Dar Es Salaam - Culture

Culture

See also: Culture of Tanzania

Downtown Dar es Salaam includes many small businesses, many of which are run by traders and proprietors whose families originated from the Middle East and Indian sub-continent — areas of the world with which the settlements of the Tanzanian coast have had long-standing trading relations. During the daytime the heavy weight of traffic, office workers, busy merchants, street vendors and restaurateurs of the area lend it a frenetic and slightly claustrophobic air. However, after nightfall the area is relatively quiet as much of the city's nightlife is located in more residential districts away from the city's mainly commercial centre.

The sprawling suburbs furthest from the city centre are generally populated by Tanzanians of African descent, with the exception of Oyster Bay, where there is a large population of foreign expatriates. Although there is no racial hostility, the various ethnic communities of Dar es Salaam do not tend to mix heavily. The edges of Dar es Salaam are spreading rapidly, severely taxing the transportation network (which aside from ferries, lacks any kind of mass transit facilities) and raising the prospect of future urban overcrowding.

Read more about this topic:  Dar Es Salaam

Famous quotes containing the word culture:

    “Both cultures encourage innovation and experimentation, but are likely to reject the innovator if his innovation is not accepted by audiences. High culture experiments that are rejected by audiences in the creator’s lifetime may, however, become classics in another era, whereas popular culture experiments are forgotten if not immediately successful. Even so, in both cultures innovation is rare, although in high culture it is celebrated and in popular culture it is taken for granted.”
    —Herbert J. Gans (b. 1927)

    “I’ve finally figured out why soap operas are, and logically should be, so popular with generations of housebound women. They are the only place in our culture where grown-up men take seriously all the things that grown-up women have to deal with all day long.”
    —Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)

    “The treatment of African and African American culture in our education was no different from their treatment in Tarzan movies.”
    —Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)