Urban Planning in Angola in the Postcolonial Period

Colonial practices regulating land use and urban planning activities in Angola were effective in establishing a basis for the future. For better or worse, colonial planning was the formal basis upon which it is still possible today to envision sustainable future growth in the country. ² However, those colonial urban practices were not socially impartial. Extensive reports and studies have shown that colonial cities in Angola fuelled social segregation, by promoting a functional city based on the separation of functions (Viegas, 2012; Fonte, 2007). Some of this colonial planning, reinforcing the differentiation between the Portuguese population and natives, and granting the former extensive privileges, had spatial repercussions that cannot be neglected in studying the shape of today’s Angolan cities. Yet, even if the modernist heritage is questioned, ³ at the present time the only discernible, formal and state-promoted urban forms throughout Angolan territory, are Portuguese colonial interventions.