ABSTRACT
Infrastructure has been an integral part of planning’s modernizing ideal (Boyer, 1983; Kaika and Swyngedouw, 2000; Graham and Marvin, 2001). This relationship has been particularly contentious in the fragmented landscapes of colonial and postcolonial cities (Kooy and Bakker, 2008). In sub-Saharan Africa alone, land use planning regulations and urban projects actively shaped the dual urban form of many colonial cities, whereby segregation along racial lines dictated the provision of infrastructure and access to utility services. Postcolonial planning has moved seemingly little in the direction of redressing these imbalances, as shown by the enduring infrastructure deficit or policymakers’ unwillingness to acknowledge the pervasiveness of ‘slum urbanism’ (Pieterse, 2011).
