Urban Research in the Developing World; Volume 2 - Africa

THIS BOOK IS the second of four volumes representing the findings of the first phase of the Global Urban Research Initiative for the Africa region. It covers the “sub-regions” of Northern, Eastern and Southern Africa, as well as Francophone and Anglophone West Africa, and both reviews the work undertaken since the 1960s and suggests research directions for the 1990s. Each chapter presents a synthesis of the outcome of the relevant sub-regional workshop. In the introduction, the author charts a general “strengthening of the texture of civil society” that has largely been concentrated in urban areas. This is correlated with increased popular political awareness; the structural adjustment programmes that affected many urban populations in the 1980s; and the related internationalization of local economies. During the 1980s, urban disciplines have shifted their focus toward lower level concerns and this has coincided, in Africa, with the increasing importance of internationally funded urban research. Chapter two provides an overview of the research priorities in Africa and of their evolution. Between 1960 and 1990, Africa’s urban population more than quadrupled. Old tools of urban understanding are no longer adequate and research paradigms are continually changing as a result. Chapter three reflects upon urban research in Egypt, Morocco and the Sudan. The summaries of urban changes in these countries are comprehensive, embracing historical and architectural approaches as well as spatial and demographic concerns. The chapter finishes by questioning the reality and viability of urban policy in these countries, where “...urban problems are bound up with rural problems, and where the rural areas are incapable of feeding the urban population and of participating in urban development through transferring their surplus.” The fourth chapter begins with a theme echoed by the other contributors, namely that this decade is a time for massive transformation of political and socio-economic structures in the East African sub-region. The author considers the challenges faced by East African urban centres (political pluralism, structural adjustment and the very magnitude of urbanization) by focusing on Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia. Certain problems are identified as being in urgent need of research attention: gender issues; urban decay; overcrowding; poor housing and land management in urban centres; deteriorating urban services and urban environmental management; and unemployment and misoriented segmented economic planning. The author of chapter five - which covers Senegal, Togo, Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso - describes several key themes: urbanization; the living environment; urban demography and society; urban economy; and urban management and policy. After analyzing the sub-region’s urban research, the major problems of urbanization in the region are considered. The increasing impoverishment of the urban population and of the resources available for urban management also contribute to the research agenda identified in the closing section of this chapter. The author emphasizes the importance of urban networks and calls for the development of “...a dynamic economic system at the regional level” using the secondary towns. Nigeria, Ghana, the Gambia and Sierra Leone comprise the Anglophone West African sub-region discussed in chapter six. Urbanization in this region has a history pre-dating European contact, although rapid urbanization is a more recent phenomenon. Contiguous with it are problems of under-employment, manageability, livability and serviceability with the author attributing the last two to poor management. The following paper offers an institutional analysis of research structures in the sub-region, and the centrality of funding agencies in determining research agendas emerges once again. In rephrasing the research agenda for the 1990s, the author calls for a greater emphasis on urban ecology and the sociocultural and economic ramifi