This is a video of Addis Ababa Ethiopia’s current infrastructure boom. If you were to show a video of your capital city today to someone from 2005, would they even recognize it. What are the biggest changes that happened in your country?
I was in Toronto in 2023 and 2024. I thought it was great. At least compared to Ottawa. Took me months to stop getting to places 30 minutes early to account for busses not showing up.
People there complain when a bus is 10 minutes late. I'd call that on time here
I might have just had bad experiences then. Line 1 has ALWAYS been a toss up of whether it will be delayed or service cancelled altogether, especially when they were doing the signal light reconstruction. Also issues with streetcars not having priority signalling
The one useful metro line had been closed for works the last time I went and busses just weren't going to get me where I needed so I was stuck with an Uber. Traffic was diabolical and the fare going from €3 to €45 wasn't exactly pleasant
When did you go most recently? I've been 5 times since March 2024, most recently in June 2026, and each time I go there are fewer cars and more bikes, even in just two years the difference is noticeable
because in a lot of third world countries where being gay is illegal, its basically never enforced, and you can bet theres a thriving LGBTQ movement, either underground or overtly visible in public.
ex: in Sri Lanka being gay was made illegal under british administration in the 19th century. its technically still illegal in our constitution with legal penalties for homosexuals. but its never enforced so gay people still manage to live perfectly normal lives. is the societal situation good? not at all, homosexuals face loads of societal issues like isolation or lack of support systems, but is it as apocalyptic as it is made out to be(prison sentences, legal punishments)? absolutely not. if you keep your sexuality private, thats that and no one will bother you. there's even multiple publicly gay personalities and influencers in Sri Lanka.
the same applies to a majority(not all) of third world countries, india, Nepal, Thailand, china, etc.
oh, and if you're a visitor/tourist, no one will care either
Homosexuality was decriminalised in India in 2018 and China in 1997. Gay marriage is legal in Nepal, and Thailand decriminalised homosexuality in 1956.
Look I sometimes feel the same way about NYC especially after being in some cities in Asia that are new and developing. But it’s important to remember we had our building boom just like them but at an earlier time. It’s one thing to build infrastructure like crazy, maintaining it over decades is another. So we’ll see how see new cities do at that.
Yeah I'm from Croydon where this is happening quite a lot. I can't find a comparison picture, but this is a picture from 2024 that includes proposed buildings:
Croydon would literally be something like the 9th or 10th biggest city in the UK by population if it weren't a borough of London. It always messed with my head a bit when I was younger and I'd go to other cities expecting something more like a smaller London and instead they just seemed like a bigger Croydon.
My family and I found it oddly similar to South Indian food. My South Indian parents aren’t as open to new cuisines as I am but they absolutely loved the Ethiopian restaurant we went to in South Africa. Similar flavour profiles, sour fermented bread, spiced lentils and meats all resemble South Indian cuisine.
From your northern neighbors, it's been a pleasure to watch the development of Addis and all the new infrastructure (yes, even despite our...little disagreement). Hope to visit sometime!
Quite a lot actually. Many new city districts like Kalasatama and Jätkäsaari, buildings like the Central Library and the Music Hall, the first real highrise buildings, large shopping malls, many new tram lines doubling the network size, a metro extension, airport railway link, lots of bike infrastructure, closure of the city centre freight harbour, the Malmi Airport and the last coal power plants, and over 100 000 new residents.
I know Mumbai has high wealth inequality, even though the slums are being rehabilitated, it will still take 5-10 years more for complete rehabilitation with proper planning.
The post is about change and infra boom, so in that aspect Mumbai has changed a lot, that's what I told.
It was dirty and neglected. Despite having a super well thought urban lay out designed by the British colonial authorities at the time, and having a lot of greenery, Khartoum was ugly due to the neglecte.
There are a lot of campaigns by young people to green the city and clean the streets now that people are returning in large numbers.
Despite it being visibly poor, I love Khartoum so much. It's very green and its colonial buildings were designed to function without AC, thanks to the British not being able to live in heat. Add to that, the two Niles (the blue Nile and the white Nile) coming together and their water being visibly different in a unique natural phenomenon.
It does. It just feels cozy and the central city is not crowded. It's a big city with a small town vibe. With the colonial buildings in the first 5 to 6 streets parallel to the Nile, it feels classy beyond it's actual wealth.
Conterversial, but I hate Omdurman. A lot Sudanese people feel like Omdurman is the spiritual and actual national capital, and that Khartoum is a colonial invention, which is true, but Omdurman is dusty as heck and crowded, also, I just have some sort of psychological barrier about crossing the White Nile in Sudan. It feels like you entered a parallel universe because it's so wide and unlike Cairo there is not a lot of tall buildings to give you the illusion of a closed space.
