The facts of Africa’s rapid urbanisation are startling. By 2030 African cities will have grown by more than 350 million people and over half the continent's population will be urban. Yet in the minds of policy makers, scholars and much of the general public, Africa remains a quintessentially rural place. This lack of awareness and robust analysis means it is difficult to make a policy case for a more overtly urban agenda. As a result, there is across the continent insufficient urgency directed to responding to the challenges and opportunities associated with the world’s last major wave of urbanisation. Drawing on the expertise of scholars and practitioners associated with the African Centre for Cities, and utilising a diverse array of case studies, Africa's Urban Revolution provides a comprehensive insight into the key issues - demographic, cultural, political, technical, environmental and economic - surrounding African urbanisation.

"From the 'imaginative geographies' of conquest identified by Edward Said to the very real and material institution of territorial borders, regions and geographical amalgamations, the control, administration and integration of space are known to have played a central and essential role in the creation of contemporary 'Africa'. Space continues to be a site of conflict, from separatist struggles to the distribution of resources to the continued absorption of African territories into the uneven geographies of global capitalism. In this book, Madhu Krishnan examines the ways in which the anxieties and conflicts engendered by these phenomena are registered in a broad set of literary texts from British and French West Africa. By placing these novels in dialogue with a range of archival material such as territorial planning documents, legislative papers, records of liberation movements and development projects, this book reveals the submerged articulations between spatial planning and literary expression, generating new readings of canonical West African texts as well as analyses of otherwise under-researched material"--Publisher's description.

Cities have existed in sub-Saharan Africa since antiquity. But only now are historians and archaeologists rediscovering their rich heritage: the ancient ruins of Great Zimbabwe and Congo, the harbor cities at the Indian Ocean, the capitals of the Bantu Kingdoms, the Atlantic cities from the 16th to the 18th centuries, and the urban revolutions in the 19th century. Mercantile cities opened Africa to the world, Islamic cities became centers of scholarship and the trans-Saharan trade, Creole cities appeared after the first contact with Europeans, and Bantu cities of the hinterland reacted against them. The author has gone through vast numbers of archival records and conducted independent field research to analyze and describe the rich history of African cities even long before imperial colonization began, and she continues her story until the time of urban reorganization during industrialization. The result is a colorful panorama of urban lifestyles including unique examples of architecture, and lasting traditions of ethnic, cultural, religious, and commercial forms of co-existence.

The ability to function safely, healthily, and productively in urban places is a continuing challenge for people everywhere. This challenge is exacerbated when the resources available to people in urban places happen to be severely limited or their ability to make decisions consistent with their welfare severely constrained. Nevertheless, Africans have manifested great inventiveness and resourcefulness both in contributing to, and in adapting to, urbanization. Africa's Legacies of Urbanization is the culmination of several decades of research, travel, and teaching. Goodwin provides an interdisciplinary and up-to-date look at African cities and the urbanization process. This thought provoking and engaging work tackles the vastness of the "mother continent" by dividing it into geographic regions: western, central, southern, eastern, and northeastern. Beginning with an overview of the urban experience in Africa, Goodwin then studies the histories of urbanization in the various regions of the continent. Thoroughly researched and accessibly written, this comprehensive work will appeal to scholars of African studies, urban studies, anthropology, and cultural ecology.

A renowned writer on the environment shows how population growth, rising consumption, and damaging technologies have combined to create the biggest environmental crisis in human history, spurring agricultural and industrial revolutions and perhaps speeding up the third revolution--the transition to sustainable development.

This volume explores the social forces that are currently shaping the new South Africa and provides detail on the political and ideological rifts in the liberation movement, including analysis of the "homelands" parties, the trade unions and the ANC.