ABSTRACT

This book explores the changing dynamics and challenges behind the rapid expanse of Africa’s urban population.

Africa’s urban age is underway. With the world’s fastest growing urban population, the continent is rapidly transforming from one that is largely rural, to one that is largely urban. Often facing limited budgets, those tasked with managing African cities require empirical evidence on the nature of demands for infrastructure, escalating environmental hazards, and ever-expanding informal settlements. Drawing on the work of the African Urban Research Initiative, this book brings together contributions from local researchers investigating key themes and challenges within their own contexts. An important example of urban knowledge co-production, the book demonstrates the regional diversity that can be seen as the main feature of African urbanism, with even well-accepted concepts such as informality manifesting in markedly different ways from place to place.

Providing an important nuanced perspective on the heterogeneity of African cities and the challenges they face, this book will be an important resource for researchers across development studies, African studies, and urban studies.

The Open Access version of this book, available at

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003008385, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

chapter 1|17 pages

Introduction

Africa’s urban challenge
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chapter 3|40 pages

Formal-informal interface

Comparative analysis between three Egyptian cities
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chapter 4|31 pages

Dialogues on informality

Land sharing as a sustainable approach to tenure security in Kiandutu informal settlement in Thika town, Kenya
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chapter 5|39 pages

Urban infrastructure and inequality

Lessons from Cairo and Johannesburg
Size: 3.72 MB

chapter 6|31 pages

Weathering the storm

Reflections on a community-based approach to flood-risk management in Kumasi, Ghana
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chapter 7|25 pages

Housing for whom?

Rebuilding Angola’s cities after conflict and who gets left behind
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chapter 8|8 pages

Conclusion

Towards a research agenda for knowledge co-production in Urban Africa
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