Many of Kalumbila’s residents may find it difficult to remember a time when the well-planned town they live in ceased to exist. Yet, a little more than ten years ago, before construction of First Quantum Minerals’ Sentinel Copper Mines began in 2010, Kalumbila town was just a pipe dream. So were the scores of businesses providing goods and services to its approximately 5,000 residents.
The vision to create a mining town where employees and their families could live – in which businesses would service mining activity, both directly or indirectly, and others would organically spring up to support livelihoods in new sectors – was called “ambitious” when the investment that fuelled these waves of economic activity was secured in 2010.
In this video, the manager of Kalumbila Town Development Corporation reveals the thinking behind the town’s ambitions, and the urban planning principles on which its design was centred.
It’s a window into the impact of economic spillover, and the enormous benefits that materialise in Zambia when mining investment is harnessed.
Watch the video here.
See also: A $200m mining town with a difference
