Culture
How Do You Put a Price Tag on a Brand New City?
South Sudan tries to estimate the costs of building Ramciel.
The infant nation of South Sudan has a big construction project in mind. Officials are hoping to build a brand new city to act as its capital. The cost of the project was recently estimated at $940 million.
South Sudan already has a capital, of sorts. Juba had long been the regional center of government before Sudan split into two countries last July. But because of Juba's hectic and crowded urban form, the new government decided it needed a new city to play the capital. Last September, a new site was selected in Ramciel, near the geographic center of the country.