ABSTRACT
In the last chapter I laid emphasis on the rural exodus as one of the most important characteristics of social change in contemporary Africa. The result of this urban migration is that city growth there seems now to be proceeding more rapidly than in other continents. For example, Lagos had a population of 126,000 in 1930; this rose to 364,000 by 1964 and a recent estimate (1968) puts the population of Greater Lagos at 1*2 millions. On the other side of Africa, Nairobi doubled in size during the 1940-50 decade and then doubled again in the 1950-60 decade. Rates of urban growth have also been considerable in the Francophone countries. The population of the principal towns of Senegal, for example, increased by 100 per cent between 1942 and 1952; those of the Ivory Coast by 109 per cent during the same decade; and those in the Cameroons by 250 per cent between 1936 and 1952. Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) was a large country town of 34,000 in 1930, but in twenty years it had 208.000 inhabitants, a sevenfold increase. Its population was esti mated in 1963 to be about a million and a quarter.1
