Africa's Urbanisation Dynamics 2020
Africapolis, Mapping a New Urban Geography
Africa is projected to have the fastest urban growth rate in the world: by 2050, Africa’s cities will be home to an additional 950 million people. Much of this growth is taking place in small and medium-sized towns. Africa’s urban transition offers great opportunities but it also poses significant challenges. Urban agglomerations are developing most often without the benefit of policies or investments able to meet these challenges. Urban planning and management are therefore key development issues. Understanding urbanisation, its drivers, dynamics and impacts is essential for designing targeted, inclusive and forward-looking policies at local, national and continental levels. This report, based on the Africapolis geo-spatial database (www.africapolis.org) covering 7 600 urban agglomerations in 50 African countries, provides detailed analyses of major African urbanisation dynamics placed within historical, environmental and political contexts. Covering the entire distribution of the urban network — from small towns and secondary cities to large metropolitan regions — it develops more inclusive and targeted policy options that integrate local, national and regional scales of urban development in line with African realities.
Also available in: French
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Africa's new urban dynamics
This chapter explores the characteristics of large agglomerations and the variety of recent forms of urbanisation on the African continent. The hierarchy of national urban systems are characterised by the large size of metropoles relative to intermediary cities, and high primacy indices relative to the rest of the world. New forms of urbanisation are appearing: the development of small and medium agglomerations forming large metropolitan regions, conurbations and megaagglomerations. These agglomerations spread spontaneously in areas that are officially considered rural, though already densely populated, and notably in the interior of the continent.
Also available in: French
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Click to download PDF - 12.65MBPDF