Africa is not urbanising as rapidly as we think. What are the implications for the business world, which has been counting on an emerging urban middle class? Or for the possibilities for local economic development, whether led by consumers, entrepreneurs or the state?
Singapore's experience suggests that housing supply can be increased only when matched by aggressive demand-side policies.
The current slum rehabilitation scheme creates incentives for developers to distort the housing market; civil society must challenge the rhetoric of 'free housing' to allow leaders to consider alternatives.
Mayor Bing has been trying to resume and demolish blighted neighbourhoods, but is being frustrated by speculators. How might the Land bank be used to redistribute land and skirt the problem?
Jay Walljasper takes a tour from one side of a street to another, alarmed that society could allow such disparities that between struggling Detroit and its affluent suburb of Grosse Pointe.
While we can count on a sizeable middle class arising in many of the largest, most vibrant cities, we cannot count on such a middle class emerging across the entire family of African cities and towns as many agencies and consultancies might have us believe.
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The Global Urbanist is an online magazine reviewing urban affairs and urban development issues in cities throughout the developed and developing world.
Its readers are drawn from the urban policy and international development sectors, and include urban planners, officers in local, national or international government agencies, civil society leaders, and researchers.
