000

Figure 3. Spatial structure of Addis Ababa in 1897.

Source (Alem, 2016)

Therefore, the morphology of the garrison towns is organized in such a way that the king is surrounded by the minor palaces of the military chiefs, which have a circular form, and yet the minor palaces of the military chiefs are again circularly surrounded by their followers. Thus, at the micro and macro levels of the spatial settings of the garrison towns, there has been a circular morphological structure organized in a cluster manner. Besides, religious structures were always erected on a dominating site since the Ethiopian Orthodox Church was so close to the rulers (Cerulli, 1974; Tamrat, 1972).

Similarly, the traditional spatial notions of northern Ethiopia have also contributed a lot to shaping Addis Ababa’s morphology in central Ethiopia (Johnson, 1974). Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, is not only a primate city but also an urban template, both representing the asymmetry the city enjoys materially and historiographical (Wolde-Michael, 1973). It was created between 1886 and 1890 in the Ethiopian pre-industrial society’s cultural context. It was therefore built on the model of conventional military camps and early land use functions (Johnson, 1974).

Addis Ababa’s early morphological characteristics were built on a cluster of dwellings to house the authorities and their entourages. Sefer, which means ‘camp’, was the name representing these village enclaves (Tufa, 2008). The morphological setup of the different camps was organized in such a way that the different noble personnel surrounded the palace of the King, and again, the house of the noblemen was surrounded by their followers in the order of their hierarchy of authority within every sefer (Johnson, 1974).

The description of the morphology of the urban centers during their early evolution period was illustrated based on the hierarchy of command and level of significance of the structures. The buildings of this time are organized in a circular pattern surrounding the residential or commanding center of their superiors. The units in the inner circle could have distinct functions but were accounted for as the most significant entities in the context of that settlement. The different colonies of hierarchies lower than this inner circle are located at different spots, assuming a circular setting surrounded by clusters of their respective colonies. These different clusters are separated by bare land and linked by routes that assume a circular pattern according to the topography of the respective site. However, none of the studies in the reviewed literature have a description that explains how the space in between the different colonies of settlements has been filled.

In another view, Genet Alem (2016) has claimed that this spatial structure is highly linked with the arrangement of spatial entities in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church compound and their spatial organization. In the church compound, which would be constructed at a higher elevation than its surroundings, Figure 4 depicts the Kideste-Kidusan, which means ‘holly of hollies’, at the very center of the church compound. The center of the church, the Kideste-Kidusan, holds the highest, most sacred level in the hierarchical order of space; the Tabot (the replica of the Ark of the covenant). This center of centers is surrounded by the Kidest, where the Priest and Deacons can access, it then the Kine-Mahlet, the outer circle of the church building, which can be accessed by the congregation, followed along with the other elements. Similarly, in Ethiopian cities built from sefers, the central area is designated for royals or their representatives to be located on higher ground, the space surrounding the central area is designated for nobles who are lower in the hierarchy than those in the inner circle, and the outer enclosure is designated for the next tire of people. At every one of the circles, there is a cluster of settlements to accommodate every one of the noble personalities surrounded by their followers.

Figure 4. Traditional Space organization of Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC).

Generally, each of the settlements is clustered as a colony surrounding their respective superiors. Their spatial organization is organic, assuming a circular pattern. The functional entities found in each colony seem similar except for the hierarchy amongst every one of the different clusters. Various additional uses are organized over time by following the streets and key locations between the intermediate and outer rings. This is also repeated in a similar pattern, but to a lesser extent, in between the inner ring and the intermediate rings.

Therefore, it is important to note here that the palace and the churches have a central and pivotal role in the urban form of Ethiopian urban centers. It seems that first the natural environment and then the organization of the palace of the military chief, the church, as well as the different camps established by the rulers at different ladders, governed the form of the early Ethiopian urban centers. Their morphology at a macro level could be represented by a series of concentric circles representing the different government hierarchical signatories that decreases from the inner to outward. At a macrolevel, their morphology could be represented by a series of concentric circles representing the various government hierarchical signatories, decreasing from the inner to the outer. At the micro-level, similar to the macro-level, the circular pattern is dominant, where the local chiefs are surrounded by the settlements of their followers, where there would be lots of such settlements depending on the importance of the chief in a clustered manner. This is a quite common tradition in the morphogenesis of northern and central Ethiopian urban areas and is considered an established philosophy for the modeling of the morphology of urban centers in Ethiopia. However, the impact and reflection of this philosophy are not analyzed from the viewpoint of urban forms in other areas of the country, which have many scholarly and practical implications. This, along with the limited study coverage of Ethiopian urban studies, is regarded as a research gap to which we attempt to contribute in some way.

