Planning Cities in Africa—Current Issues and Future Prospects of Urban Governance and Planning: An Introduction

Abstract

African urbanisation is at the crossroad. Despite the ever-growing urban challenges and rapid transformation of cities in Africa, there is a positive trend of knowledge production and dynamic policy reforms aiming at a better management of urbanisation and related development fields. The discourse on current African urban challenges and prospects is calling for a change of perspective in understanding urban Africa from its own sociocultural and historical context. Scholars, for instance, (Connell, Plan Theory 13:210–223, 2014), (Robinson, J. (2006) Ordinary cities: between modernity and development. London; New York: Routledge (Questioning cities); Robinson, Int J Urban Reg Res 35:1–23, 2011)) and (Watson, V. (2009) ‘Seeing from the South: Refocusing Urban Planning on the Globe’s Central Urban Issues’, 46(11), pp. 2259–2275; Watson, Plan Theory Pract 15:62–76, 2014b) argue that the diversity and uniqueness of each urban context developing at the intersection of local, regional and global challenges, threats and production of knowledge. In light of this, the chapter gives an insight into the conceptual framing of this book, including the key thematic areas; and an overview of topics covered by the chapters. The book has three thematic areas: planning theories and Models; the state of planning education and capacity; participatory and multi-governance approach towards current urban challenges. Under these themes, the chapter introduces several cases from various cities across Africa.