Mombasa.
As East Africa's second-largest city, Mombasa's prosperity was in no way inferior to Dar es Salaam's, and in recent years the gap between the two cities had grown ever smaller.
This was also related to their differing development paths. Although Dar es Salaam faced the risk of being overtaken by Mombasa, the urban districts of First Town, Soga City, and Bagamoyo city around Dar es Salaam had in practice already merged into one continuous expanse with it, and industrial coordination had largely been put into place.
Besides these, Pemba Island, Zanzibar Island, and Tanga City also fell within Dar es Salaam's economic circle.
This had created an urban cluster along the East African East Coast centered on Dar es Salaam city, with a population across its covered cities approaching three million.
Mombasa, on the other hand, was a single-core city, with a population of around 1.4 million, slightly lower than Dar es Salaam city's.
Of course, on a nationwide scale, the population growth rates of Dar es Salaam and Mombasa had not actually been especially fast in recent years.
That was because over the past decade or so, East Africa's investment focus had been in the west, while in recent years it had shifted toward supporting the Great Lakes Region and the south.
This pancake-spreading style of urban development had also meant that East Africa had yet to produce a major city with a population exceeding two million.
That was rather unusual among the world powers. London in Britain had a population exceeding seven million; New York in the United States had more than five million; Chicago also had more than two million; Berlin in Germany was nearing four million; Paris in France was nearing three million; while Vienna in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Moscow in Russia both stood