3. Methodology

This section illustrates the method used in this study and the data, along with a brief description of the study area. The study method preferred to use is a case study method whereby a qualitative comparison analysis technique is employed to distinguish the urban form nature of the early morphological setup of Dire Dawa with that of its northern and central Ethiopian counterparts. It is primarily qualitative in nature, since it examines qualitative phenomena, such as those involving or relating to quality or kind (Kothari, 2004). Additionally, such investigations enable the integration of fieldwork and a detailed examination of historical archives (Yin, 2015).

3.1 Study area

Dire Dawa, as indicated in Figure 5, is a city found at the eastern edge of Ethiopia. It is found at a driving distance of 452 km east of Addis Ababa, 50 km north of Harar city, and 313 km west of the Djibouti Republic. It has a dry, warm climate with relatively little rainfall. It presently serves as a significant economic, industrial, and transportation center in Ethiopia’s eastern area (Gebreyesus, 2019). It is in the vanguard of cities that are quickly developing and is playing a significant role at both the national and regional levels.

Figure 5. Location Map of the study sites Kezira and Megala in Dire Dawa.

Source: Dire Dawa city administration

Dire Dawa was established by Ras Mekonen in 1902 (Gebreyesus, 2019) with the goal of functioning as an intermediate maintenance and inspection station for the Ethio-Djibouti Railway (Wolde-Michael, 1973). It is presently the country’s second biggest city, behind the capital Addis Ababa (UN-Habitat, 2008; Worldometer, 2022), and it is the only chartered city in Ethiopia next to the capital (Łykowska, 2011). In 1902, sixteen years after Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa was founded as part of the Addis-Djibouti rail route, where it has functioned as a station ever since. The city’s founding and growth are inextricably linked to the ‘Compagnie Impériale des Chemins de Fer Ethiopiens’ railway company (Bekele, 1978), whose construction work started in October 1897 and reached Dire Dawa in 1902 (Bekele, 1991).

During its early growth, a palace and St. Mikael Orthodox Church were erected on higher ground than the surrounding area (Gebreyesus, 2019), giving it a similar backdrop to the rest of northern and central Ethiopia’s towns at the time. This made the city an excellent case study for comparing the morphological events that occurred during its early growth to the theorized idea of Ethiopian urban form tradition.

Such studies could be investigated on a micro-level (Whitehand et al., 1999) or on a macro-level with varied territorial attributions (Raimbault, 2019). In this research, which sought to show the morphological development of Dire Dawa, both micro and macro levels of analysis were used, depending on the topic area and context.

The city of Dire Dawa has evolved in the neighborhoods of Kezira and Megala. The two neighborhoods namely Kezira and Megala, were the first to be formed, giving rise to the current city of Dire Dawa. These settlements are divided by a wadi (dry river) called the river Dechatu (Bekele, 1978). For a better understanding of their morphogenesis, the following sections discuss the establishment scenarios of each of these neighborhoods. See, Figure 5.

According to Bekele (1978), Dire Dawa had a remarkable growth rate at the initial stage. The native population was estimated to be around 3,000 people as early as April 1903. The population rose steadily. In the early 1930s, the figure would be in the range of 10 to 15 thousand, and in the early forty’s, it would be above fifteen thousand. The Ethiopian population had grown to 17,000 people by the time of the Italian occupation.

3.2 Data collection

The study’s database is mostly comprised of historic development data, since such spatial-based historical research enables the assessment of earlier events or concepts via the use of historical sources such as documents, relics, and other artifacts at any point in time (Kothari, 2004). Apart from the fact that the components that comprise urban form are always being modified and replaced, it can only be comprehended historically (Moudon, 1997). Some parts of the plans may not have been implemented, so relying only on the old plans may not be feasible. As a result, supplementing the maps with historical aerial pictures will undoubtedly make a significant contribution. Aside from them, a physical assessment of the physical setting of the case areas was conducted in order to gain a better knowledge of the city’s actual morphology, as well as its changing pattern and underlying factors that make a reconstruction of the older urban form conceivable.

