In 1950, there were only 152 urban agglomerations in West Africa. Since then, the number of agglomerations has increased to almost 2 000 town and cities which are home to 41% of the region’s total population.
For African cities to grow economically as they have grown in size, they must create productive environments to attract investments, increase economic efficiency, and create livable environments that prevent urban costs from rising with increased population densification. What are the central obstacles that prevent African cities and towns from becoming sustainable engines of economic growth and prosperity? Among the most critical factors that limit the growth and livability of urban areas are land markets, investments in public infrastructure and assets, and the institutions to enable both. To unleash the potential of African cities and towns for delivering services and employment in a livable and environmentally friendly environment, a sequenced approach is needed to reform institutions and policies and to target infrastructure investments. This book lays out three foundations that need fixing to guide cities and towns throughout Sub-Saharan Africa on their way to productivity and livability.
Originally published in 1978 as part of the Urbanization in Developing Countries series, this is an interdisciplinary study of rapid urban growth in West Africa. Gugler and Flanagan first explore the history of the cities of the early West African empires and they draw on the work of social anthropologists and sociologists, as well as demographers, economists, geographers, historians, political scientists and social psychologists. They then describe the urban explosion that the region experienced after World War II. They explore the implications of widespread urban unemployment and underemployment, the housing crisis and the emergence of metropolitan areas such as Lagos. The literature on urbanization and social change in Black Africa in general, and West Africa in particular, expanded at a fast pace in the years preceding publication. This critical review of the disparate findings filled a gap in African Studies and threw light on the understanding of Third World urbanization.
In this book scholars present new interpretations of African cities, from the pre-colonial to the modern, set in the context of national and international economy, politics and culture. While providing insights into the evolution of African cities, they also raise issues of vital importance to the survival of African cities. The chapters capture the mixed legacies of colonialism and the lingering consequences of neo-colonialism in a so-called age of globalisation.
The social and economic systems of any country are influenced by a range of factors. As the global population grows in developing nations, it has become essential to examine the effects of urbanization. Urbanization and Its Impact on Socio-Economic Growth in Developing Regions is a pivotal reference source for the latest research findings on the role of urban growth on the socio-economic infrastructures in developing regions. Featuring extensive coverage on relevant areas such as job creation, sustainability, and transportation planning, this publication is an ideal resource for city development planners, decision-makers, researchers, academics, and students interested in emerging perspectives on socio-economic development.
This book presents new and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of African urban history and culture. Moving between precolonial, colonial, and contemporary urban spaces, it covers the major regions, religions, and urban societies of sub-Saharan Africa. African Urban Spaces in Historical Perspective presents new and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of African urban history and culture. It presents original research and integrates historical methodologies with those of anthropology, geography, literature, art, and architecture. Moving between precolonial, colonial, and contemporary urban spaces, it covers the major regions, religions, and cultural influences of sub-Saharan Africa. The themes include Islam and Christianity, architecture, migration, globalization, social and physical decay, identity, race relations, politics, and development. This book elaborates on not only what makes the study of African urban spaces unique within urban historiography, it also offers an-encompassing and up-to-date study of the subject and inserts Africa into the growing debate on urban history and culture throughout the world. The opportunities provided by the urban milieu are endless and each study opens new potential avenues of research. This book explores some of those avenues and lays the groundwork on which new studies can build. Contributors: Maurice NyamangaAmutabi, Catherine Coquery Vidrovitch, Mark Dike DeLancey, Thomas Ngomba Ekali, Omar A. Eno, Doug T. Feremenga, Laurent Fourchard, James Genova, Fatima Muller-Friedman, Godwin R. Murunga, Kefa M. Otiso, Michael Ralph, Jeremy Rich, Eric Ross, Corinne Sandwith, Wessel Visser. Toyin Falola is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin; Steven J.Salm is Assistant Professor of History, Xavier University of Louisiana.
