Speaking of Mombasa City, its development had indeed far exceeded Ernst's expectations, though on reflection, that was only natural.
Mombasa's economic development chiefly relied on the Northern Railway, while the western part of northern East Africa had no outlet to the sea and instead bordered the colonies of countries such as Belgium and France.
This meant that the entire Northern Railway was top-heavy and bottom-light, with its foreign trade relying almost entirely on Mombasa, a single port city.
In contrast, along the Central Railway, where Dar es Salaam City was located, Dar es Salaam faced far more competition. Bagamoyo City and New Hamburg City could both claim a share of the pie. Especially as the East African Railway Network became increasingly complete, Port of Beira, Cabinda, Benguela, Port of Luanda, and others could all bypass Dar es Salaam City.
More importantly, many of those routes even cost less than going through Dar es Salaam City. Unlike Mombasa, which had almost monopolized most import and export business across northern East Africa, Mogadishu, Kismayo, and Lamu Port in the north could not compete with Mombasa and could only serve very small areas.
Land transport clearly could not gain an advantage over maritime shipping. Moreover, aside from the Abyssinian Empire, none of East Africa's northern neighbors amounted to much, while the colonial economies of the various countries in West Africa were even more dismal.
Of course, although Dar es Salaam City lacked Mombasa's monopolistic advantage, it remained the fastest route to the sea for most of the East African Highlands. Therefore, the East African government had always placed great importance on Dar es Salaam City.
The proposal for a Dar es Salaam City Cluster was, in fact, because Dar es Salaam City's development had now entered a bottleneck.
As East Africa's most developed