When establishing urban morphological limits, according to M.R.G. Conzen (1960), the sequence and content of an area’s cultural eras may be regarded as a morphological period for geographical research, since each epoch leaves distinct material imprints in the landscape. The city’s morphological periods have been split into three eras (Zelelew & Mamo, 2022) based on the distinct administrative periods, with the idea that the administrative periods induce their own planning philosophy and, as a result, leave their own development trace. On this basis, the early development era of the city encompasses the period from 1902 until 1941. Apart from this, Weber (2003) said that other criteria addressing the contiguousness of built-up zones, such as the urban and non-urban land classifications, would be employed. For this research, where time refers to the city of Dire Dawa’s initial development, morphological limits are established based on the river Dechatu’s natural boundary, which separates the city into two neighborhoods. The lateral limits are bounded based on the contagious built-up zones of the city limit in that period of development. On this premise, a comparison is drawn between these two portions of the city and the northern and central Ethiopian morphological tradition.

Cities, according to Conzen, are a product of the historical process. As a result, he argued that all cultural processes that contribute to a city’s present status, particularly in places with a strong historical foundation, should be investigated (Conzen, 1960). Conzen’s seminal contribution to town-plan analysis is often considered the pinnacle of the urban morphological research tradition, and he is frequently regarded as the most influential researcher in British urban morphology (Larkham & Conzen, 2014). Conzen’s thesis included the town plan, the building fabric, and the structure and use of land, and it highlighted the most fundamental characteristics of urban form (Conzen, 1960; Larkham, 2006; Larkham & Conzen, 2014). This research analyzes the land use, street pattern and building fabrics to acquire a better knowledge of Dire Dawa’s early morphology.

The availability, prudent use, and accurate documentation of source material all have a significant impact on the quality of a research project. The materials are used to recreate historical events (Mcdowell, 2013), with historical maps and documents being the most important. Yin contends that maps may depict the topography of an area and so qualify as historical data (Yin, 2015), allowing for historical study (Sileyew, 2019). Thus, this research utilized maps depicting the city of Dire Dawa’s early history to examine the city’s morphogenesis.

The process for comparing the maps entails georeferencing the historical maps using a geographic information systems (GIS) platform, which has long been acknowledged as a standard tool (Gregory & Ell, 2005). This platform enables the digitalization of georeferenced historical maps and subsequent investigation of the city’s morphology as defined by its land use, buildings, and street patterns. Arc GIS 10.4 has been used to georeference the maps based on the 2007 base map and aerial photo of the city using features that are prominently visible on both the old map and the 2007 spatial data base.

The maps include a 1902 plan of the city that includes just the Kezira sector and was acquired from the city’s historical archives, as well as a 1936 plan developed by the Italians during their occupation of Ethiopia that encompasses both the Kezira and Megala districts. Additionally, base maps and aerial photographs acquired in 2007 were used to georeference the older maps and to rectify as well as recreate the characteristics that existed in Kezira and Megala throughout the city’s foundation era. This era encompasses the years from the city’s early establishment (1902) until the withdrawal of the Italians (1941). It was not possible to collect city base maps for the stated time period that accurately depicted the then-current occurrences. Therefore, images obtained during the growing process, historical documents, and old plans of the case sites are utilized to fill in the gaps.

3.3 Data analysis

In urban form studies, Scheer has suggested that the most popular comparison approaches are to compare two locations that exist at nearly the same time (synchronic) or to compare the same location at different times (diachronic; Scheer, 2017). The importance of both alternatives is dependent on the available data and the proposed comparison. In this study, the researchers opted to employ both alternatives while taking the situations into account. Thus, we conducted a diachronic comparison analysis of the research area’s urban form features with those of Ethiopia’s northern and central urban morphological traditions.

In addition to the diachronic method, because the research compares the two case areas to the northern and central Ethiopian urban morphology traditions, it will touch on the two instances in some way. In this respect, the study case regions are produced in accordance with various urban development backdrops with reference to formal planning acts; nevertheless, it is preferable to view the situation from a synchronic analysis viewpoint at the same time. As a result, these contextual distinctions may allow for two alternative approaches to the issue.

4. Results and discussion

4.1 Morphogenesis of Dire Dawa

4.1.1 Kezira

Kezira refers to a neighborhood that stretches from the railway station to the Dechatu wadi, which covers about seventy-two hectares. Kezira is a corrupted form of the Arabic term ‘Gezira’, which means ‘island’. This was one of the initial spots for Dire Dawa’s transformation into a modern metropolis (Bekele, 1978). Kezira has accommodated distinct functions apart from residential buildings, including the Dire Dawa Palace, St. Mikael Church of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity followers, the train terminal, administration services, and commercial premises.