This 10th thematic volume of International Development Policy presents a collection of articles exploring some of the complex development challenges associated with Africa’s recent but extremely rapid pace of urbanisation that challenges still predominant but misleading images of Africa as a rural continent. Analysing urban settings through the diverse experiences and perspectives of inhabitants and stakeholders in cities across the continent, the authors consider the evolution of international development policy responses amidst the unique historical, social, economic and political contexts of Africa’s urban development. Contributors include: Carole Ammann, Claudia Baez Camargo, Claire Bénit-Gbaffou, Karen Büscher, Aba Obrumah Crentsil, Sascha Delz, Ton Dietz, Till Förster, Lucy Koechlin, Lalli Metsola, Garth Myers, George Owusu, Edgar Pieterse, Sebastian Prothmann, Warren Smit, and Florian Stoll.
Rapid growth, unmanageable cities, urban crisis, macrocephali... The cities of west Africa are no longer ‘plannable’ – at least not using traditional urban development tools. Without negating the importance of participatory processes in city creation, it nonetheless seems crucial to return to city plans and models, to what cities convey, and how they are built. But to understand the city in all its depth and richness, we must also hit the streets. The West African City proposes a dual perspective. At the urban scale, it analyses historical trajectories, spatial development, and urban planning documents to highlight the major trends beyond the plans. At the second level – that of public space – the street is discussed as the city’s lifeblood. By innovating approaches and testing new methods, The West African City offers an unconventional look at Nouakchott, Dakar and Abidjan, the three study sites for this investigation. The city of today, in Africa or elsewhere, must re-examine its many social, economic, cultural, political, and spatial dimensions; for this, urban research has begun challenging its own methods. This book is also the companion of Chenal's MOOC African cities.
Cities in Sub-Saharan Africa are experiencing rapid population growth. Yet their economic growth has not kept pace. Why? One factor might be low capital investment, due in part to Africa's relative poverty: Other regions have reached similar stages of urbanization at higher per capita GDP. This study, however, identifies a deeper reason: African cities are closed to the world. Compared with other developing cities, cities in Africa produce few goods and services for trade on regional and international markets To grow economically as they are growing in size, Africa's cities must open their doors to the world. They need to specialize in manufacturing, along with other regionally and globally tradable goods and services. And to attract global investment in tradables production, cities must develop scale economies, which are associated with successful urban economic development in other regions. Such scale economies can arise in Africa, and they will--if city and country leaders make concerted efforts to bring agglomeration effects to urban areas. Today, potential urban investors and entrepreneurs look at Africa and see crowded, disconnected, and costly cities. Such cities inspire low expectations for the scale of urban production and for returns on invested capital. How can these cities become economically dense--not merely crowded? How can they acquire efficient connections? And how can they draw firms and skilled workers with a more affordable, livable urban environment? From a policy standpoint, the answer must be to address the structural problems affecting African cities. Foremost among these problems are institutional and regulatory constraints that misallocate land and labor, fragment physical development, and limit productivity. As long as African cities lack functioning land markets and regulations and early, coordinated infrastructure investments, they will remain local cities: closed to regional and global markets, trapped into producing only locally traded goods and services, and limited in their economic growth.
For a long time, economic research on Africa was not seen as a profitable venture intellectually or professionally-few researchers in top-ranked institutions around the world chose to become experts in the field. This was understandable: the reputation of Africa-centered economic research was not enhanced by the well-known limitations of economic data across the continent. Moreover, development economics itself was not always fashionable, and the broader discipline of economics has had its ups and downs, and has been undergoing a major identity crisis because it failed to predict the Great Recession. Times have changed: many leading researchers-including a few Nobel laureates-have taken the subject of Africa and economics seriously enough to devote their expertise and creativity to it. They have been amply rewarded: the richness, complexities, and subtleties of African societies, civilizations, rationalities, and ways of living, have helped renew the humanities and the social sciences-and economics in particular-to the point that the continent has become the next major intellectual frontier to researchers from around the world. In collecting some of the most authoritative statements about the science of economics and its concepts in the African context, this ^lhandbook (the first of two volumes) opens up the diverse acuity of commentary on exciting topics, and in the process challenges and stimulates the quest for knowledge. Wide-ranging in its scope, themes, language, and approaches, this volume explores, examines, and assesses economic thinking on Africa, and Africa's contribution to the discipline. The editors bring a set of powerful resources to this endeavor, most notably a team of internationally-renowned economists whose diverse viewpoints are complemented by the perspectives of philosophers, political scientists, and anthropologists.