Though the relevance of the concept of neighbourhood in both research and policy oriented circles is unquestionable, the concept remains contested and fluid, making its operationalisation a daunting task, particularly in practice. This study explores how the concept of neighbourhood has been operationalised in Kigali city and how the neighbourhood boundaries and typologies are defined. The paper dwells on the review of relevant literature, interviews with 25 practitioners and field observations. It is argued that neighbourhood conceptualisation in Kigali is both theory—it bears the common aspects of neighbourhood definitions—and practice driven, reflecting modernity and context. On the one hand, modernity suggests the desire of planning authorities to follow contemporary planning practices. Context, on the other hand, reflects the desire to tailor local policies to country specific challenges. While boundaries follow subjective, administrative and physical models, typologies tend to be overly physical, focusing mainly on housing structures. The study identified three conventional neighbourhood typologies—planned, informal and mixed types. Given the predominance of informal and mixed neighbourhoods, this study further argues that such areas form the ‘bedroom’ and ‘transit point’ for most lower- and middle-class workers, in addition to serving as a ‘laboratory’ for testing various social interventions. The study recommends a well-serviced mixed classification typology to foster a strong sense of belongingness.

Rwanda is experiencing rapid development and urbanization in the Post-genocide perpetrated against Tutsi (1994) period. Kigali as the capital and the leading city is undergoing remarkable changes in the process of modernization. This is being done through the rejuvenation of commercial areas, building of new business offices and quality infrastructure, improvement of urban service delivery, tourism and industrial development (Kigali Special Economic Zone). Together with a clean city policy, the City of Kigali is now known to be one of the cleanest cities in Africa. This has been effectively achieved through consistent and integrated urban policies. However, the city has been facing challenges related to informal settlements and equitable provision of urban services to all residents. In this paper, data from secondary sources, mainly official reports, policy documents and academic papers, are presented and discussed through various perspectives related to the urban growth of Kigali. Likewise, the implications of existing policies on the implementation of strategic initiatives have also been highlighted.

Kigali is a rapidly growing city, as exemplified by the phenomenal increase of its inhabitants from 358,200 in 1996 to 1,630,657 in 2017. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of detailed analytical information about the processes and factors driving unprecedented urban growth in the period following the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi (1994) and its impact on the natural environment. This article, therefore, analyses the growth of the city of Kigali with respect to its post-genocide spatial and demographic dimensions. The methodology involves a quantification of urban growth over the period of the last 30 years using remote-sensing imagery coupled with demographic data drawn from different sources. The analysis of land cover trends shows how significant the pressure of urban expansion has been on the natural environment, with a 14 per cent decrease in open land between 1999 and 2018. Spatially, the average annual growth rate was almost 10.24 per cent during the same period. This growth is associated with the building of a large number of institutions, schools and industries. Moreover, the increase in low-income residents led to the construction of bungalows expanding on large suburbs and the development of new sub-centres in the periphery instead of high-rise apartments.