Through an agreement with the Ethiopian government, the railway corporation was granted administration of the Kezira area, which extends 500 meters from the railway station to the Dechatu dry riverbed. The corporation has introduced a leasehold land transfer in Kezira for the lease period duration, which in 1908 was 99 years, which is the first of its kind in the nation’s land transfer modalities (Bekele, 1978; Gebreyesus, 2019). The land was granted to the leaseholder for the duration of the lease, with a year to build a house on it and strict follow-up for the adherence of each development with the master plan (Bekele, 1978). While the nation was governed by Ethiopians, there were certain limits on Indigenous people entering the Kezira area, which exhibits colonial settlement practices (Bekele, 1978; Gebreyesus, 2019; Haile, 2002).

The Dire Dawa palace was built with the help of Ras Mekonen during the reign of Emperor Menelik II in 1904–05 in a hilly area in comparison to the surrounding area. It was designed for the royal families by a Turkish architect. As indicated in Figure 6 (left), the palace is positioned on one of the most picturesque views in Kezira, thanks to its outstanding architectural features (Dire Dawa City Administration, 2017). In addition to the Royal Palace, St. Mikael Church is found in very close proximity to the palace occupying an elevated ground similar to the palace. See, Figure 6 (right). Records have shown that the St. Michael Orthodox Church is the first religious institution, having been founded in the early period of the first decade of the twentieth century by Ras Mekonen’s troops (Gebreyesus, 2019). Both the royal palace and the church are incorporated as part of Dire Dawa’s first master plan, prepared during 1902. As can be noted from Table 1, the church and the palace have been developed during the early establishment period of Dire Dawa. In addition, the topographic location of the area in which the church and the palace are constructed is on higher ground than their surroundings.

Figure 6. Picture of Dire Dawa Palace, Gibi (left), and St. Mikael Church (right).

Source: https://www.ebay.com/itm/351905100701 and www.deicampe.net respectively

Table 1. List of characteristics of urban form traits and their results from context of Dire Dawa.

Conzonian Urban form elements	Characteristics of the Northern and Central Ethiopian indigenous Urban Form Tradition	Megala	Kezira
Land use pattern	Similarity in land use amongst the colonies deferring in hierarchy which gradually transformed	No hierarchical structure but similarity in land use pattern	No hierarchical structure and has varied land use zoning
Street Pattern	Circular street pattern – organic in nature	Dominantly organic and not circular pattern	Radial and gridiron pattern
Buildings and settlement pattern	Clustered colony of settlements at macro level	No	No
	Buildings clustered in colony at micro level	Developed haphazardly but latter form a courtyard type of contagious buildings	Buildings are organized with in the planned blocks in villa type
	Church and palace (gibi) at central pivotal point	No church and gibi	There is palace and church next to each other
	Churches and palace (gibi) took the higher ground	No	Yes

The land use plan of the city as one of the urban form elements to be used for the comparative analysis has been assessed. The land use plan reconstructed from the first plan of the city developed in 1902, indicates various land uses assignments of Kezira area. See, Figure 7 (left). This plan is evidenced by the fact that there is a zoning regulation where there are residences, services, administrations, a public plaza, and commerce and business. These functions are assigned by obtaining their plots, which are typically distinct blocks. The plan, as indicated in Figure 7 (left), emphasized the entrance of the train terminal by placing a spacious plaza, signifying its basic contribution to the creation of the city. Commercial functions are located on blocks placed at a close distance from the entrance of the train terminal, following the streets radiating from the plaza at the entrance of the station to the Dechatu dry river wadi. All the commercial and administrative service functions are located in a place where the radiating streets from the entrance of the station could access them, which gave the train station a higher prominence, which is a planning tradition of European train stations as centers of cities. Thus, as indicated in Table 1, this area exhibits different land uses governed by land use zoning.

Figure 7. Land use of Kezira (left), Street pattern system of the same area (right).

