Did anyone else watch Inception and secretly think they could have mind-built a city far superior to the monochrome bore-fest Leo and his — frankly, whiny — wife created? Mine would have included a much higher number of tree houses, for example. However, in sad news for my town-planning career, the government of Southern Sudan last week unveiled plans to rebuild several of their major cities in the shape of animals. Better than some planks of wood in an elm, obviously. The regional capital, Juba, will be rebuilt in the shape of a rhinoceros, while Wau, the capital of Western Bahr el-Ghazal state, has been re-imagined in the shape of a giraffe. There is also talk of a town shaped like a pineapple. If all this sounds crazy, it's not, because nearly seven years ago Norwegians (the wily Scandos responsible for such delights as pickled herring and Black Metal) invented it. Cartozoology is "the science or practice of discovering and studying animals outlined paradigmatically by street layouts as they appear on maps, especially with reference to physical evidence of the animals’ presence in the corresponding terrain", according to the website of the Norwegian Cartozoologic Society. Until now, cartozoology has been a hobby carried out with a pair of scissors and a good imagination, but the plans of the Southern Sudanese government have raised the stakes. Their re-design of their nation's cities will cost $10bn and take about 20 years to complete. In your face, Leonardo DiCaprio!