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.

DIVA study of how colonial and postcolonial legacies manifest in African cities and African urban planning./div

This book highlights the use of information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructures in order to develop smart cities and produce smart economies in Africa. It discusses a robust set of concepts, including smart planning, smart infrastructure development, smart economic development, smart environmental sustainability, smart social development, resilience, and smart peace and security in several African cities. By drawing on the accumulated knowledge on various conditions that make cities smart, green, livable and healthy, it helps in the planning, design and management of African urbanization. In turn, it fosters the development of e-commerce, e-education, e-governance, etc. The rapid development of ICT infrastructures facilitates the creation of smart economies in digitally served cities and towns through smart urban planning, smart infrastructures, smart land tenure and smart urban policies. In the long term, this can reduce emissions of CO2, promote the creation of low carbon cities, reduce land degradation and promote biodiversity.

This book explains how and why cities on the African continent have grown at such a rapid pace, how municipal authorities have tried to cope with this massive influx of people, and how long-time urban residents and newcomers interact, negotiate, and struggle over access to limited resources.

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.

This book provides readers with a wide overview of place-based planning and design experiments addressing such powerful transformations in the African built environment. This continent is currently undergoing fast paced urban, institutional and environmental changes, which have stimulated an increasing interest for alternative architectural solutions, urban designs and comprehensive planning experiments. The international and balanced array of the collected contributions explore emerging research concepts for understanding urban and peri-urban processes in Africa, discuss bottom-up planning and design practices, and present inspirational and innovative co-design methods and participatory tools for steering such change through public spaces, sustainable services and infrastructures. The book is intended for students, researchers, decision-makers and practitioners engaged in planning and design for the built environment in Africa and the Global South at large.

In this groundbreaking book, Garth Myers uses African urban concepts and experiences to speak back to theoretical and practical concerns. He argues for a re-visioning - a seeing again, and a revising - of how cities in Africa are discussed and written about in both urban studies and African studies. Cities in Africa are still either ignored - banished to a different, other, lesser category of not-quite cities - or held up as examples of all that can go wrong with urbanism in much of the mainstream and even critical urban literature. Myers instead encourages African studies and urban studies scholars across the world to engage with the vibrancy and complexity of African cities with fresh eyes. Touching on a diverse range of cities across Africa - from Zanzibar to Nairobi, Cape Town to Mogadishu, Kinshasa to Dakar - the book uses the author's own research and a close reading of works by other scholars, writers and artists to help illuminate what is happening in and across the region's cities.

An insight into the intricacies of contemporary fashion in four African cities. From couture to street style, from luxury to thrifting, this publication provides a shapshot of some of Africa's most exciting contemporary fashion scenes in Nairobi (Kenya), Casablanca (Morocco), Lagos (Nigeria) and Johannesburg (South Africa)

Public transport systems in contemporary Sub-Saharan African cities are heavily reliant upon paratransit services. These services are defined as informal transportation which operates between the public and individual private spheres. In Africa paratransit is characterized by low quality of vehicles and chaotic management but it also provides cheap, accessible and flexible transport solutions for the urban poor. It is typically poorly regulated and operates as a set of informal businesses. A common result of weak public sector regulation and a fare strategy in which owners claim a fixed daily revenue target and drivers who keep the variable balance as income, is destructive competition and poor quality of service. There is an incontrovertible case for improving the quality, reliability and coverage of public transport systems, and some city governments have attempted to do so by initiating reform projects that envisage the phased replacement of paratransit operations with formalised bus rapid transit systems. In this book the authors argue that there are, however, path dependencies and constraints that limit the possible extent of public transport system reform. Paratransit operations also have some inherent advantages with respect to demand responsiveness and service innovation. Attempts to eradicate paratransit may be neither pragmatic nor strategic. Two future scenarios are likely: hybrid systems comprised of both paratransit and formally planned modes; and systems improved by upgrades and strengthened regulation of existing paratransit services. The business strategies and aspirations of incumbent paratransit operators in three case cities – Cape Town, Dar es Salaam and Nairobi – are discussed, as well as their attitudes towards emerging public transport reform projects. International experiences of hybrid system regulation and paratransit business development are reviewed in order to explore policy options. The authors contend that policies recognising paratransit operators, and seeking contextually appropriate complementarity with formalised planned services, will produce greater benefits than policies ignoring their continued existence.

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.