Source: authors own compilation based on the plan developed in 1902 obtained from the city administration planning department

The other urban form element to be considered is the street pattern system. As can be seen in Table 1, it exhibited a combination of radial and grid, making the train station a focal point. Five radiating streets stretch from the train terminal plaza, emphasizing the station’s entrance and glorifying its significance as an interesting node. Except for the route directed from Dechatu north-eastward towards the train station entrance, which is eighteen meters wide, most of the roadways, as shown in Figure 7 (right), including the roads accessing the palace, are planned to be fifteen meters wide. Besides, there are five streets that radiate outward from the plaza of the train station, found at its main entrance. The roadways are also designed to include street-side trees, which serve as iconic legibility marking elements for the city when specifying the area of Kezira.

The streets defined the blocks, as indicated in Figure 8 (left) and are mostly 60 m by 70 m and 70 m by 110 m in size. The block sizes allow for alternate access along a route at short trip intervals while keeping in mind the 500-meter rule of thumb as a reasonable walking distance (Cervero, 2005; Fonseca et al., 2022). This might foster pedestrianization, which is a result of a contemporary urban planning tradition. There is no other city of the nation that has exhibited such type of road characterization in this period which made Dire Dawa unique in exhibiting the grid pattern. The partial view of the site from an aerial photo is indicated in Figure 9 left and right.

Figure 8. Block arrangement of Kezira (left), and building organization of the same area (right).

Source: authors own compilation based on the plan developed in 1902 obtained from the city administration planning department

Figure 9. Partial ariel view of Kezira, Commercial and Service areas (left) and Residential areas (right).

Source: Dire Dawa Culture and Tourism Bureau

Trees were planted by the corporation themselves along the well-kept roadways. In their compounds, the leaseholders were supposed to grow trees and nurture gardens. The business made certain that they fulfilled their responsibilities. In the end, the result was a lovely district with residences and buildings surrounded by large trees and gardens, as well as straight roads bordered with trees whose canopies passed over each other at their tops to form a natural vegetation roof along the routes. The shade created by the trees gave wonderful protection from the scorching heat. These made evening strolls along the relatively large roadways quite enjoyable.

The other urban form element left to be considered is the building fabric. The building organization of Kezira, as shown in Figure 8 (right), has revealed that there are lots of open spaces surrounding the buildings. Most of the buildings in this area are either villa types or attached duplexes as indicated in Figure 9 right, while there are some that exhibit a courtyard type of development, especially those that serve other functions than a residence with two stories as can be seen in Figure 9 left. The buildings have large setbacks and are located nearly at the center of the plots where the rest of the front and back yards are to be used for plantations, which was an obligation set by the railway company to be fulfilled by every developer. This has been used as a strategy to combat the hot climate of the city. In general, the building organization of Kezira reflects the realization of formal planning interventions.

4.1.2 Megala

Magala is the other section of Dire Dawa’s early two neighborhoods located to the east of the Dechatu dry riverbed. The term ‘Magala’ means ‘town’ in Somali and Oromo languages. This area, covering about sixty-one hectares, is currently bounded to the west by the Dechatu wadi, to the north and south by two local markets, named Taiwan and Qefera, respectively, and to the east by the city’s largest cemetery, which is a Muslim cemetery.

There are some who claim that Megala was an early settlement before the establishment of Kezira (Gebreyesus, 2019), while others propagate that both the Kezira and Megala neighborhoods were developed at the same time; however, Megala is commonly referred to as ‘old town’ in tourist brochures, although development on the Kezira side began at the same time (Haile, 2002).

The administration of the Megala area was managed by Ethiopians. However, this does not mean that foreigners were not part of Megala’s residents. Numerous foreigners came from various parts of the world. Arabs from Yemen, Indians, Armenians, Israelis, and Indigenous peoples are among the residents. The presence of Mosques, a Jewish temple, and Hindu cremation spaces in this location demonstrates this diversity. Interviews revealed that it is common to call Megala ‘the colorful city’ amongst people working in the tourism industry due to this varied mix of population coupled with the color contrast emitted from the colorful dressings of the residents and the coatings of the exterior walls of their buildings.

The presence of a palace or a lower-tiered administration on a relatively higher ground, coupled with a church, is the first urban form element considered for this comparative analysis. However, as shown in Table 1, there are no gibi on higher ground and no Church in Megala during its early development period.

The other Conzonian urban form elements to be assessed is the land use system of the area. The land use pattern of the site, as indicated in Figure 10 (left) during its early development period, promotes mixed functions at the block and even parcel levels. A building in a parcel has both residential as well as either service or commercial functions. The buildings, in most cases, are serving a mixed function where the frontage is being used for commerce while the backyard in the case of one-story buildings and the upper stories on the two-story buildings serve for residential use which reflects, as indicated in Table 1, a similar type of function with some variability following main streets.

