In this first instalment of a two-part review of Africa’s Urban Revolution, a new series of essays from the African Centre for Cities (ACC), the world’s pre-eminent urban development research institution, Kerwin Datu learns how policies surrounding issues such as decentralisation, food security and armed conflict must now adapt to the maturing of Africa’s urbanisation experience.
The proposal to turn some of Cape Town's last remaining farmland over to urban development would be an irreversible loss of agricultural assets and a threat to the city's food security.
Sceptical of the narrative that cities have wholeheartedly embraced urban gardening, Matt DelSesto spies a connection between city crackdowns on urban gardens and police crackdowns in poor communities.
Whereas governments are quick to scapegoat the chop bar owners of Accra, in reality they spend onerous sums of money on sanitation, an effort which should be supported by health policy.
Green space throughout Kinshasa is being transformed into lucrative small urban farming enterprises.
After an outbreak of acute watery diarrhoea in August 2009, authorities in Addis Ababa have surveyed the city's sanitation and found that nearly one in four residents have no access to latrines.
Mike Duff (Twitter: @MrMikeDuff) is a consultant on strategy, planning and sustainability for cities at WSP, based in London.
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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.
