Petites et Moyennes Villes d'Africque Noire

UNTIL THE MID-1970s, interest in small and intermediate towns in sub-Saharan Africa was limited to the analysis of their position in local urban hierarchies based on "central places" models. Small centres were portrayed as declining in the face of increasing centralization of economic functions and demographic growth in the large cities. The current attention to small towns is linked to the perceived "urban crisis" in large centres, to the recognition that economic activities in intermediate centres are not necessarily "marginal" and to the general trend towards deconcentration and decentralization policies, largely supported by international donors. The multidisciplinary approach of this collection reflects what is possibly the main characteristic of current research on small towns which, in turn, is due to the great diversity of these centres and to the complexity of interactions between rural and urban areas.

The book is divided into four sections. The papers in the first section examine the economic relations between small towns and their rural surrounds, and include a general overview of theoretical approaches to the role of intermediate centres in local and regional development along with case studies from Tanzania and from a border town in Côte d’Ivoire. The second section analyzes the linkages between local development and decentralization policies in Togo, Senegal and Mali. Section III examines the different patterns of urban development in four intermediate centres in Togo, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Namibia, and shows how control over urban space is negotiated between different actors, including migrant and indigenous groups, religious and political hierarchies, and economic entrepreneurs through their distinct social networks. These themes are also central in the papers in Section IV, where they are developed within a wider perspective which seeks to go "beyond the local" to include regional and national economic and political development. Migrant networks play a major role in these transformations, as shown by the case studies of Burkina Faso, Guinea and Senegal, and by the final overview paper.