ABSTRACT
Currently Africa’s larger cities are being subjected to new forces and dynamics that are having a profound impact on their socio-spatial growth and change (see Murray – Chapter 2 of this book; Watson 2014). A combination of rapid population increase in these cities as well as economic growth fuelled by the current resource boom has meant an escalation in the demand for urban land, and particularly land that is well located and serviced. A still small but steadily growing middle-class is generating often speculative private sector property development, which in turn has its own logic of urban land demand. One outcome of these new land pressures has been a flurry of new city plans (usually termed ‘master plans’) frequently developed by private sector architecture and property development companies and portrayed on company websites. While Chapter 2 by Martin Murray in this book describes these new plans in more detail and offers examples of some of them, this chapter will focus on the likely socio-spatial impact of the plans, should they come to fruition.
