Blogging in Uganda (Part 8): Kampala.ver

If you have never been to Kampala let me spare you the suspense; it is a poorly planned city and there is little to see in the way of architecture. The good news though is that there is a blogger who is trying to do something about this.

Kampala.ver is a blog by a Ugandan architect living and working in the capital. He has been blogging about the city since November of last year and could be one of the most important bloggers in Uganda in 2008 if he can stay the course.

Using a combination of technical drawings, Google Earth, great photographs and good old-fashioned wit, he manages to make a typically dull subject entertaining. So far this month he has praised the Nissan dealership on Jinja Road, ridiculed the NRM's plans for a party headquarters in the city, and presented a very articulate and well-illustrated argument for a southern ring road to ease the congestion in Kampala.

But more than presentation, there is a real need to applaud the purpose here. For many people living in Kampala, the city's congestion and numerous slums are a matter for the city's councilors and their bureaucrats. Critiquing their decisions is often left to the media, whose analyses are only debated in passing at the local pub. The general consensus: nothing is ever going to change.

The blogger himself (he goes by the moniker Filoug) is not all that optimistic. He keeps his very best posts in a "Dream on" category. Still if he can stay the course and work on syndicating his cotent then he might soon have an audience made up of Kampala's young urban elite. They are the ones with access to the Internet, and therefore the most likely to find and frequent this blog. They also have the desire to buy the cars and build the houses and live in a vibrant sprawling city. That would be a fitting audience for such a pundit.

There is no doubt that the city needs this intelligent and entertaining voice. One hopes that the City Council is paying attention. We all know they need all the help they can get.