THIS BOOK ANALYZES the impact of planning models imported from the West in general and Europe in particular on the development aspirations of sub-Saharan Africa. Official efforts to manipulate the built environment as a strategy for realizing health, social and politico-economic goals in sub-Saharan Africa depend on Eurocentric models. The roots of this are in the colonial era, when the authorities found it convenient to import planning models and legislation from their home countries. The book seeks to address the “how” and “why” of this pattern, with the hypothesis that current physical planning policies impede national economic, social, cultural and political development.
The chapters deal with a variety of issues around this theme. Chapter one serves as an introduction and Chapter two examines some of the more prominent theories concerning the term “development”, in the sense that it means different things to different people depending on their role, position and relationship to development. Chapter three refutes the conservative viewpoint that there was no spatial organization prior to colonial rule. Chapter four examines the nature and role of the colonial town and regional planning legislation which also enforced racial segregation. Indigenous planning was widely disregarded; paradoxically this was most common in British-ruled areas where “indirect rule” was the administrative strategy, allowing indigenous administrations to remain intact. Also, colonial development projects were heavily biased towards urban rather than rural areas. In Chapter five, the nature of post-colonial planning is examined, as are problems arising from the uncritical application of borrowed standards which may be inappropriate in these contexts. Chapter six deals with land issues, in particular legislation designed to control the transfer of land, and the role of the state in housing policy due to the commercialization of land and the western concept of
land ownership. Chapter seven covers the area of housing policy; the state, as supplier and regulator, has continued to implement colonial-type policies even when the colonial eras were long past. Chapter eight continues this debate by discussing some alternative housing and shelter development strategies developed by governments in sub-Saharan Africa. These tend to be sites and services and squatter and slum upgrading and are also heavily influenced by western forces. Finally, Chapter nine looks at roads and railways in the context of North-South technology transfer and its implications.