Figure 10. Land use of Megala (left), Street pattern system of the same area (right).

Source: reconstructed based on the plan developed in 1936 and images taken from airplanes during 1920s obtained from the city administration planning department

Assessing the street pattern system as one element of urban form as depicted in Figure 10 (right), they are narrow, winding, and organic, which indicates that the area is spontaneously developed. The buildings aligned along the streets with small setbacks help to define the street environment. Besides, the block organization of Megala, which is defined by the street system, lacks a distinct character. Figure 11 (left) shows that there are small, square-like blocks in some sections, large and triangular blocks in others, and irregularly shaped blocks of varied sizes in still other parts of Megala. This reaffirms the lack of plan-led development and strict enforcement of rules where organic development is the prevailing force.

Figure 11. Block arrangement of Megala (left), and building organization of the same area.

Source: reconstructed based on the plan developed in 1936 and images taken from airplanes during 1920s obtained from the city administration planning department

The other urban form element left to be considered next to the land use plan, the street pattern, and the block arrangement is the building fabric of the area, as illustrated in Figure 11 (right). The buildings of Megala, which are shaped by the blocks, are oriented towards the streets at the edges of the roads. The buildings are contiguous and are crammed together, sharing walls with neighboring properties and creating a space in between the buildings as a courtyard. This is used as a strategy to manage the hot climate.

In general, the morphology of this part of Dire Dawa has evolved organically where it has not benefited from the guidance of modern urban planning efforts. See, Figure 12. Despite some form of urban planning, Magala’s streets remained tiny, not always straight, and exhibited a tree-branch-like street network with the steam from Dechatu Wadi Bridge. The site’s land use accommodated a more diverse mix of functions, adorned by contagious buildings arranged along the streets’ edges.

Figure 12. Partial ariel view of Megala.

Source: Dire Dawa Culture and Tourism Bureau

Morphological comparison

Kezira and Megala, the two neighborhoods where the city of Dire Dawa has evolved, have distinct natures in their spatial organization. To begin with, the Kezira area’s land and building usage is governed by a strict zoning code that prohibits mixed-use development on either a building or land level. On the other hand, when it comes to the land use structure of the Megala area, it is a mixed style of development that accommodates functional mix at both the building and land use levels. When compared to the morphological tradition of northern and central Ethiopian urban centers, Megala area’s land use somehow resembles to it in the sense that it reflects a similar type of land use in its entirety. While coming to the context of Kezira however, it has little in common with this morphological discourse reflecting a strict land use zoning of distinct functions at various parts of it.

According to Ethiopian morphological tradition, the progressive filling of the space between the concentric circle colonies begins with filling the space between the intermediate and outer circle, which has then gone on to fill the gap between the inner and intermediate circles (Alem, 2016; Crummey, 2003; Wolde-Michael, 1973). These developments have also indicated that there were mixity of different uses in an area circling the noble gibis forming colonies of their own. Various experts have promoted the value of mixed usage at various times (DeLisle & Grissom, 2013; Frank & Pivo, 1994; Ghosh & Raval, 2021; Grant, 2002; Tong & Wong, 1997). The combination of varied uses seen in Megala is akin to the morphological tradition of northern and central Ethiopian cities and would benefit greatly from this context, although Kezira is unique.

Regarding the building organization of the Ethiopian morphological tradition and the two neighborhoods that make up Dire Dawa, Megala’s buildings are arranged in a contagious fashion, with shared walls and courtyards at the plots’ centers. Furthermore, two-story buildings are widespread along the streets of higher significance, and one-story structures are prominent along the other routes. The structures in Kezira, on the other hand, are grouped in an isolated or villa-like fashion, which may result in less compact growth, unlike the clustered colonies of settlements and clustered buildings in the northern and central Ethiopian morphological tradition. There are still commercial structures that have courtyard types. From this aspect, the two case areas differed from the considered morphological tradition due to the absence of the Palace or its subsidiary and the Church while Kezira’s buildings are not patterned to follow the palace and the Church as pivotal entities due the reason that they were highly influenced by the plan of the city that did not consider the indigenous urban morphologic tradition.

