Project description
Factors of urban development in Africa
The rate of urbanisation in Africa is on the rise, from 15 % in 1960 to 40 % in 2010. Expected to reach 60 % in 2050, this is faster than any other continent. The EU-funded MAU project will evaluate the role of geopolitics, economic growth and private initiatives in Africa’s urban development. It will provide a new theoretical base on urban policies, taking into consideration the relationship between public infrastructure investments and the rise of property value. The project will examine the transnational character of urban development as well as the trend to create large cities that are diffused on the African continent.
Objective
This project will investigate how urban futures are made through different global circuits and in turn shape key transnational processes: geopolitics, development and private investment, through a close focus on the transnational actors and decision-making processes involved in large-scale developments and interventions in selected African cities. The research will produce: new theoretical perspectives on urban politics and policy-relevant understandings of state capacity and land value capture in urban development. The project brings to fruition the applicant’s agenda-setting post-colonial critique in urban studies (2006, Ordinary Cities, Routledge), practically worked through in her recent innovations in comparative urbanism (forthcoming, Comparative Urbanism, Sage). This research will bring forward original empirical findings and develop further the innovative comparative methods tested in a recent esrc funded project. It will contribute theorizations of the new territories of global urban politics, starting in African contexts. Engagements with residents, stakeholders, policy makers and practitioners will build understanding of how better urban outcomes might be secured. The project compares three transnational circuits and nine cases of urban development in three cities (Accra, Dar es Salaam, Lilongwe) where all three circuits have a strong presence, and which encompass a range of levels of urbanization and economic development. Focussing on transnationalised urban development processes and the widely spread phenomenon of large scale urban developments will provide a basis to work against the neglect and exceptionalism of African experiences within urban studies, an important motivation for this project. The research seeks to build African based research capacity in urban studies and includes African based collaborators and early career scholars in the research team.
Fields of science
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Funding Scheme
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantHost institution
WC1E 6BT London
United Kingdom