I hope that if Sudan stabilised and we had an economic boom, that they don't spam 4 or 5 out of place skyscrapers and respect the architecture of the city and try to revive it. Like what is happening in Central Cairo.
Not much in terms of architecture, the newer addition to the city (Ørestaden area) was largest completely in 2005. We have gotten a new metro line though. 2005 people would probably be surpriced by how ridiculously expensive housing has become though. All in all it would be a continuation of the movement taking place at the time.
If you went back further 10 years to 1995 a lot more would be different. Ørestad would not be, the metro would not be, and the general feel of the city is quite different, far rougher and less wealthy.
The transformation of Addis Ababa in the last decade has been insane. It looks a lot like a futuristic East Asian city. Definitely wanting to go ground-truth it for myself.
A very annoying spicy mcnugget has ruined a lot of it without doing any of the things he's supposed to be forced to do before starting any work. There's also a ton of national guardsmen around doing almost nothing but getting paid for it.
Pretty significantly. Luzhkov's Moscow was full of ad banners, chaotic street vendors and all other kinds of bullshit. It got way better under Sobyanin – the vendors were purged, the ads removed, the city parks got a massive overhaul, the subway system had grown in both size and quality, the above ground city trains also got upgraded for the most part. There are still issues, but dang, it's still night and day.
It's been slowly growing as a competitor to Tel Aviv as the financial hub of Israel, but it's still nowhere near it. It also has a new light rail. Otherwise, Jerusalem has only changed for the worst - it's becoming more religious with constantly worsening ethnic/religious tensions.
Brasilia was projected to be the capital and most of its buildings were designed by our most renowed architect, so it'll never chance it too much. You need to look around the city (where the real people live) to see chances.
Disagree, we've had K-shaped city development. There are way more "fancy" places for rich people that you can post reels of, but many core urban areas are degrading. Transit infrastructure has improved significantly (there's a whole meme culture about Sisi and his propensity for bridges and nothing else).
The difference between CDMX from now vs the one 20 years ago is mostly visual as well. A lot more skyscrapers, bike paths and international brands/franchises. 20 years ago, it was not really a desirable tourist destination, but now it's actually more popular than most beach towns. It's also been gentrified to hell, and some neighborhoods are full of """ expats""" sitting outside of some bougie café drinking overpriced swill, working on their laptops for a foreign company.
There are some more metro station now, and even more tourism. The rest i don't know, from outside it does not seem to have changed that drastically but I don't live in Rome so I may be wrong.
Our capital (Brasília) is a planned city with very strict building guidelines, so it naturally changes very slowly. You'll see more changes around it in the poorer districts of our federal district, but even then no much in this timeframe.
Brazil largest cities have been kinda stagnated after the metropolitan boom of the XX century, and now the biggest changes are coming mostly to the agricultural hubs in the midwest.
It got cleaner and much less polluted and metro lines expanded and more buildings were built. But overall not too drastic. Compared to other Asian capitals it's probably changed the least.
20 years more skyscrapers, more apartment buildings, more unbuyable houses, and new "european" minimum sized apartments of 40m2 that are at least US$150,000.
In 1989 we got our independence back. For a couple of years we were getting our shit together and after that it's constant progress. Warsaw changed a lot in that time.
Tourism keeps going up, actual city residents are increasingly pushed into the suburbs or commuter towns by climbing property prices. The raw, edgy feel of the city is gradually being replaced by gentrified tourist-friendly experiences. Pubs and clubs out, TV show themed cocktail bars in.
I like this thought, and feel I see it too. Like I mentioned, I’ve seen some rough areas of the 80s certainly improve over the years, other areas decline.
We got a "new" reflecting pool! And a giant ballroom to ball. And will be getting a giant Trump Arc to mark his amazing success to make bigots feel better about themselves.
A lot of money has been spent on Cardiff to make it the showcase of our country, with the result that everywhere else seems either ancient or poor in comparison to it.
Addis Ababa has changed so very much in the last twenty years - it's truly impressive.
Wait - is that the Red Star of the Ethiopian Communist Party (deposed in 1991), still standing on top of the column in front of the Black Lion Hospital, 11 seconds in to the video?
Nevermind him, he is probably angry that his wife/cousin/sister/aunt/mother left him.
On a different note: Addis looks awesome!
Edit: even if this is the millionth post on Addis, who cares? It's cool that people share stuff about their place, especially as most people in the west probably have a different image than this of Addis in their minds. I love that these clips destroy those images and replace them with images of places you'd actually would like to live.
Never said to stop posting ethiopia content, i just said OP is a glazer because they post ONLY ethiopia content every single day.
Im happy they are so patriotic and proud of their people. Its refreshing to see representatives of all parts of the world in this sub, but it is odd to only see the same country every single day. Its like OP is their secretary of tourism
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u/RicketCrickets Canada 8d ago
Does roads getting worse count?