The street pattern of the two case areas, similar to the building patterns, does not resemble the early urban morphologic tradition of the northern and central Ethiopian urban centers. Narrow, zigzag, tree branch-like streets, compact urban clusters, and tiny urban blocks are the common features of the street system of the Megala area, and thus it lacks the essential characteristics of urban design such as repetition, symmetry, rhythm, and alignment (Alobaydi & Rashid, 2015). Kezira, on the other hand, has wide streets decorated with street trees exhibiting a mix of radial and gridiron pattern structure, which reflects the essential urban design characteristics indicated. Here also, the expected concentric circular patterns of street are not reflected in both scenarios, which made the city’s street pattern different from the urban form tradition of northern and central Ethiopian cities.

There were some fertile grounds that could allow the city to develop in a way that resembled the urban form of northern and central Ethiopian cities, according to the morphological discourse. For instance, the Dire Dawa palace was built on a higher topography than the surrounding area, and the St. Mikael church was erected on a similar elevation near the palace at the same period. This implies that a fertile ground was established early in the city’s history for a similar urban form philosophy to that of northern and central Ethiopia. The Dire Dawa palace and the St. Michael church, however, are not surrounded by other settlement colonies of lower tiers of the government. This is a deviation from the developing theoretical model of the northern and central Ethiopian cities. Rather, it was heavily impacted by the city’s master plan, which regulated its expansion, and the railway development corporation’s lease system. The street patterns allow for the station’s main entrance to be accessed by five radiating streets. These indicate that the train station was more important than the royal palace or the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, EOC. Furthermore, Kezira’s settlement tradition excluded indigenous peoples, which would have contributed to its preservation of contemporary European urban forms.

Megala’s development, on the contrary, is influenced by the society’s higher social mix, which includes people from many cultural backgrounds. Unlike in Kezira, numerous immigrant populations have coexisted with the locals in the Megala neighborhood. As a result of the lack of proper urban planning efforts, the social mix resulted in an organically generated colorful, active, mixed neighborhood that lacked a pivotal point around which the settlements could be arranged but was still vastly different from the implied indigenous urban form philosophy.

The analysis shows that the spatial organization of Megala and Kezira differs significantly from the traditional morphological philosophy of northern and central Ethiopia’s early towns, exhibiting a different context though they do have few in common. The first was an organically evolved area of the city that accommodated individuals from many cultural backgrounds, while the second was a leasehold plan-led development that strictly followed the railway company’s design and neglected the indigenous urban form discourse. As a result, both settlement neighborhoods have their own distinct character, which differs from the urban form philosophy that Ethiopian cities in the north and center regions exhibited while they were evolving.

Conclusion

We cannot ignore the importance of introducing new knowledge and practices and profiting from their achievements. It is also critical to analyse indigenous knowledge and philosophy, appraise its importance and shortcomings, and try to gain from the significant side while reversing the downside in some way. Apart from the considerable benefits it may provide, it would enhance identity pride as well as the conservation and redevelopment of indigenous urban form philosophy.

According to the findings of the comparison research, the development scenarios of the two early portions of Dire Dawa; Megala and Kezira, displayed different development models from the urban form philosophy of northern and central Ethiopian towns. There are certain features that they do share in specific contexts, but they mostly differ from that concept, highlighting potential opportunities for additional research in other cities in this region of the country.

Contemporary developments shall consider the legacy of earlier urbanization practices and learn from them. Mixed land use, which is becoming the slogan of the current urban planning exercise is a legacy of the indigenous developments which would also be a case in other traditionally developed areas of cities elsewhere. It would thus be good to consider this scenario in further developments and redevelopment schemes of urban areas so that the urban areas could retain their local character and historical urban form heritage.

Finally, Ethiopia’s alarming rate of urbanization is pressing for the renovation of portions of existing cities, in addition to their extension and proliferation into newly formed urban areas. The establishment of new cities and the reconstruction and extension of existing urban quarters must take into account the identity and conservation aspects of the local urban form philosophy and urban form features in the current urban pattern. As a result, there will be a well-managed morphological shift that will integrate substantial new ideologies with existing local expertise without resulting in an unfavorable outcome. This, as a result, requires the identification of the earlier morphological characteristics of the cities under consideration. Consequently, the study area’s recognized morphological traits will play a vital role in urban planning and urban design practices through heritage preservation in urban redevelopment and expansion interventions.

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to those who assisted us, though they are numerous to mention their names here, in the successful completion of this work.